Accordingly, Wheatley's persona in "On Being Brought from Africa to America" qualifies the critical complaints that her poetry is imitative, inadequate, and unmilitant (e.g., Collins; Richmond 54-66); her persona resists the conclusion that her poetry shows a resort to scripture in lieu of imagination (Ogude); and her persona suggests that her religious poetry may be compatible with her political writings (e.g., Akers; Burroughs). (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), p.98. "On Being Brought from Africa to America "On Being Brought from Africa to America." The Norton Anthology of American Literature, edited by Robert S. Levine, shorter 9th ed., Vol.1, W. W Norton & Company, 2017, pp. Educated and enslaved in the household of . In "On Being Brought from Africa to America," Wheatley identifies herself first and foremost as a Christian, rather than as African or American, and asserts everyone's equality in God's sight. Trauma dumping, digital nomad, nearlywed, petfluencer and antifragile. Structure. Some view our sable race with scornful eye. She was kidnapped and enslaved at age seven. 189, 193. Conducted Reading Tour of the South Both black and white critics have wrestled with placing her properly in either American studies or African American studies. "On Being Brought From Africa to America" is an unusual poem. Today: African Americans are educated and hold political office, even becoming serious contenders for the office of president of the United States. Like many Christian poets before her, Wheatley's poem also conducts its religious argument through its aesthetic attainment. In her poems on atheism and deism she addresses anyone who does not accept Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as a lost soul. 'Twas mercy brought me from my Cain Her poems thus typically move dramatically in the same direction, from an extreme point of sadness (here, the darkness of the lost soul and the outcast, Cain) to the certainty of the saved joining the angelic host (regardless of the color of their skin). Wheatley is saying that her homeland, Africa, was not Christian or godly. Full text. sable - black; (also a small animal with dark brown or black fur. These miracles continue still with Phillis's figurative children, black . These documents are often anthologized along with the Declaration of Independence as proof, as Wheatley herself said to the Native American preacher Samson Occom, that freedom is an innate right. Won Pulitzer Prize Benjamin Rush, a prominent abolitionist, holds that Wheatley's "singular genius and accomplishments are such as not only do honor to her sex, but to human nature." //]]>. Calling herself such a lost soul here indicates her understanding of what she was before being saved by her religion. The black race itself was thought to stem from the murderer and outcast Cain, of the Bible. Although most of her religious themes are conventional exhortations against sin and for accepting salvation, there is a refined and beautiful inspiration to her verse that was popular with her audience. answer not listed. Hitler made white noise relating to death through his radical ideas on the genocide of Jews in the Second World War. Analysis Of The Poem ' Phillis Wheatley '. Wheatley was in the midst of the historic American Revolution in the Boston of the 1770s. She wants to inform her readers of the opposite factand yet the wording of her confession of faith became proof to later readers that she had sold out, like an Uncle Tom, to her captors' religious propaganda. An error occurred trying to load this video. This poem has an interesting shift in tone. Christians These ideas of freedom and the natural rights of human beings were so potent that they were seized by all minorities and ethnic groups in the ensuing years and applied to their own cases. Robinson, William H., Phillis Wheatley and Her Writings, Garland, 1984, pp. 27, No. It also talks about how they were looked at differently because of the difference in the color of their skin. Wheatley explains her humble origins in "On Being Brought from Africa to America" and then promptly turns around to exhort her audience to accept African equality in the realm of spiritual matters, and by implication, in intellectual matters (the poem being in the form of neoclassical couplets). Richard Abcarian (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) is a professor of English emeritus at California State University, Northridge, where he taught for thirty-seven years. She was planning a second volume of poems, dedicated to Benjamin Franklin, when the Revolutionary War broke out. An overview of Wheatley's life and work. She separates herself from the audience of white readers as a black person, calling attention to the difference. An online version of Wheatley's poetry collection, including "On Being Brought from Africa to America.". Read Wheatley's poems and letters and compare her concerns, in an essay, to those of other African American authors of any period. Wheatley was freed from slavery when she returned home from London, which was near the end of her owners' lives. Although he, as well as many other prominent men, condemned slavery as an unjust practice for the country, he nevertheless held slaves, as did many abolitionists. This color, the speaker says, may think is a sign of the devil. Its like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. Lastly, the speaker reminds her audience, mostly consisting of white people, that Black people can be Christian people, too. . "May be refined" can be read either as synonymous for can or as a warning: No one, neither Christians nor Negroes, should take salvation for granted. Line 6, in quotations, gives a typical jeer of a white person about black people. It is also pointed out that Wheatley perhaps did not complain of slavery because she was a pampered house servant. Give a report on the history of Quaker involvement in the antislavery movement. Even before the Revolution, black slaves in Massachusetts were making legal petitions for their freedom on the basis of their natural rights. by Phillis Wheatley. Phillis Wheatley Poems & Facts | What Was Phillis Wheatley Known For? At the age of 14, she published her first poem in a local newspaper and went on to publish books and pamphlets. Q. The poem's rhyme scheme is AABBCCDD and is organized into four couplets, which are paired lines of rhymed verse. 61, 1974, pp. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. It has been variously read as a direct address to Christians, Wheatley's declaration that both the supposed Christians in her audience and the Negroes are as "black as Cain," and her way of indicating that the terms Christians and Negroes are synonymous. In the last line of this poem, she asserts that the black race may, like any other branch of humanity, be saved and rise to a heavenly fate. (February 23, 2023). The way the content is organized. Alliteration occurs with diabolic dye and there is an allusion to the old testament character Cain, son of Adam and Eve. She was the first African American to publish a full book, although other slave authors, such as Lucy Terry and Jupiter Hammon, had printed individual poems before her. There are poems in which she idealizes the African climate as Eden, and she constantly identifies herself in her poems as the Afric muse. Author In fact, the whole thrust of the poem is to prove the paradox that in being enslaved, she was set free in a spiritual sense. The first four lines of the poem could be interpreted as a justification for enslaving Africans, or as a condoning of such a practice, since the enslaved would at least then have a chance at true religion. Saviour Levernier, James, "Style as Process in the Poetry of Phillis Wheatley," in Style, Vol. In this sense, white and black people are utterly equal before God, whose authority transcends the paltry earthly authorities who have argued for the inequality of the two races. On Virtue. IN perusing the following Dictionary , the reader will find some terms, which probably he will judge too simple in their nature to justify their insertion . 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. In the poem, she gives thanks for having been brought to America, where she was raised to be a Christian. During her time with the Wheatley family, Phillis showed a keen talent for learning and was soon proficient in English. The result is that those who would cast black Christians as other have now been placed in a like position. 121-35. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. 23, No. Educated and enslaved in the household of prominent Boston commercialist John Wheatley, lionized in New England and England, with presses in both places publishing her poems,. She was so celebrated and famous in her day that she was entertained in London by nobility and moved among intellectuals with respect. This word functions not only as a biblical allusion, but also as an echo of the opening two lines of the poem: "'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, / Taught my benighted soul to understand." To be "benighted" is to be in moral or spiritual darkness as a result of ignorance or lack of enlightenment, certainly a description with which many of Wheatley's audience would have agreed. In the poem, she gives thanks for having been brought to America, where she was raised to be a Christian. This latter point refutes the notion, held by many of Wheatley's contemporaries, that Cain, marked by God, is the progenitor of the black race only. Irony is also common in neoclassical poetry, with the building up and then breaking down of expectations, and this occurs in lines 7 and 8. Phillis Wheatley was abducted from her home in Africa at the age of 7 (in 1753) and taken by ship to America, where . PART B: Which phrase from the text best supports the answer to Part A? She grew increasingly critical of slavery and wrote several letters in opposition to it. Line 5 boldly brings out the fact of racial prejudice in America. A resurgence of interest in Wheatley during the 1960s and 1970s, with the rise of African American studies, led again to mixed opinions, this time among black readers. POEM TEXT Wheatley and Women's History The impact of the racial problems in Revolutionary America on Wheatley's reputation should not be underrated. Wheatley admits this, and in one move, the balance of the poem seems shattered. ", In the last two lines, Wheatley reminds her audience that all people, regardless of race, can be Christian and be saved. Her benighted, or troubled soul was saved in the process. We sense it in two ways. In "On Being Brought from Africa to America," the author, Phillis Wheatley uses diction and punctuation to develop a subtle ironic tone. 2 Wheatley, "On the Death of General Wooster," in Call and Response, p. 103.. 3 Horton, "The Slave's Complaint," in Call and Response, pp. FURT, Wheatley, Phillis These include but are not limited to: The first, personification, is seen in the first lines in which the poet says it was mercy that brought her to America. Illustrated Works Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more. 2 Wheatley, "On the Death of General Wooster," in Call and Response, p. 103.. 3 Horton, "The Slave's Complaint," in Call and Response, pp. An online version of Wheatley's poetry collection, including "On Being Brought from Africa to America.".
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