Could the United States be a land of freedom and condone slavery? Just as she included a typical racial sneer, she includes the myth of blacks springing from Cain. In line 1 of "On Being Brought from Africa to America," as she does throughout her poems and letters, Wheatley praises the mercy of God for singling her out for redemption. 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. A soul in darkness to Wheatley means someone unconverted. Just as the American founders looked to classical democracy for models of government, American poets attempted to copy the themes and spirit of the classical authors of Greece and Rome. Boren, M.E. This style of poetry hardly appeals today because poets adhering to it strove to be objective and used elaborate and decorous language thought to be elevated. The final and highly ironic demonstration of otherness, of course, would be one's failure to understand the very poem that enacts this strategy. Recent critics looking at the whole body of her work have favorably established the literary quality of her poems and her unique historical achievement. — More on Wheatley's work from PBS, including illustrations of her poems and a portrait of the poet herself. That this self-validating woman was a black slave makes this confiscation of ministerial role even more singular. The pair of ten-syllable rhymes—the heroic couplet—was thought to be the closest English equivalent to classical meter. If it is not, one cannot enter eternal bliss in heaven. 4, 1974, p. 95. Calling herself such a lost soul here indicates her understanding of what she was before being saved by her religion. And, as we have seen, Wheatley claims that this angel-like following will be composed of the progeny of Cain that has been refined, made spiritually bright and pure. POEM SUMMARY Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. transatlantic slave trade, part of the global slave trade that transported 10–12 million enslaved Africans to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th century. The African slave who would be named Phillis Wheatley and who would gain fame as a Boston poet during the American Revolution arrived in America on a slave ship on July 11, 1761. For example, while the word die is clearly meant to refer to skin pigmentation, it also suggests the ultimate fate that awaits all people, regardless of color or race. 3, 1974, pp. In "On Being Brought from Africa to America" Wheatley alludes twice to Isaiah to refute stereotypical readings of skin color; she interprets these passages to refer to the mutual spiritual benightedness of both races, as equal diabolically-dyed descendants of Cain. She dwells on Christianity and how those against slaves should act, especially if they are Christians. Against the unlikely backdrop of the institution of slavery, ideas of liberty were taking hold in colonial America, circulating for many years in intellectual circles before war with Britain actually broke out. 135-40. 121-35. In appealing to these two audiences, Wheatley's persona assumes a dogmatic ministerial voice. In the following excerpt, Balkun analyzes "On Being Brought from Africa to America" and asserts that Wheatley uses the rhetoric of white culture to manipulate her audience. Wheatley was hailed as a genius, celebrated in Europe and America just as the American Revolution broke out in the colonies. 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. Western notions of race were still evolving. — An overview of Wheatley's life and work. Wheatley may also cleverly suggest that the slaves' affliction includes their work in making dyes and in refining sugarcane (Levernier, "Wheatley's"), but in any event her biblical allusion subtly validates her argument against those individuals who attribute the notion of a "diabolic die" to Africans only. In this, she asserts her religion as her priority in life; but, as many commentators have pointed out, it does not necessarily follow that she condones slavery, for there is evidence that she did not, in such poems as the one to Dartmouth and in the letter to Samson Occom. The last two lines refer to the equality inherent in Christian doctrine in regard to salvation, for Christ accepted everyone. Therein, she implores him to right America's wrongs and be a just administrator. She also means the aesthetic refinement that likewise (evidently in her mind at least) may accompany spiritual refinement. Conducted Reading Tour of the South "On Being Brought from Africa to America" (1773) has been read as Phillis Wheatley's repudiation of her African heritage of paganism, but not necessarily of her African identity as a member of the black race (e.g., Isani 65). Phillis Wheatley, America’s first African-American poetess interestingly in her poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America” describes the positivity of being an American slave. This strategy is also evident in her use of the word benighted to describe the state of her soul (2). Spring 2002 121-135. Rather than a direct appeal to a specific group, one with which the audience is asked to identify, this short poem is a meditation on being black and Christian in colonial America. Poetry for Students. If the "angelic train" of her song actually enacts or performs her argument—that an African-American can be trained (taught to understand) the refinements of religion and art—it carries a still more subtle suggestion of self-authorization. Wheatley lived in the middle of the passionate controversies of the times, herself a celebrated cause and mover of events. Most of the slaves were held on the southern plantations, but blacks were house servants in the North, and most wealthy families were expected to have them. While Wheatley included some traditional elements of the elegy, or praise for the dead, in "On Being Brought from Africa to America," she primarily combines sermon and meditation techniques in the poem. She wrote them for people she knew and for prominent figures, such as for George Whitefield, the Methodist minister, the elegy that made her famous. She uses that event and her experience in America as the subject matter of her poem. Following her previous rhetorical clues, the only ones who can accept the title of "Christian" are those who have made the decision not to be part of the "some" and to admit that "Negroes … / May be refin'd and join th' angelic train" (7-8). If she had left out the reference to Cain, the poem would simply be asserting that black people, too, can be saved. Wheatley was bought as a starving child and transformed into a prodigy in a few short years of training. That there's a God, that there's a Do you think that the judgment in the 1970s by black educators that Wheatley does not teach values that are good for African American students has merit today? She began writing poetry when she was 12 years old. Form two groups and hold a debate on the topic. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., "Phillis Wheatley and the Nature of the Negro," in Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley, edited by William H. Robinson, G. K. Hall, 1982, pp. This discrepancy between the rhetoric of freedom and the fact of slavery was often remarked upon in Europe. 1-8" (Mason 75-76). Only eighteen of the African Americans were free. Wheatley Question 1: Who is Wheatley’s audience in "On Being Brought from Africa to America? The effect is to place the "some" in a degraded position, one they have created for themselves through their un-Christian hypocrisy. On Being Brought from Africa to America The inclusion of the white prejudice in the poem is very effective, for it creates two effects. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. The need for a postcolonial criticism arose in the twentieth century, as centuries of European political domination of foreign lands were coming to a close. Poet On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phillis Wheatley: Summary & Analysis Mary Rowlandson's A Narrative of the Captivity: Summary and Analysis Ironically, this authorization occurs through the agency of a black female slave. They signed their names to a document, and on that basis Wheatley was able to publish in London, though not in Boston. Such a person did not fit any known stereotype or category. For instance, the use of the word sable to describe the skin color of her race imparts a suggestion of rarity and richness that also makes affiliation with the group of which she is a part something to be desired and even sought after. Both well-known and unknown writers are represented through biography, journals, essays, poems, and fiction. assessments in his edited volume Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley. The last four lines take a surprising turn; suddenly, the reader is made to think. The idea that the speaker was brought to America by some force beyond her power to fight it (a sentiment reiterated from "To the University of Cambridge") once more puts her in an authoritative position. Wheatley’s audience is the Christians of America. In the case of her readers, such failure is more likely the result of the erroneous belief that they have been saved already. As the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry, Wheatley uses this poem to argue that all people, regardless of race, are capable of finding salvation through Christianity. In this instance, however, she uses the very argument that has been used to justify the existence of black slavery to argue against it: the connection between Africans and Cain, the murderer of Abel. Redemption in that, the subject is saved from her pagan way of life. She separates herself from the audience of white readers as a black person, calling attention to the difference. 1-13. The very distinctions that the "some" have created now work against them. In this essay, Gates explores the philosophical discussions of race in the eighteenth century, summarizing arguments of David Hume, John Locke, and Thomas Jefferson on the nature of "the Negro," and how they affected the reception of Wheatley's poetry. One may wonder, then, why she would be glad to be in such a country that rejects her people. This is why she can never love tyranny. He deserted Phillis after their third child was born. Recently, critics like James Levernier have tried to provide a more balanced view of Wheatley's achievement by studying her style within its historical context. Today, a handful of her poems are widely anthologized, but her place in American letters and black studies is still debated. Washington was pleased and replied to her. Lines 1 to 4 here represent such a typical meditation, rejoicing in being saved from a life of sin. The impact of the racial problems in Revolutionary America on Wheatley's reputation should not be underrated. Over a third of her poems in the 1773 volume were elegies, or consolations for the death of a loved one. In Jackson State Review, the African American author and feminist Alice Walker makes a similar remark about her own mother, and about the creative black woman in general: "Whatever rocky soil she landed on, she turned into a garden.". Parks, Carole A., "Phillis Wheatley Comes Home," in Black World, Vo. In fact, Wheatley's poems and their religious nature were used by abolitionists as proof that Africans were spiritual human beings and should not be treated as cattle. On this note, the speaker segues into the second stanza, having laid out her ("Christian") position and established the source of her rhetorical authority. … Wheatley's cultural awareness is even more evident in the poem "On Being Brought From Africa to America," written the year after the Harvard poem in 1768. African American Review. The Lord's attendant train is the retinue of the chosen referred to in the preceding allusion to Isaiah in Wheatley's poem. Her rhetoric has the effect of merging the female with the male, the white with the black, the Christian with the Pagan. This condition ironically coexisted with strong antislavery sentiment among the Christian Evangelical and Whig populations of the city, such as the Wheatleys, who themselves were slaveholders. We know she was raised by the Wheatley family, a prominent white family in Boston, and they made sure Phillis received a formal education, and, it sounds like, a formal introduction to Christianity. Speaking of one of his visions, the prophet observes, "I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple" (Isaiah 6:1). Notably, it was likely that Wheatley, like many slaves, had been sold by her own countrymen.

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