Phillis Wheatley Research Papers

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

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.

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

The second point of comparison is that both Wheatley and Dunbar wrote in black dialect. Wheatley often wrote her poems to celebrate the life and death of friends, prominent contemporaries and important events. She wrote in a style and reference that reflected her African heritage. Her style often focused on moral and religious subjects.

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. African American, poet, slave, woman. These were all the characteristics that describe Phillis Wheatley. She was a big part of what is our country today. Also a big part of women’s rights.

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.

The decline of health afflicting her mistress and their close relationship enables her to resist the temptation of leaving America. Raised as a black slave since young in the Wheatley family, she grew attached to her masters, especially her mistress Susanna Wheatley. Her attachment is highlighted by the fact that her poem is directed towards her mistress and is contextually written in a time where she was separated from her ailing mistress. Henceforth, similarly to Rossetti's "Remember", the concept of departure in "A Farewell to America" is depicted through health, and the subtle reminder of death. As she points out in her fourth stanza, "Susanna mourns" for Phillis Wheatley to return and treat her (13). Despite the temptation of freedom that

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.

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 drew attention in the 18thcentury for being a black slave, and a child prodigy who was able to write poems and songs. She was born in Gambia, Africa, and brought to Boston as a slave when she was a child, and became slave and companion to John Wheatley’s wife. As she grew older, John Wheatley’s wife viewed her as a feeble and brilliant girl who deserves to be educated and felt great affection toward her. Therefore, Susanna Wheatley’s daughters taught Phillis how to read and write, so she delivered her honest opinions through her writings (Baym and Levine 763). Then she became the first African American writer to publish a book of poetry while other slaves were forbidden to learn how to read and write. Her ability to write and read gave her freedom of expression and enabled her to become a free woman. Her literacy influenced her surroundings in numerous ways. She was acknowledged by many people for her great poetical talents (“Phillis Wheatley, the First” para 3). In the poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” Phillis Wheatley appeals to ethos and pathos, uses suitable diction and a metaphor to demonstrate that the discrimination of Africans is barbarous, and encourages people to not judge by physical characteristics, but consider innate qualities.

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,

Furthermore, The Enlightenment period during the 1730’s to 1760’s led many Christian denominations, such as Quakers, Baptists, and Methodists, to oppose slavery and recognizing the immorality of the practice. Moreover, James Otis, a colonial white lawyer in Massachusetts, writes an article expressing his strong opposition against slavery and asserts: “The colonists, black and white, born here are freeborn British subjects, and entitled to all the essential civil rights of such is a truth not only manifest from the provincial charters.” His writing illustrates shifting perceptions of the institution of slavery and emphasizes that equality must extend not only to white colonists but Black slaves as well. Phillis Wheatley, an African American poet of the Revolutionary Era asserts that the existence of slavery is a direct contradiction to American core values of liberty and freedom and states: “This I desire not for their hurt, but to convince [Revolutionary Society] of the strange absurdity of their conduct, whose words and actions are so diametrically opposite.” Wheatley underscores the unreasonable determination to uphold

Around the age of 13, Phillis published her first poem. Phillis was the first African-American female poet in history. By the time she turned 18, she had a total of 28 poems wrote. Mrs. Wheatley helped her run advertisements and helped her promote these poems. She had much success with that, she had many other good ones that followed. In 1773, her book called Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published (Biography.com).

During the times when writers like Phillis Wheatley came to be established in literature, the culture of African-Americans was based mostly on slavery life and protesting for freedom and equality. Through poetry, epistle, slave narrative, and memoirs, writers during the 18th century expressed the struggles they endured and transitioned from a traditional style of writing during the Neoclassical literary period using iambic pentameter appealing to logos, to appealing more to pathos and using more imagery in writings during the Romanticism period. The research conducted in this paper will give a very detailed analysis on the influence of Phillis Wheatley's early African-American literature on African-American writers after her. Authors such as David Walker followed her footsteps.