Phillis Wheatley Research Paper

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.

On Being Brought from Africa” by Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784): Wheatley was purchased, living as a domestic slave in a wealthy Boston household. Where her masters taught her how to read and write. Wheatley exhibited amazing talent, that even her own poetry was published. Wheatley became famous but was still remained a slave.

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.

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.

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

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).

Phillis Wheatley was the first African-American woman in America to publish a book of poems. The poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley is quite a short poem with a dominant meaning of the journey a slave had to go through. After reading this poem several times, I realized that each stanza had a representation. Each introduces the different obstacles that Phillis Wheatley had to face when kidnapped into being brought to America. The most symbolic meaning of this poem is the way she represented darkness and religion helping her along her way of being brought to America.

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

Phillis Wheatley is a Gambian born African American poet. She was bought off of the slave trade by the Wheatley family from Boston. Her love of writing was influenced by the reassurance of the Wheatley family who taught her how to read and write. The family encouraged her poetry and helped develop her literature skills. Phillis is known for becoming the first published African American poet. Many see her as the first writer to develop a genre of African American literature. Through an analysis of Wheatley’s work we can see how her influential work tends to carry themes from the point of view of American colonists. Her work also contains a general critique of slavery and descriptions of her attitudes towards the circumstances forced upon the enslaved.

Wheatley tended to write many religiously based poems. They all consisted of her true opinions. They ranged from speaking about dead reverends that she respected to her opinions about the lives of Atheist and Deist.

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.