THE FOLLOWING POEMS were written originally for the Amusement of the Author, as they were the Products of her leisure Moments. She had no Intention ever to have published them; nor would they now have made their Appearance, but at the Importunity of many of her best, and most generous Friends; to whom she considers herself, as under the greatest Obligations. 1 As her Attempts in Poetry are now sent into the World, it is hoped the Critic will not severely censure their Defects; and we presume they have too much Merit to be cast aside with Contempt, as worthless and trifling Effusions. 2 As to the Disadvantages she has laboured under, with Regard to Learning, nothing needs to be offered, as her Master’s Letter in the following Page will sufficiently show the Difficulties in this Respect she had to encounter. 3 With all their Imperfections, the Poems are now humbly submitted to the Perusal of the Public. 4
The following is a Copy of a LETTER sent by the Author’s Master to the Publisher.
PHILLIS was brought from Africa to America, in the Year 1761, between Seven and Eight Years of Age. Without any Assistance from School Education, and by only what she was taught in the Family, she, in sixteen Months Time from her Arrival, attained the English Language, to which she was an utter Stranger before, to such a Degree, as to read any, the most difficult Parts of the Sacred Writings, to the great Astonishment of all who heard her. 5 As to her WRITING, her own Curiosity led her to it; and this she learnt in so short a Time, that in the Year 1765, she wrote a Letter to the Rev. Mr. OCCOM, the Indian Minister, while in England. 6 She has a great Inclination to learn the Latin Tongue, and has made some Progress in it. This Relation is given by her Master who bought her, and with whom she now lives.
JOHN WHEATLEY.
To the PUBLICK.
AS it has been repeatedly suggested to the Publisher, by Persons, who have seen the Manuscript, that Numbers would be ready to suspect they were not really the Writings of PHILLIS, he has procured the following Attestation, from the most respectable Characters in Boston, that none might have the least Ground for disputing their Original. 8 WE whose Names are under-written, do assure the World, that the POEMS specified in the following Page, 1 were (as we verily believe) written by PHILLIS, a young Negro Girl, who was but a few Years since, brought an uncultivated Barbarian from Africa, and has ever since been, and now is, under the Disadvantage of serving as a Slave in a Family in this Town. She has been examined by some of the best Judges, and is thought qualified to write them. 9 His Excellency THOMAS HUTCHINSON, Governor,
The Hon. ANDREW OLIVER, Lieutenant-Governor.
The Hon. Thomas Hubbard,
The Hon. John Erving,
The Hon. James Pitts,
The Hon. Harrison Gray,
The Hon. James Bowdoin,
John Hancock, Esq;
Joseph Green, Esq;
Richard Carey, Esq;
The Rev. Charles Chauncey, D.D.
The Rev. Mather Byles, D.D.
The Rev. Ed. Pemberton, D.D.
The Rev. Andrew Elliot, D.D.
The Rev. Samuel Cooper, D.D.
The Rev. Mr. Saumel Mather,
The Rev. Mr. John Moorhead,
The Hon. ANDREW OLIVER, Lieutenant-Governor.
The Hon. Thomas Hubbard,
The Hon. John Erving,
The Hon. James Pitts,
The Hon. Harrison Gray,
The Hon. James Bowdoin,
John Hancock, Esq;
Joseph Green, Esq;
Richard Carey, Esq;
The Rev. Charles Chauncey, D.D.
The Rev. Mather Byles, D.D.
The Rev. Ed. Pemberton, D.D.
The Rev. Andrew Elliot, D.D.
The Rev. Samuel Cooper, D.D.
The Rev. Mr. Saumel Mather,
The Rev. Mr. John Moorhead,
Mr. John Wheatley, her Master. 10 N. B. The original Attestation, signed by the above Gentlemen, may be seen by applying to Archibald Bell, Bookseller, No. 8, Aldgate-Street. 11 [i]
The present scholarship about Phillis Wheatley has been about the poetry not the life of the poet. Wheatley’s intellectual and aesthetic developments must be investigated in this thesis. She has been more easily recognized in England and Europe than in America. In the previous century, many scholar thought of Phyllis Wheatley’s poetry was indifferent to racial cause of slavery in the United States of America. However in the past few years, many scholars have found more poems, facts and letters about her life and relationships with those that were trying to abolish slavery in the 18th Century. Now in the last few years, historical and literary opinions are starting to change about Phillis Wheatley. According to scholar Sondra O’Neale, her essay on Wheatley’s experimentation with poetry portrayed the current “social, political and religious culture of eighteenth century, and to see her grasp of biblical myth, language and symbol permit her conducive vehicle to make subtle, yet effective statements against slavery.”[ii] O’Neale goes on about Phillis Wheatley, “ used her talents and her success” as a writer “ to wage subtle war against it”[iii]. Her methodology in the war against slavery, maintains O’Neale, “include biblical language and allusions” whose implications were to turn “from the practice of slavery” the “biblical knowledgeable” of her day.[iv]
Her superior African intellect- with talents that were subjugated by Enlightened intellectuals for “scientific commentary”, evangelical Christians to promote a Christian witness amongst blacks and others in the developing Abolitionist movement to prove Blacks were not merely deaf, dumb or blind animals will be discussed in this paper.
When she was only seven years old Wheatley was forcibly leaving her homeland in Gambia, Africa. She found herself to be up for auction to be sold into bondage in Boston, Massachusetts on July 11, 1761. By the age of eleven, she had acquired knowledge and skill of the English language.[v] Thus by the age of fourteen in 1767, Phillis Wheatley became a published, public poet, in the event of her poem, On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin, being published. Which would be her purpose for her entire life. Her education had advanced, and at this time she began to be tutored by the “Harvard graduate, minister of the Old South Church, one-time prolific poet, and encourager of young poets, Mather Byles. Wheatley soon became an excellent student of Latin, as her superb version of Ovid’s Niobe episode from Book VI of the Metamorphoses ably attest.[vi]
Now from the fatal place another flies,
Falls in her flight, and languishes, and dies.
Another on her sister drops in death;
A fifth in trembling terrors yields her breath;
While the sixth seeks some gloomy cave in vain,
Struck with the rest, and mingled with the slain.
One only daughter lives, and she the least;
The queen close clasp'd the daughter to her breast:
"Ye heav'nly pow'rs, ah spare me one," she cry'd,
"Ah! spare me one," the vocal hills reply'd:
In vain she begs, the Fates her suit deny,
In her embrace she sees her daughter die.
* "The queen of all her family bereft,
"Without or husband, son, or daughter left,
Falls in her flight, and languishes, and dies.
Another on her sister drops in death;
A fifth in trembling terrors yields her breath;
While the sixth seeks some gloomy cave in vain,
Struck with the rest, and mingled with the slain.
One only daughter lives, and she the least;
The queen close clasp'd the daughter to her breast:
"Ye heav'nly pow'rs, ah spare me one," she cry'd,
"Ah! spare me one," the vocal hills reply'd:
In vain she begs, the Fates her suit deny,
In her embrace she sees her daughter die.
* "The queen of all her family bereft,
"Without or husband, son, or daughter left,
Wheatley evidently has acquired the language skills, as it may be read here, for its proper classical content. This excerpt from the poem depicts Noibe experiencing the lost of her children. . Perhaps Wheatley depiction of Ovid’s very popular play, Metamorphoses, may portray an account of Wheatley’s life in Gambia with her family. In her correspondence with her friend, Obour Tanner, can anyone find any kind of manuscript memories of her home in Africa? Under further view of this poem, according to scholar Sondra O’Neale, Wheatley is constrained to the subject’s proper authentication of Ovid’s vision; furthermore, in language and symbol, Wheatley used these constraints to conduct a subtle statement against slavery. She eloquently portrays the African queen clasping the hand of her daughter. This allusion moves the reader to sense her touch in their hands. You can feel the embrace, and then her daughter dies.
According to scholar, Carole Chandler Waldrup, “Susannah Wheatley was impressed by the young girl’s poetic ability. She assigned only light household work to Phillis and became an ardent promoter of the publication of her poems.”[vii] Despite her woeful drawbacks of her enslavement, she was able to meet different Enlightenment intellectuals that were friends or acquaintances to John and Susannah Wheatley. For example, Wheatley began a life long communication Mohegan Indian minister and graduate of Dartmouth College, Samson Occom. She would have the enormous pleasure of meeting her life-long friend, Obour Tanner on the slave ship that brought her to America. Wheatley would keep a very long correspondence between Obour Tanner and herself, as seen in a letter she wrote, “let us rejoice in the wonders of God’s infinite love in bringing us from a land semblant of darkness itself, and where the divine revelation (being obscur’d) is darkness. Here the knowledge of the true God and eternal life are made manifest; but there, profound ignorance overshadows the land”[viii] Thus Phyllis Wheatley urges her beloved friend and confident that the conduct of crude slaveholders, or the slave trade is wrong and un-Christ like behavior. Why did she write about this? According to Carole Chandler Waldrup, Phillis was in contact with Susannah Wheatley and her erudite, cultured, Christian residents of the Boston society, and it was foreseeable that she would accept Susannah Wheatley’s views and theology. Moreover, “it was to her credit that Phillis did not take advantage of her unique position, but rather regarded Wheatleys as true friends and benefactors. She did not become self-important because of her difference. Although she was invited to dine in homes of wealthy people, she learned to refuse to seat at the family table and to request that a sidetable be set up for her to dine apart”[ix] Thus she views it all together, and she consider her new friends embracing the Christian faith, which she learned from Susannah Wheatley, the end of slavery was to come.
In the following year, Wheatley would compose enough poems for the publication of a book. And by August 1771 she would be baptized minister and advisor, Samuel Cooper. Then by September 1773, she had a publisher from London, England to publish her book of poetry. The publisher was the Countess of Huntington, Selina Hastings. She and Wheatley would meet several dignitaries, including the Earl of Dartmouth. While in London, she had an informal reception with Benjamin Franklin, an avid spokesman for equal human rights under God-given natural laws. He wrote to his cousin about his meeting with Wheatley. “Upon your recommendation I went to see a Black poetess and offered her any services I could do for her”[1] When she returned back to Boston in 1773, Wheatley was to become public figure. According to Frank Shuffleton, “her connections with Countess Huntington were primarily defined by religious concerns, they never the less always seem to been, on Wheatley’s side at least, entangled in complex ways with discourses about slavery and freedom.”[x] The paradigm of the antislavery assessment allowed Wheatley’s writings to grow in more maturity throughout her artistic achievements. According to the critical literary opinion of Phillis Wheatley, many have reprimand her for insensitivity to her fellow slaves and racial issues; as a result, she developed a reputation for being comfortable with Colonial living. Recall, when she went to London for the publication of the book, it would be published at the height the antislavery debates in Boston. And her previous writings, she had written with classical political and theological themes. She maintained friendships with several prominent clergy members that knew of her slave owners. Phillis Wheatley, like so many other slaves and indentured servants that would listen to, patriotic reverend George Whitefield, as he preach out in the streets of Boston. One of her revered published poems was the Elegy for the Death of George Whitefield. She may have sat down at the church and listened to his words of divine illumination that God’s children are created equal. He ministered to her spiritual needs and many others.
But when Susannah Wheatley died suddenly, in 1774, Wheatley, as a slave, continued to live at the Wheatley mansion and write verse.[xi] According to Carole Chandler Waldrup, “Wheatley took the death of ‘beloved mistress’ very grievously. Wheatley said she felt ‘like one forsaken by her parent in desolate wilderness,’ and praised Mrs. Wheatley for ‘her uncommon tenderness for 13 years and unwearied diligence to instruct me in the principles of the true religion’. Surprisingly, Susannah Wheatley did have the opportunity to live long enough to view a copy of Phyllis’ book, Poems on Various Subject, Religious and Moral. [xii] But Wheatley maintained her attendance at Old South Church in Boston with the Wheatley family. According to Frank Shuffleton in a Wheatley’s letter to Samson Occum, she hailed the glorious privilege of “civil and religious Liberty… there is no enjoyment of one without the other.”[xiii] By the year 1778, Phillis Wheatley had made her departure from the Wheatleys in British occupied Boston. Upon invitation, she visited future American President, George Washington upon his stay at Cambridge in 1776. And in 1778, Phillis Wheatley would marry John Peters, a free black man. After becoming a wife and mother, thus Phillis Wheatley had no acceptance from publishers of her poetry. It presumed that the British occupation prevented the occurrence. But many of her friends did not care for her choice in a husband. According to scholar Carole Chandler Waldrup, “they described him as a shopkeeper, ‘who wore a wig, carried a cane, and felt himself superior to all kinds of labor.’ But John Peters abandoned her with their third child on the way. She found work as a maid in a boarding house, and in few months later, in 1784, three poems were published… It was published under her married name”[xiv]
Now in the last few years, historical and literary opinions are starting to change about Phillis Wheatley. According to scholar Sondra O’Neale’s essay on Wheatley, her experimentation with poetry portrayed the current “social, political and religious culture of eighteenth century, and to see her grasp of biblical myth, language and symbol permit her conducive vehicle to make subtle, yet effective statements against slavery” (145). O’Neale goes on about Phillis Wheatley, “ used her talents and her success” as a writer “ to wage subtle war against it”(157). Her methodology in the war against slavery, maintains O’Neale, “include biblical language and allusions” whose implications were to turn “from the practice of slavery” the “biblical knowledgeable” of her day (157).[xv]
[i] Wheatley, Phillis. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. London : A,Bell, 1773 ; Bartleby.com, 2010. http://www.bartleby.com/150/100.html. 5/05/2011
[ii] O’Neale, Sondra. 2001. A Slave's Subtle War: Phillis Wheatley's Use of Biblical Myth and Symbol. Source: Early American Literature, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Fall, 1986), p. 145
Published by: University of North Carolina Press Stable
[iii] Ibid. page 157.
[iv] Ibid. Page159.
[v] The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. 1997. Page 770.
[vi] The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. 1997. Page 770.
[vii] Waldrup, Carole Chandler. 1999. More Colonial Women: 25 Pioneers of Early America. Page 81.
[viii] Wheatley. Poems and Letters. Page 23-4.
[ix] Waldrup, Carole Chandler. 1999. More Colonial Women: 25 Pioneers of Early America. Page 81.
[x] Carretta and Gould. Genuis in Bondage. Excerpts: Shuffleton, Frank. “On Her Own Footing”. 2001. 176-78.
[xi] Oxford Companion to African Literture. 197. Page 771.
[xii] Waldrup, Carole Chandler. More Colonial Women: 25 Pioneers of Early America. Page 84.
[xiii] Shuffleton, Frank. “On Her Own Footing”. 2001. Page 181.
[xiv] Waldrup, Carole Chandler. More Colonial Women: 25 Pioneers of Early America. Pgs. 85-86.
[xv] O’Neale, Sondra. A Slave's Subtle War: Phillis Wheatley's Use of Biblical Myth and Symbol. Source: Early American Literature, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Fall, 1986), pp. 144-165
Published by: University of North Carolina Press Stable
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