Essay On Phillis Wheatley

Who would think that Phyllis Wheatley would become a famous poem writer? If someone could go back to the past and he or her asked who was one of the popular poem writer it would be probably Phyllis Wheatley. Phyllis’ life went from bad to good to really good. People in Boston like Phyllis’ poems. This biography talks about Phyllis Wheatley’s early life, adult life and her contribution to the Revolutionary War.

Anne Bradstreet, Daughter of the one governor and first published poet in America, was classified as a classic religious poet and also was also considered a very modern poet who really focused on her everyday life and all of her daily activates. Phillis Wheatley, enslaved at the age of 6, and became the first black women poet in America wote mostly classical poetry and had many Christian views. Her poetry used pyscholical meaning and also used poetic devices. Although both poets were to very respected poets of there time both are also very different compared to their work. Phillis Wheatley’s poetry was more in depth, thoughtful, and had somewhat more stylish than the work of Anne’s Bradstreet’s.

Phillis Wheatley was the the first African American writer to have her books published in the United States. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral written by Wheatley was viewed as a model for the importance of education with religious aspects, as it was often seen throughout her poetry. Formulated mainly of neoclassical elegiac poetry, Poems on Various Subjects triggered several discussions concerning the length to which Wheatley can be deemed a minor poet or whether she wrote to express politics and moral trouble.

In a time when Africans were stolen from their native lands and brought through the middle passage to a land that claimed was a free country, a small African girl, who would later be known as Phillis Wheatley, was sold in Boston in 1761. In the speech, “The Miracle of Black Poetry in America”, written by June Jordan, a well respected black poet, professor and activist, wrote the speech in 1986, 200 years after Phillis walked the earth, to honor the legacy of the first black female poet for the people of the United States. Jordan, passionately alludes to the example of Phillis Wheatley’s life, to show the strength and perseverance of African-American people throughout difficult history and how they have overcome the impossible.

During the slavery period a number of African slaves wrote stories, and poems about their daily hardships that they had to withhold by being a slave and everything else that happen throughout their life’s. Not many Black writers had the resources or support from their owners to publish what they wrote or anyone to care about what they wrote, lucky slaves did reach success when they published their work. Knowing where they came from or where they grew up from is important, the type of work that each individual accomplished when they published their work to the public. The massive impact that Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Abraham Lincoln had in the black community and how they helped change the way they were being treated completely.

Wheatley wrote the first book of verses by an African American and paved the way for ethnic writers to follow and do the same. Despite her enslavement at the age of 7, she continued to be a powerful voice for her race and for women all throughout the 18th century. One of her most famous poems has been retitled, “And Still I Rise” by many, and its speaks of her courageous spirit and grateful heart as she was taken from the only home she had ever known to be shipped to America and serve those she did not know, and yet – she did so with courage,“'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

The purpose of this essay is to clearly acknowledge similarities as well as differences amongst two great writers: Phyllis Wheatley and Paul L. Dunbar. Wheatley and Dunbar were two brilliant African American writers born of two different centuries. Both began writing at an early age and were seen as black child prodigies of their times.

Phillis Wheatley was a young African American girl, brought to America at the age of seven to be a slave. In her time maturing in the Wheatley household, young Phillis grew rapidly intellectually and spiritually. Her faith in God and His divine nature is what inspired Wheatley to write- a prominent subject in her poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” Another example of God being the backbone of her literary career is in her letter “To the University of Cambridge in New England.” Though Wheatley was a slave, she is known as one of the most prominent poets in the pre-nineteenth century America. Mr. Edgar Alan Poe,

Has something ever happened to you that you think is unfair? Something unquestionably unfair occurred to Phillis Wheatley in her childhood. Nevertheless, it transpired at the age of seven. Phillis was the first African American to write and publish a poem. Her first poem was published in the Newport Mercury newspaper in 1767, six years after she was captured to work as a slave.

The illustration that Phillis Wheatley portrays in history is an African-American woman who wrote poetry. Her life goes more into depths that what is perceived, however. Phillis Wheatley uses her poetry as a unique way to get out the truth. Through poems such as On Being Brought From Africa to America and the poem about Lee, she made statements about was what going on at that time; a revolution. Phillis Wheatley was known as a revolutionary mother, for she gave hope to slaves, ease to whites, and was an influence to America. She was not known for conflict or trying to start an argument, but she more known for personalizing her thoughts onto a piece of paper, read by all of America. Her ideas were used as an influence during

what is a pioneer? Is just being first to take the path. Or is it something more. The few that choose to take the off-beating path not only face the unknown but also criticism. Phillis Wheatley was a pioneer literature. At eighth, she was bought to America and sold into slavery. Her owners John and Susanna Wheatley taught the young girl to read Greek, Latin, and passages from the Bible. Wheatley starts to compose poems 1767 and her first volume of verse, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in 1773. Wheatley’s poems gained her vast notoriety amongst colonist and people aboard. At the same time, she has a few critic who didn’t believe she wrote the poems because she was a slave. One of her critics wrote, “this Negro poetess so well fits the Uncle Tom syndrome” (McBride) However, this doesn’t change that she is a founding figure of African American literature. One poem is subject to criticism is her poem “On being Brought from Africa to America.” In the poem “Wheatley chose to use the meditation as the form for her contemplation of her enslavement.” (Frazier) In the poem “On being Brought from Africa to America." Phillis Wheatley uses different poetic devices like figurative language, form, and irony to express the hypocrisy of American racism.

The first known African American to have a poetry book published in America was the late Ms. Phillis Wheatley. Wheatley was born in 1753, in West Africa. In 1761, when Wheatley was roughly seven or eight years of age; she was purchased as a personal slave for Susannah Wheatley, the wife of John Wheatley. Phillis was taught to read and write from Susannah Wheatley’s daughter, Mary in between her household duties. At an early age, Wheatley was deeply involved in the Bible and multitude of other things to include Latin and Greek to English Literature. Wheatley’s love of poetry began when she was just twelve years old. At this age, she started writing poetry and Phillis’ first poem was published in 1770. (Carretta, 2011)

In this essay we will look into her life through three of her poems in

Within sixteen months of her arrival, she was reading astronomy, geography, history, and British literature. Wheatley was able to break a language barrier that had held so many others of her race back. Her desire for learning increased and the quest for knowledge became embedded in her spirit, mind, and soul. By her teenage years, Wheatley was a well known author, reciting poems for the New England elite in homes where blacks could not even sit at the table with whites.Phillis Wheatley made many contributions to American literature. Other than successfully representing and expressing the feelings of anger, frustration, and impatience of African American people abroad, she has paved the way for young aspiring African American writers.

Phillis Wheatley overcame extreme obstacles, such as racism and sexism, to become one of the most acclaimed poets in the 18th Century. Her works are characterized by religious and moral backgrounds, which are due to the extensive education of religion she received. In this sense, her poems also fit into American Poetry. However, she differs in the way that she is a black woman whose writings tackle greater subjects while incorporating her moral standpoint. By developing her writing, she began speaking out against injustices that she faced and, consequently, gave way to authors such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Countee Cullen.