Early black poetry: Phyllis Wheatley Contents Introduction

Chapter II. An Analysis of Phyllis Wheatley's Works and Their Importance Today
2.1. Analysis of the works of Phyllis Wheatley
According to Doug Stuva, “Most of the time, the creation of a persona is a necessity, and natural to the writing process.” Interestingly, it is not uncommon for students at colleges and universities to interpret text with the idea that the writer is the same as the speaker within literary text. As literary scholars we understand that this isn’t always true, but are we limiting these ideas to certain authors? These concepts are nothing new but for many, even professors who produce the next generation of scholars, they tend to forget to apply these same skills when interpreting text of African and African American literature. Literary scholars such as Aida Levy- Hussen, Bernard W Bell, and others have produced studies on how to interpret the work of early Africans and African Slaves who were brought to America.
This research will analyze the poem “On Being Brought From Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley. A poet, female, and former slave are all the forces upon her that caused her struggle. Her writing abilities were above average and greater than what most expected from a slave. The ideas, methods, and theories of analyzing literature may all differ. But does this mean that in analyzing the text you do not assert the same rules that are applied to other authors? The research will draw upon the biography of Phillis Wheatley, her letter to Reverend Samson Occum, with other text in order to support the claim of separation in author and narrator. Drawing upon the idea that some research has been supported to the contrary, we can look upon a quote from an article written by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, on Wheatley that states, “This blind trust continues the disturbing historical trend of African Americans, and black women in particular, needing white benefactors to justify their lives and history.”
Speaker vs Writer: Analysis of Phillis Wheatley’s work
Poetry is an art form of writing that allows poets to write lines that can detail feeling and emotion. These lines can tell stories or attempt to allow its reader to adopt the same emotion that the poet manifests through the work. Many times, these feelings are on experiences. However, more often than not these poems can adopt a different narrator or speaker that would be separate from the writer. Phyllis Wheatley’s poem, On Being Brought from Africa to America, was narrated from a separate speaker than herself and she does not share the same feelings as this speaker.
Phillis Wheatley has gone down in history as America’s first black writer. This accomplishment is not only set by her race but also her gender as the first black woman to publish on American soil. “Despite spending much of her life enslaved, Phillis Wheatley was the first African American and second woman (after Anne Bradstreet) to publish a book of poems” (Michals). Her ability to not only come from Africa, to be enslaved, to an unknown land and be able to navigate it. But she also learned to read and write in the new language of the Americas. “The Wheatley family educated her and within sixteen months of her arrival in America she could read the Bible, Greek and Latin classics, and British literature. She also studied astronomy and geography. At age fourteen, Wheatley began to write poetry, publishing her first poem in 1767” (Michals). This understanding of a language that was foreign to her allowed her to begin writing at 14, only 16 months of her arrival in America. And by 1767 she published her first poem.
Wheatley’s work has always been the topic of many literary scholars. One of her earliest critics, Thomas Jefferson, arguably gave birth to African American literary criticism in America. In his book Notes on the State of Virginia, London: Printed for John Stockdale, 1786, Jefferson writes, “Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. — Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar œstrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately [sic]; but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism.” Within the quote readers can notice that Jefferson did failed to even reference her name with the correct spelling. Although Jefferson writes this, Wheatley’s work becomes one of the main topics of discussion when referencing early African American literature.
When analyzing the poem, critics must first understand the poem from a formalist perspective. The speaker announces that them being brought to America was a good thing. Even stating that they have a “benighted soul”. The speaker would even go on to say that this coming to new land would allow them to have “redemption” in order to get to heaven. This idea of redemption is continued through the rest of the poem but takes a slightly different approach. Th end of the poem is to be directed to the white audience that may be reading. This is expressed in the last two lines stating, “Remember Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, / May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.”
At face value, this poem may to have appeared to be Phyllis Wheatley disowning her own heritage. But it is not until we analyze some of her other work that the true feelings of Wheatley are expressed. The letter to Reverend Samson Occum (1774) is a common read when discussing Phyllis Wheatley. The letter is usually read alongside with the poem On Being Brought from Africa to America. This letter gives insight on her true feelings towards America. The letter starts off by thanking Reverend Occum for the letter she received prior and that she is, “…greatly satisfied with your [Reverend Samson Occum’s] Reasons respecting the Negroes…”. She then goes on for the rest of the letter on the different racial issues that she is faced with when connecting the way she is being treated by society and her religious beliefs. She makes these connections by asserting the idea that there are two types of liberties which are civil and religious, and that these two liberties are inseparable. She also references the ideas of th revolution during that time which were freedom, liberty, and natural rights. She understood that natural rights were given from God and that no one could take them. These ideas then take a step further when she compares the African people who are enslaved in America to the Israelites, “…our modern Egyptians I will asset, that the same Principle lives in us.”, who were freed by God in the bible.
Wheatley has shown the differences of writing. We understand that writers can adopt different traits and point of views when writing and readers cannot assume that the speaker in a work of literature is the same as the author. What readers can determine is that if anyone writes a message, a letter, or even a text, that it is automatically assumed that the content is exactly what the writer is thinking unless noted otherwise.
What can be said is that the poems of Phillis Wheatley display a classical quality and restrained emotion. Many deal with pietistic Christian sentiments.
In many, Wheatley uses classical mythology and ancient history as allusions, including many references to the muses as inspiring her poetry. She speaks to the White establishment, not to fellow enslaved people nor, really, for them. Her references to her own state of enslavement are restrained.
Was Wheatley's restraint simply a matter of imitating the style of poets popular in that time? Or was it in large part because, in her enslaved condition, she could not express herself freely?
Is there an undertone of critique of enslavement as an institution, beyond the simple reality that her own writing proved that enslaved Africans could be educated and could produce at least passable writings?
Certainly, her situation was used by later abolitionists and Benjamin Rush in an anti-enslavement essay written in her own lifetime to prove their case that education and training could prove useful, contrary to allegations of others.
Published Poems
In the published volume of her poems, there is the attestation of many prominent men that they are acquainted with her and her work.
On the one hand, this emphasizes how unusual was her accomplishment, and how suspicious most people would be about its possibility. But at the same time, it emphasizes that she is known by these people, an accomplishment in itself, which many of her readers could not share.
Also in this volume, an engraving of Wheatley is included as a frontispiece. This emphasizes that she is a Black woman, and by her clothing, her servitude, and her refinement and comfort.
But it also shows her as an enslaved person and as as a woman at her desk, emphasizing that she can read and write. She is caught in a pose of contemplation (perhaps listening for her muses.) But this also shows that she can think, an accomplishment which some of her contemporaries would find scandalous to contemplate.
A Look at One Poem
A few observations about one poem may demonstrate how to find a subtle critique of the system of enslavement in Wheatley's work.
In just eight lines, Wheatley describes her attitude toward her condition of enslavement—both coming from Africa to America, and the culture that considers the fact that she is a Black woman so negatively. Following the poem (from Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, 1773), are some observations about its treatment of the theme of enslavement:
On being brought from Africa to America.
'TWAS mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew,
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.
Observations
Wheatley begins by crediting her enslavement as a positive because it has brought her to Christianity. While her Christian faith was surely genuine, it was also a "safe" subject for an enslaved poet. Expressing gratitude for her enslavement may be unexpected to most readers.
The word "benighted" is an interesting one: It means "overtaken by night or darkness" or "being in a state of moral or intellectual darkness." Thus, she makes her skin color and her original state of ignorance of Christian redemption parallel situations.
She also uses the phrase "mercy brought me." A similar phrase is used in the title "on being brought." This deftly downplays the violence of the kidnapping of a child and the voyage on a ship carrying enslaved people, so as to not seem a dangerous critic of the system—at the same time crediting not such trade, but (divine) mercy with the act. This could be read as denying the power to those human beings who kidnapped her and subjected her to the voyage and to her subsequent sale and submission.
She credits "mercy" with her voyage—but also with her education in Christianity. Both were actually at the hands of human beings. In turning both to God, she reminds her audience that there is a force more powerful than they are—a force that has acted directly in her life.
She cleverly distances her reader from those who "view our sable race with scornful eye"—perhaps thus nudging the reader to a more critical view of enslavement or at least a more positive view of those who are held in bondage.
"Sable" as a self-description of her as being a Black woman is a very interesting choice of words. Sable is very valuable and desirable. This characterization contrasts sharply with the "diabolic die" of the next line.
"Diabolic die" may also be a subtle reference to another side of the "triangle" trade which includes enslaved people. At about that same time, the Quaker leader John Woolman is boycotting dyes in order to protest enslavement.
In the second-to-last line, the word "Christian" is placed ambiguously. She may either be addressing her last sentence to Christians—or she may be including Christians in those who "may be refined" and find salvation.
She reminds her reader that Negroes may be saved (in the religious and Christian understanding of salvation.)
The implication of her last sentence is also this: The "angelic train" will include both White and Black people.
In the last sentence, she uses the verb "remember"—implying that the reader is already with her and just needs the reminder to agree with her point.
She uses the verb "remember" in the form of a direct command. While echoing Puritan preachers in using this style, Wheatley is also taking on the role of one who has the right to command: a teacher, a preacher, even perhaps an enslaver.
Enslavement in Wheatley's Poetry
In looking at Wheatley's attitude toward enslavement in her poetry, it's also important to note that most of Wheatley's poems do not refer to her "condition of servitude" at all.
Most are occasional pieces, written on the death of some notable or on some special occasion. Few refer directly—and certainly not this directly—to her personal story or status.

2.2. The relevance of Phyllis Wheatley's works today

Phillis Wheatley, in full Phillis Wheatley Peters, (born c. 1753, present-day Senegal?, West Africa—died December 5, 1784, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.), the first Black woman to become a poet of note in the United States.
The girl who was to be named Phillis Wheatley was captured in West Africa and taken to Boston by slave traders in 1761. She was purchased by a tailor, John Wheatley, as a personal servant for his wife, Susanna. They named her Phillis because that was the name of the ship on which she arrived. She received an education in the Wheatley household while also performing household work; unusual for an enslaved person, she was taught to read and write. In less than two years, under the tutelage of Susanna and her daughter, Phillis had mastered English; she went on to learn Greek and Latin and caused a stir among Boston scholars by translating a tale from Ovid. Beginning in her early teens, she wrote verse that was stylistically influenced by British Neoclassical poets such as Alexander Pope and was largely concerned with morality, piety, and freedom.
Wheatley’s first poem to appear in print was “On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin” (1767), about sailors escaping disaster. She did not become widely known until the publication of “An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of That Celebrated Divine…George Whitefield” (1770), a tribute to George Whitefield, a popular preacher with whom she may have been personally acquainted. The poem is typical of what Wheatley wrote during her life both in its formal reliance on couplets and in its genre; more than one-third of her known works are elegies to prominent figures or friends. A number of her other poems celebrate the nascent United States of America, whose struggle for independence she sometimes employed as a metaphor for spiritual or, more subtly, racial freedom. Though Wheatley generally avoided making the topic of slavery explicit in her poetry, her identity as an enslaved woman was always present, even if her experience of slavery may have been atypical. Her best-known work, “On Being Brought from Africa to America” (written 1768), addresses slavery directly, though within the framework of Christianity: the poem describes the “mercy” that “brought me from my Pagan land” and gave her a “redemption” that she “neither sought nor knew.” The poem concludes with a rebuke to those who view Black people negatively:
Among Wheatley’s other notable poems from this period are “To the University of Cambridge, in New England” (written 1767), “To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty” (written 1768), and “On the Death of the Rev. Dr. Sewall” (written 1769).
Wheatley traveled to London in May 1773 with the son of her enslaver. Her first book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, where many of her poems first saw print, was published there in 1773. Wheatley’s literary talent and personal qualities contributed to her great social success in London; that she was enslaved also drew particular attention in the wake of a legal decision, secured by Granville Sharp in 1772, that found slavery to be contrary to English law and thus, in theory, freed any enslaved people who arrived in England. Wheatley returned to Boston in September 1773 because of the illness of her enslaver’s wife. She was freed the following month; some scholars believe that Wheatley made her freedom a condition of her return from England.
Wheatley supported the American Revolution, and she wrote a flattering poem in 1775 to George Washington. In 1778 she married John Peters, a free Black man, and used his surname. Though she continued writing, she published few new poems after her marriage. At the end of her life Wheatley was working as a servant, and she died in poverty.
Two books of Wheatley’s writing issued posthumously were Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley (1834)—in which Margaretta Matilda Odell, who claimed to be a collateral descendant of Susanna Wheatley, provides a short biography of Phillis Wheatley as a preface to a collection of Wheatley’s poems—and Letters of Phillis Wheatley: The Negro-Slave Poet of Boston (1864). Because Wheatley did not write an account of her own life, Odell’s memoir had an outsized effect on subsequent biographies; some scholars have argued that Odell misrepresented Wheatley’s life and works. Wheatley’s poems were frequently cited by abolitionists during the 18th and 19th centuries as they campaigned for the elimination of slavery.
poetry, literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm.
Poetry is a vast subject, as old as history and older, present wherever religion is present, possibly—under some definitions—the primal and primary form of languages themselves. The present article means only to describe in as general a way as possible certain properties of poetry and of poetic thought regarded as in some sense independent modes of the mind. Naturally, not every tradition nor every local or individual variation can be—or need be—included, but the article illustrates by examples of poetry ranging between nursery rhyme and epic. This article considers the difficulty or impossibility of defining poetry; man’s nevertheless familiar acquaintance with it; the differences between poetry and prose; the idea of form in poetry; poetry as a mode of thought; and what little may be said in prose of the spirit of poetry.
Attempts to define poetry
Poetry is the other way of using language. Perhaps in some hypothetical beginning of things it was the only way of using language or simply was language tout court, prose being the derivative and younger rival. Both poetry and language are fashionably thought to have belonged to ritual in early agricultural societies; and poetry in particular, it has been claimed, arose at first in the form of magical spells recited to ensure a good harvest. Whatever the truth of this hypothesis, it blurs a useful distinction: by the time there begins to be a separate class of objects called poems, recognizable as such, these objects are no longer much regarded for their possible yam-growing properties, and such magic as they may be thought capable of has retired to do its business upon the human spirit and not directly upon the natural world outside.
Formally, poetry is recognizable by its greater dependence on at least one more parameter, the line, than appears in prose composition. This changes its appearance on the page; and it seems clear that people take their cue from this changed appearance, reading poetry aloud in a very different voice from their habitual voice, possibly because, as Ben Jonson said, poetry “speaketh somewhat above a mortal mouth.” If, as a test of this description, people are shown poems printed as prose, it most often turns out that they will read the result as prose simply because it looks that way; which is to say that they are no longer guided in their reading by the balance and shift of the line in relation to the breath as well as the syntax.