Who Is Thomas Wheatley's Influence

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.

I believe that Wheatley’s work is revolutionary in content. I believe this because of what was discussed in the pieces of work “ One century scarce performed its destined round, When Gallic powers Columbia’s fury found; And so may you, whoever dares disgrace The land of freedom’s heaven-defended race! Fixes are the eyes of nations on the scales, For in their hopes Columbia’s arm prevails. Anon Britannia droops the pensive head, While round increase the rising hills of dead. Ah! Cruel blindness to Columbia’s state! Lament thy thirst of boundless power too late.” (Wheatley) This quote from His Excellency General Washington by Wheatley to me is very revolutionary in content. I feel this because it was meant for George Washington and set to him. This all ties in to one because at the time that this poem was sent to George Washington he was the newly appointed commander and chief of the Armies of North America. This to me

5. The image of the sun appears in both “To the Virgins” (line 5) and “To His Coy Mistress” (line 45). How does each poet use the reference to the sun? How would you paraphrase the last two lines of Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”?

Harriet Jacob and Phillis Wheatley, Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl and On Being Brought from Africa to America both presents the existential conditions of being a black woman in a male dominated society. Despite their years span differences, both author present different, yet similar views of enslavement in America where black women struggle to reclaim their humanity and seek freedom within their society. For both Harriet and Phillis, both women used literacy as their voice to raise concern for the plight of enslaved African-Americans, more specifically the women.

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,

Ms. Wheatley was born in Senegal or Gambia in 1753 and brought to America when she was around 7 years old, on the slave ship “The Phillis”. She was bought by a tailor named John Wheatley to be a servant for his wife Susannah. John assigned her the name Phillis because of the ship that brought her to America and as was customary, Phillis took the last name of John and Susannah. Susannah soon realized that Phillis was a very gifted child and began to encourage Phillis to learn with her own children. Phillis learned to read and write English in a very short amount of time and the Wheatley’s 18-year-old daughter began to tutor her in numerous

Finally in the third stanza there is the semantic field of nature: ‘mountain’, ‘rivers’, ‘seas’. Nature has the role of judge. It decides whether she has to be punished or not. Nature is represented as a sort of divine entity deciding of her fate because she has decided of someone else’s right to live. Again the water is represented several times with ‘rivers’ (line 17) and ‘seas’ (line 18 and 19) it gives the impression that she thinks

Born in Senegal around 1753, Phillis Wheatley became an important American poetic figure. At the age of 8, she was kidnapped and brought to Boston on a slave ship and upon her arrival to Boston, she was quickly sold to John Wheatley (Bio). Under her new family, Phillis adopted the master’s last name, taken under the wife’s wing, and showed her deep intelligence. Even though suffering from poor health, Phillis’s intelligence did not go unnoticed; she received lessons in theology, English, Latin and Greek. Being a slave did not stop Phillis from learning and experiencing her life, she participated in the master’s family events and eventually became a family member. The irony in this situation is

Phillis Wheatley was sold into slavery when she was only 7 years old and sent to North America. She was purchased by a family in Boston—they then taught her how to read and write (Wikipedia, 2016). When she learned how to read, her writing thrived. The Wheatley’s saw that, and continued to encourage to continue on with learning and writing the poems. The people of Boston did not want to support an African-American poet, so Phillis sent her writings to a publisher in London (Poetry Foundation, 2016).

Religion plays a significant part in The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano, an African man experiencing slavery during the Transatlantic slave trade, and a series of poems written by Phillis Wheatley, an African poet and former slave in 18th century Boston. The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano is a first-person abolitionist slave narrative published in 1789 about Equiano’s experience being forced from his home, Africa, displaced from location to location, and his eventual discovery of Christianity. While the series of poems written by Phillis Wheatley was created during the Revolutionary Era (1764-1789) in Phillis’ leisure time. Both Equiano and Wheatley were Africans whose works drew from their experience

Wheatley and Equiano wrote for the same reason: abolition. The two shared a similar story, both were taken from their homes in Africa and brought to America as slaves (Wheatley Norton Preface, Costonzo 526). Because of this experience, both were motivated to protest slavery in America, and they chose to do so through their published works. Equiano writes, “to lay at your feet the following genuine Narrative; the chief design of which is to excite your argument assemblies a sense of compassion for the miseries which the Slave-Trade has entailed on my unfortunate countrymen” (Equiano Preface). His chief purpose throughout the work is to argue why slavery should be abolished. He goes on to give a chilling account of the horrors he faced being brought to America (Equiano 542). The same is shown in Wheatley’s poems, “I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate/Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat/…/such, such my case. And can I then but pray/Others may

     Although mentioned several times before, the Sun makes its first significant appearance in the seventh stanza of the second part. Before then, one will find both Sun and Moon mentioned many times purely for the reader’s enrichment. The repeated mention leads the reader to believe that it will soon become important by foreshadowing without

The heavy emphasis in Wheatley’s work cannot bypass realism of her background. She wrote literature capturing a Christian religious audience, but many of her poems were also various techniques of literature in her strategy of writing. Phillis’ readers compelled her beliefs.

In 1771, Wheatley composed her first major work, "On an elegy to evangelist George Whitefield." After realizing Wheatley’s potential for excellence, Susannah Wheatley arranged a London publication of Wheatley’s poems. As a result of this, prominent Bostonians verified the book’s author as being Black. Britons praised the book, but criticized Americans for keeping its author enslaved. At this time, Americans were only interested in benefiting White America, and were not prepared for the fact that Britons would criticize their slave policy. In 1774, she wrote a letter repudiating slavery, which was reprinted and

Phillis Wheatley is a gem of her time; the first African-American woman to have her poetry published. Though purchased as a slave, her life was far from most African-Americans during the 17th century. She was educated and became deeply rooted in her faith: Christianity. From an outsider, her life may be viewed as an adopted child rather than a slave to the Wheatley family. However, she did not forget where she came from or those less fortunate than herself. Wheatley used the education she was afforded and her new-found spirituality to fight against slavery through the use of words (751). One of the greatest examples of this is her poem “To the University of Cambridge, in New England” addressed to perhaps the well-educated group of