Western notions of race were still evolving. But the women are on the march. In fact, the Wheatleys introduced Phillis to their circle of Evangelical antislavery friends. In the event that what is at stake has not been made evident enough, Wheatley becomes most explicit in the concluding lines. 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. This discrepancy between the rhetoric of freedom and the fact of slavery was often remarked upon in Europe. May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train. In the poem, she gives thanks for having been brought to America, where she was raised to be a Christian. Some view our sable race with scornful eye, Racial Equality: The speaker points out to the audience, mostly consisting of white people, that all people, regardless of race, can be saved and brought to Heaven. In alluding to the two passages from Isaiah, she intimates certain racial implications that are hardly conventional interpretations of these passages. On the other hand, by bringing up Cain, she confronts the popular European idea that the black race sprang from Cain, who murdered his brother Abel and was punished by having a mark put on him as an outcast. In addition, Wheatley's language consistently emphasizes the worth of black Christians. She is both in America and actively seeking redemption because God himself has willed it. The material has been carefully compared The impact of the racial problems in Revolutionary America on Wheatley's reputation should not be underrated. 43, No. She was born in West Africa circa 1753, and thus she was only a few years younger than James Madison. Mercy is defined as "a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion." Several themes are included: the meaning of academic learning and learning potential; the effect of oral and written language proficiency on successful learning; and the whys and hows of delivering services to language- and learning-disabled students. Susanna Wheatley, her mistress, became a second mother to her, and Wheatley adopted her mistress's religion as her own, thus winning praise in the Boston of her day as being both an intelligent and spiritual being. 92-93, 97, 101, 115. 3, 1974, pp. She was the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry and was brought to America and enslaved in 1761. From the 1770s, when Phillis Wheatley first began to publish her poems, until the present day, criticism has been heated over whether she was a genius or an imitator, a cultural heroine or a pathetic victim, a woman of letters or an item of curiosity. window.__mirage2 = {petok:"cajhZ6VFWaUJG3veQ.det3ab.5UanemT4_W4vp5lfYs-86400-0"}; Levernier, James, "Style as Process in the Poetry of Phillis Wheatley," in Style, Vol. This creates a rhythm very similar to a heartbeat. The poem was a tribute to the eighteen-century frigate USS Constitution. John Hancock, one of Wheatley's examiners in her trial of literacy and one of the founders of the United States, was also a slaveholder, as were Washington and Jefferson. Boston, Massachusetts It also contains a lot of figurative language describing . 4 Pages. 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. Here Wheatley seems to agree with the point of view of her captors that Africa is pagan and ignorant of truth and that she was better off leaving there (though in a poem to the Earl of Dartmouth she laments that she was abducted from her sorrowing parents). Baker, Houston A., Jr., Workings of the Spirit: The Poetics of Afro-American Women's Writing, University of Chicago Press, 1991. Slavery did not become illegal after the Revolution as many had hoped; it was not fully abolished in the United States until the end of the Civil War in 1865. Could the United States be a land of freedom and condone slavery? This line is meaningful to an Evangelical Christian because one's soul needs to be in a state of grace, or sanctified by Christ, upon leaving the earth. "On Being Brought from Africa to America" by Phillis Wheatley, is about how Africans were brought from Africa to America but still had faith in God to bring them through. 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. Wheatley is talking about the people who live in Africa; they have not yet been exposed to Christianity or the idea of salvation. Robinson, William H., Phillis Wheatley and Her Writings, Garland, 1984, pp. She is not ashamed of her origins; only of her past ignorance of Christ. She started writing poetry at age 14 and published her first poem in 1767. These miracles continue still with Phillis's figurative children, black . The soul, which is not a physical object, cannot be overwhelmed by darkness or night. LitCharts Teacher Editions. In "Letters to Birmingham," Martin Luther King uses figurative language and literary devices to show his distress and disappointment with a group of clergyman who do not support the peaceful protests for equality. The typical funeral sermon delivered by this sect relied on portraits of the deceased and exhortations not to grieve, as well as meditations on salvation. Wheatley, however, is asking Christians to judge her and her poetry, for she is indeed one of them, if they adhere to the doctrines of their own religion, which preaches Christ's universal message of brotherhood and salvation. As Christian people, they are supposed to be "refin'd," or to behave in a blessed and educated manner. John Peters eventually abandoned Wheatley and she lived in abject poverty, working in a boardinghouse, until her death on December 5, 1784. English is the single most important language in the world, being the official or de facto . CRITICAL OVERVIEW Almost immediately after her arrival in America, she was sold to the Wheatley family of Boston, Massachusetts. Wheatley was in the midst of the historic American Revolution in the Boston of the 1770s. She published her first poem in 1767, later becoming a household name. All rights reserved. ", In the last two lines, Wheatley reminds her audience that all people, regardless of race, can be Christian and be saved. Wheatley was freed from slavery when she returned home from London, which was near the end of her owners' lives. In the case of her readers, such failure is more likely the result of the erroneous belief that they have been saved already. Redemption and Salvation: The speaker states that had she not been taken from her homeland and brought to America, she would never have known that there was a God and that she needed saving. An overview of Wheatley's life and work. She is grateful for being made a slave, so she can receive the dubious benefits of the civilization into which she has been transplanted. In the final lines, Wheatley addresses any who think this way. Taking Offense Religion, Art, and Visual Culture in Plural Configurations Illustrated Works Poet The last two lines of the poem make use of imperative language, which is language that gives a command or tells the reader what to do. For additional information on Clif, Harlem The pealing thunder shook the heav'nly plain; Majestic grandeur! Reading Wheatley not just as an African American author but as a transatlantic black author, like Ignatius Sancho and Olaudah Equiano, the critics demonstrate that early African writers who wrote in English represent "a diasporic model of racial identity" moving between the cultures of Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Wheatley reminded her readers that all people, regardless of race, are able to obtain salvation. Wheatley was hailed as a genius, celebrated in Europe and America just as the American Revolution broke out in the colonies. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers (2003), contends that Wheatley's reputation as a whitewashed black poet rests almost entirely on interpretations of "On Being Brought from Africa to America," which he calls "the most reviled poem in African-American literature." Today: Since the Vietnam War, military service represents one of the equalizing opportunities for blacks to gain education, status, and benefits. The reception became such because the poem does not explicitly challenge slavery and almost seems to subtly approve of it, in that it brought about the poet's Christianity. 235 lessons. In fact, all three readings operate simultaneously to support Wheatley's argument. succeed. Phillis Wheatley was brought through the transatlantic slave trade and brought to America as a child. PDFs of modern translations of every Shakespeare play and 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. Wheatley's shift from first to third person in the first and second stanzas is part of this approach. 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. Some of her poems and letters are lost, but several of the unpublished poems survived and were later found. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Wheatley is saying that her homeland, Africa, was not Christian or godly. No wonder, then, that thinkers as great as Jefferson professed to be puzzled by Wheatley's poetry. When we consider how Wheatley manages these biblical allusions, particularly how she interprets them, we witness the extent to which she has become self-authorized as a result of her training and refinement. She did not mingle with the other servants but with Boston society, and the Wheatley daughter tutored her in English, Latin, and the Bible. Mistakes do not get in the way of understanding. Both races inherit the barbaric blackness of sin. When the un-Christian speak of "their color," they might just as easily be pointing to the white members of the audience who have accepted the invitation into Wheatley's circle. lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. China has ceased binding their feet. Her being saved was not truly the whites' doing, for they were but instruments, and she admonishes them in the second quatrain for being too cocky. Some readers, looking for protests against slavery in her work, have been disenchanted upon instead finding poems like "On Being Brought from Africa to America" to reveal a meek acceptance of her slave fate. For the unenlightened reader, the poems may well seem to be hackneyed and pedestrian pleas for acceptance; for the true Christian, they become a validation of one's status as a member of the elect, regardless of race . For example, her speaker claims that it was "mercy" that took her out of "my Pagan land" and into America where she was enslaved. 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. That this self-validating woman was a black slave makes this confiscation of ministerial role even more singular. Get the entire guide to On Being Brought from Africa to America as a printable PDF. She was planning a second volume of poems, dedicated to Benjamin Franklin, when the Revolutionary War broke out. Text is very difficult to understand. It also talks about how they were looked at differently because of the difference in the color of their skin. She returned to America riding on that success and was set free by the Wheatleysa mixed blessing, since it meant she had to support herself. Derived from the surface of Wheatley's work, this appropriate reading has generally been sensitive to her political message and, at the same time, critically negligent concerning her artistic embodiment of this message in the language and execution of her poem. Show all. also Observation on English Versification , Etc. 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. Full text. 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. Retrieved February 23, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/being-brought-africa-america. Phillis Wheatley was born in Gambia, Africa, in 1753. answer choices. , black as Now the speaker states that some people treat Black people badly and look upon them scornfully. I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. As Wheatley pertinently wrote in "On Imagination" (1773), which similarly mingles religious and aesthetic refinements, she aimed to embody "blooming graces" in the "triumph of [her] song" (Mason 78). Most descriptions tell what the literary elements do to enhance the story. Conditions on board some of the slave ships are known to have been horrendous; many died from illness; many were drowned. She knew redemption through this transition and banished all sorrow from her life. Crowds came to hear him speak, crowds erotically charged, the masses he once called his only bride. This was the legacy of philosophers such as John Locke who argued against absolute monarchy, saying that government should be a social contract with the people; if the people are not being served, they have a right to rebel. Starting deliberately from the position of the "other," Wheatley manages to alter the very terms of otherness, creating a new space for herself as both poet and African American Christian. be exposed to another medium of written expression; learn the rules and conventions of poetry, including figurative language, metaphor, simile, symbolism, and point-of-view; learn five strategies for analyzing poetry; and She had been publishing poems and letters in American newspapers on both religious matters and current topics. The latter is implied, at least religiously, in the last lines. Suddenly, the audience is given an opportunity to view racism from a new perspective, and to either accept or reject this new ideological position. 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. It is organized into four couplets, which are two rhymed lines of verse. How do her concerns differ or converge with other black authors? Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main. Although she was an enslaved person, Phillis Wheatley Peters was one of the best-known poets in pre-19th century America. "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is a statement of pride and comfort in who she is, though she gives the credit to God for the blessing. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. She describes Africa as a "Pagan land." Phillis was known as a prodigy, devouring the literary classics and the poetry of the day. , From the start, critics have had difficulty disentangling the racial and literary issues. . Even before the Revolution, black slaves in Massachusetts were making legal petitions for their freedom on the basis of their natural rights. At a Glance The Quakers were among the first to champion the abolition of slavery. The result is that those who would cast black Christians as other have now been placed in a like position. Benjamin Franklin visited her. A single stanza of eight lines, with full rhyme and classic iambic pentameter beat, it basically says that black people can become Christian believers and in this respect are just the same as everyone else. An example is the precedent of General Colin Powell, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War (a post equal to Washington's during the Revolution). Biography of Phillis Wheatley Just as she included a typical racial sneer, she includes the myth of blacks springing from Cain. 27, No. INTRODUCTION. She does more here than remark that representatives of the black race may be refined into angelic mattermade, as it were, spiritually white through redemptive Christianizing. These lines can be read to say that ChristiansWheatley uses the term Christians to refer to the white raceshould remember that the black race is also a recipient of spiritual refinement; but these same lines can also be read to suggest that Christians should remember that in a spiritual sense both white and black people are the sin-darkened descendants of Cain. America has given the women equal educational advantages, and America, we believe, will enfranchise them. The poem's meter is iambic pentameter, where each line contains ten syllables and every other syllable is stressed. The pair of ten-syllable rhymesthe heroic coupletwas thought to be the closest English equivalent to classical meter. It is about a slave who cannot eat at the so-called "dinner table" because of the color of his skin. Although she was an enslaved person, Phillis Wheatley Peters was one of the best-known poets in pre-19th century America. So many in the world do not know God or Christ. Erkkila, Betsy, "Phillis Wheatley and the Black American Revolution," in A Mixed Race: Ethnicity in Early America, edited by Frank Shuffelton, Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. "On Being Brought from Africa to America to America") was published by Archibald Bell of London. This poetic demonstration of refinement, of "blooming graces" in both a spiritual and a cultural sense, is the "triumph in [her] song" entitled "On Being Brought from Africa to America.". Line 3 further explains what coming into the light means: knowing God and Savior. The inclusion of the white prejudice in the poem is very effective, for it creates two effects. 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, Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. If allowances have finally been made for her difficult position as a slave in Revolutionary Boston, black readers and critics still have not forgiven her the literary sin of writing to white patrons in neoclassical couplets. One result is that, from the outset, Wheatley allows the audience to be positioned in the role of benefactor as opposed to oppressor, creating an avenue for the ideological reversal the poem enacts. The definition of pagan, as used in line 1, is thus challenged by Wheatley in a sense, as the poem celebrates that the term does not denote a permanent category if a pagan individual can be saved. To the University of Cambridge, in New England, Instant downloads of all 1699 LitChart PDFs 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. Conducted Reading Tour of the South 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. 1, 2002, pp. She separates herself from the audience of white readers as a black person, calling attention to the difference. The opening thought is thus easily accepted by a white or possibly hostile audience: that she is glad she came to America to find true religion. Q. Notably, it was likely that Wheatley, like many slaves, had been sold by her own countrymen. By tapping into the common humanity that lies at the heart of Christian doctrine, Wheatley poses a gentle but powerful challenge to racism in America. William Robinson provides the diverse early. by Phillis Wheatley. Wheatley is guiding her readers to ask: How could good Christian people treat other human beings in such a horrific way? The reversal of inside and outside, black and white has further significance because the unredeemed have also become the enslaved, although they are slaves to sin rather than to an earthly master. At this time, most African American people were unable to read and write, so Wheatley's education was quite unusual. Research the history of slavery in America and why it was an important topic for the founders in their planning for the country. This allusion to Isaiah authorizes the sort of artistic play on words and on syntax we have noted in her poem. (Thus, anyone hearing the poem read aloud would also have been aware of the implied connection.) Enrolling in a course lets you earn progress by passing quizzes and exams. This is a reference to the biblical Book of Genesis and the two sons of Adam. Following fuller scholarly investigation into her complete works, however, many agree that this interpretation is oversimplified and does not do full justice to her awareness of injustice. Phillis Wheatley was taken from what she describes as her pagan homeland of Africa as a young child and enslaved upon her arrival in America. Chosen by Him, the speaker is again thrust into the role of preacher, one with a mission to save others. As such, though she inherited the Puritan sense of original sin and resignation in death, she focuses on the element of comfort for the bereaved. Nevertheless, that an eighteenth-century woman (who was not a Quaker) should take on this traditionally male role is one surprise of Wheatley's poem. The word Some also introduces a more critical tone on the part of the speaker, as does the word Remember, which becomes an admonition to those who call themselves "Christians" but do not act as such. Davis, Arthur P., "The Personal Elements in the Poetry of Phillis Wheatley," in Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley, edited by William H. Robinson, G. K. Hall, 1982, p. 95. Figurative language is writing that is understood because of its association with a familiar thing, action, or image. , "On Being Brought from Africa to America," in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 189, 193. Won Pulitzer Prize Perhaps her sense of self in this instance demonstrates the degree to which she took to heart Enlightenment theories concerning personal liberty as an innate human right; these theories were especially linked to the abolitionist arguments advanced by the New England clergy with whom she had contact (Levernier, "Phillis"). Carretta and Gould note the problems of being a literate black in the eighteenth century, having more than one culture or language. It seems most likely that Wheatley refers to the sinful quality of any person who has not seen the light of God. She traveled to London in 1773 (with the Wheatley's son) in order to publish her book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. This comparison would seem to reinforce the stereotype of evil that she seems anxious to erase. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., claims in The Trials of Phillis Wheatley that Boston contained about a thousand African Americans out of a population of 15,520. The last four lines take a surprising turn; suddenly, the reader is made to think. Metaphor. God punished him with the fugitive and vagabond and yieldless crop curse. Although her intended audience is not black, she still refers to "our sable race." 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. She had been enslaved for most of her life at this point, and upon her return to America and close to the deaths of her owners, she was freed from slavery. Speaking for God, the prophet at one point says, "Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction" (Isaiah 48:10). Barbara Evans. Recent critics looking at the whole body of her work have favorably established the literary quality of her poems and her unique historical achievement. They must also accede to the equality of black Christians and their own sinful nature. All the end rhymes are full. Martin Luther King uses loaded words to create pathos when he wrote " Letter from Birmingham Jail." One way he uses loaded words is when he says " vicious mobs lynch your mother's and father's." This creates pathos because lynching implies hanging colored folks. America's leading color-field painter, Rothko experi- enced the existential alienation of the postwar era. Her refusal to assign blame, while it has often led critics to describe her as uncritical of slavery, is an important element in Wheatley's rhetorical strategy and certainly one of the reasons her poetry was published in the first place. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers, Basic Civitas Books, 2003, pp. This idea sums up a gratitude whites might have expected, or demanded, from a Christian slave. She has master's degrees in French and in creative writing. This simple and consistent pattern makes sense for Wheatley's straightforward message. Walker, Alice, "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Honoring the Creativity of the Black Woman," in Jackson State Review, Vol. To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. Wheatley's use of figurative language such as a metaphor and an allusion to spark an uproar and enlighten the reader of how Great Britain saw and treated America as if the young nation was below it. "On Being Brought from Africa to America 1-13. Whilst showing restraint and dignity, the speaker's message gets through plain and clear - black people are not evil and before God, all are welcome, none turned away. (Born Thelma Lucille Sayles) American poet, autobiographer, and author of children's books. Her religion has changed her life entirely and, clearly, she believes the same can happen for anyone else. 'On Being Brought from Africa to America' is a poem by Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-84), who was the first African-American woman to publish a book of poetry: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral appeared in 1773 when she was probably still in her early twenties. Wheatley was then abducted by slave traders and brought to America in 1761. One may wonder, then, why she would be glad to be in such a country that rejects her people. Wheatley's revision of this myth possibly emerges in part as a result of her indicative use of italics, which equates Christians, Negros, and Cain (Levernier, "Wheatley's"); it is even more likely that this revisionary sense emerges as a result of the positioning of the comma after the word Negros. Get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons. Unlike Wheatley, her success continues to increase, and she is one of the richest people in America. By Phillis Wheatley. It was dedicated to the Countess of Huntingdon, a known abolitionist, and it made Phillis a sensation all over Europe. This position called for a strategy by which she cleverly empowered herself with moral authority through irony, the critic claims in a Style article. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. No one is excluded from the Savior's tender mercynot the worst people whites can think ofnot Cain, not blacks. According to Robinson, the Gentleman's Magazine of London and the London Monthly Review disagreed on the quality of the poems but agreed on the ingeniousness of the author, pointing out the shame that she was a slave in a freedom-loving city like Boston. Baker offers readings of such authors as Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Ntozake Shange as examples of his theoretical framework, explaining that African American women's literature is concerned with a search for spiritual identity. Cain murdered his brother and was marked for the rest of time. In consideration of all her poems and letters, evidence is now available for her own antislavery views. answer choices. The first is "overtaken by darkness or night," and the second is "existing in a state of intellectual, moral, or social darkness." That same year, an elegy that she wrote upon the death of the Methodist preacher George Whitefield made her famous both in America and in England. The fur is highly valued). She wants them all to know that she was brought by mercy to America and to religion. Question 14. SOURCES During his teaching career, he won two Fulbright professorships. https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/being-brought-africa-america, "On Being Brought from Africa to America In the following essay on "On Being Brought from Africa to America," she focuses on Phillis Wheatley's self-styled personaand its relation to American history, as well as to popular perceptions of the poet herself. Read Wheatley's poems and letters and compare her concerns, in an essay, to those of other African American authors of any period. Many readers today are offended by this line as making Africans sound too dull or brainwashed by religion to realize the severity of their plight in America.
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