Phillis Wheatley - Resumen American Literature To 1900 PDF

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critical commentary on his life, works and excerpt....

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PHILLIS WHEATLEY (c. 1753-1784) WORKS: Poems: “On Being Brought from Africa to America” (1768) /“To the university of Cambridge, in New England” (1767) /”To His Excellency General Washington” (1775). GENRE: Poetry. Elegy (with exhortation to the living), Political poetry (“To His Excellency General Washington.” PERIOD: Neoclassicism: the eighteenth-century revival of the attitudes and modes of expression typical of classicism, in reaction against the Renaissance. HISTORICAL CONTEXT: Enlightenment, age of Reason American Revolution (1754-1788). BELIEFS: Deeply Christian. Sin was worse than slavery. Freedom (artistic, political, spiritual and personal). MORAL: Conversion to Christianity means: assimilation into dominant culture, access to theological claims, and the hope of eternal salvation. Criticises Christian prejudice against blacks and Christian hypocrisy INFLUENCES: Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Terence and other classics and by the poets: John Milton (blank verse), Alexander Pope (heroic couplets) and Thomas Gray THEMES: Religious, moral. Public events, nature, imagination, memory. Freedom (political, artistic, spiritual), black’s freedom from slavery AUTHOBIOGRAPHICAL ELEMENTS: References about her native land and her conversion to Christianity. PURPOSE: Sensitize whites towards abolishing slavery. She states that is not Christian like to treat human beings in such a terrible way. She writes poetry to vindicate the black’s natural right to freedom (political, artistic and spiritual) AUDIENCE: White audience: abolitionists and slavery supporters. AMBIVALENCE (conflicting feelings) and AMBIGUITY (double meanings): Pleased to have been brought to America (because she was saved from Paganism), but she condemns slavery. Gives advice to university students (superiority). Pride in America as emerging Nation but ashamed of its slavery. Ambiguity: different readings EJ: TO GW, nationalistic poetry or condemnation of slavery. STYLE: Neoclassical English style (Fusion of pagan/Christian traditions). Inflated ornamentation. Accusatory tone. SELF-REPRESENTATION: Former slave. Educated by her family. RHETORICAL DEVICES: neoclassical style using invocation, hyperbole, inflated ornamentation and an overemphasis on personification. Irony. Classical allusions. Conventional and lexicalized metaphors: “realms of night,” “veil of night” or “golden hair” (all from “To His Excellency General Washington,” clearly an imitative poem).  There are, however, other examples that attest to the originality of her imagination: SKIN COLOR IS A DYE, CHRISTIANIZED SLAVES ARE REFINED CANE SUGAR (“On Being Brought from Africa to America”), SIN IS A POISONOUS SNAKE IN ITS EGG, PROMISING STUDENTS ARE BLOOMING PLANTS (“To the University of Cambridge, in New England”).  Heroic couplets and blank verse (To the university…)  Masters rhetoric devices: irony, puns, ambiguity, hyperbole, invocation, and overemphasis on personification…  Biblical allusions

 Pun (paronomasia): Cain, “cane”; die, dye  Identification: Negroes = Jews (same suffering)  Visual image (“serpent egg” = sin prevented from developing) The author and her work -Phillis Wheatley was born in Senegal or Gambia, in West Africa. Kidnapped at 7-8 years old. She was brought but a wealthy Christian merchant and was assigned only very light housekeeping tasks on account of her frail health. Phillis was raised almost as a member of the family along with the Wheatley’s eighteen-year-old twin children, Nathaniel and Mary (received a better education than many white girls). In 1771 she became a baptized member of the “Old South Congregational Church,” which the pious Wheatleys attended, and became well acquainted with the Bible. In addition to English, she learned Latin and Greek, and was able to read Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Terence and other classics. She also studied theology, philosophy, astronomy, geography and history. Under the influence of the Bible, the classics, and English writers such as John Milton, Alexander Pope and Thomas Gray, she began writing poetry. First published poem, “On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin” (a religious piece about two gentleman who narrowly escaped drowning), appeared in a Rhode Island newspaper in 1767, when she was about fourteen years old. The first poem she published in Boston was an elegy on the death of the evangelical preacher George Whitefield. In 1772 John Wheatley tried to help her publish a thirty-poem book in Boston, but could not find enough subscribers or publishers. In order to prove that she was the actual author, she had to endure a face-to-face examination by a committee of eighteen dignitaries from New England. In 1773 Nathaniel Wheatley took Phillis to London in the family-owned ship for health reasons and also to seek support for her book, still in manuscript form. Before her departure, she wrote “Farewell to America,” anticipating her sea journey, her arrival in England and her first view of London. It was considered as a sentimental piece, lamenting her parting from Susanna Wheatley, but this poem was also her most direct expression of resistance to enslavement -From June 17 to July 26, 1773, Phillis Wheatley stayed in England, where she prepared her book for the press and met a number of notables such as the Earl of Dartmouth, Benjamin Franklin, and the Lord Mayor of London. During her stay in England, the poet received a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost, Smollett’s translation of Don Quixote, and she purchased a set of Alexander Pope’s complete Works with the five guineas which the Earl of Dartmouth had presented to her. Just after her own volume of poetry was published, she returned to Boston in order to nurse Susanna Wheatley, who was very ill. Her master granted Phillis Wheatley freedom in 1773. Following the death of her mistress, the poet rejected the advice to return to Africa because she felt that she would have looked “like a Barbarian” to the African “Natives,” “being” an utter stranger to the language. After her manumission (release from slavery) she was allowed to remain in the house until Mr. Wheatley’s death in 1778. Soon after that, she married John Peters, a free black man, and had three children, all of whom died in infancy. She tried to have a second volume of new poems and letters published by subscription in Boston but failed to gather enough sponsors. Since her husband was in debt, she worked as an instructor in a school and as a servant to support her

family. Her last years marred by ill health and financial difficulties. She died in complete poverty around the age of thirty-one.

Work Wheatley’s Poetry on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was the first collection of poems published in English by a black person. They thirty-nine poems which appeared in the London volume were not exactly the same ones that had been proposed for the failed Boston edition, because her American patriotic poems had to be left out, probably to avoid offending her British readers. Apart from that, two religious poems (“To the Deist” and “To the Atheist”) were omitted, others were altered, and some new ones were added. In the “Preface,” the collection was presented as the work of a “native of Africa” whose genius had impressed the many members of the English nobility and gentry she had met in London. In an additional note, Archibald Bell offered to show the original attestation of Phillis Wheatley’s authorship. The mere fact that a black female slave wrote poetry at all attracted so much attention in her time, that neither the contents nor the quality of her poems drew a great deal of interest or were really discussed. Abolitionists used Wheatley’s case as a challenge to that assumption of African inferiority based on a supposed lack of artistic ability. Many years after the abolition of slavery, criticism continued to focus on the poet while virtually ignoring her poetry. Much of our contemporary scholarship still tends to concentrate on the historical significance of her work rather than on the intrinsic merits of her verse. Nevertheless, nowadays some research is being devoted to analysing her poems and evaluating them as works of art. Poems was a slim volume written in a style much that of Alexander Pope. She followed the neoclassical conventions of dominant English verse in the 18th century: the use of invocation, hyperbole, inflated ornamentation, and an overemphasis on personification. Her fusion of pagan and Christian traditions is characteristic of English neoclassical literature. She dealt with religious and moral themes. The elegy was her most recurrent poetic form, and in it she concentrated more on exhortation to the living than portraiture of the deceased. She also celebrated public events and wrote poems about nature, imagination and memory. Freedom was a repeated theme throughout her work:  Political freedom: supporting independence from Britain through the American Revolution,  Artistic freedom: using poetry to escape from an unsatisfactory material world to a world of imagination,  Spiritual freedom through religion and ultimately death: her elegies showing how she did not consider death as destruction, but as a release from suffering in order to enjoy the rewards of an afterlife in a heavenly world. Although Wheatley considered sin a much worse captivity than enslavement, she did not cease to voice her vindication of the black’s natural right to freedom from slavery. Four months before her own manumission (release from slavery), she insists that love of freedom is a principle implanted by God. There is a mixture of resignation and hope in the phrase that no Christian would have dared to contradict: “God grants Deliverance in his own manumission way and Time.”

IMPORTANT: In spite of having been well treated by her masters, who were always supporting and encouraging her to write and to publish, she would try to express her desire to break her bondage in indirect ways, following the example of her admired satirical playwright Terence, taken to Rome as a slave but able to liberate his bonds by the power of his pen. Her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, were the first collection of poems published in English by a black person. Used by abolitionists to challenge the assumption of African inferiority. The volume was written in a neoclassical style using invocation, hyperbole, inflated ornamentation and an overemphasis on personification. Besides, her poems tend to link political to artistic freedom, and physical to spiritual deliverance as well. Actually, for her, sin is a much worse bondage than enslavement. Pay attention to the double meanings present in the poem, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” where black colour is associated with sin (blackness of evil), and Cain with cane (refined sugar cane), thus associating the wickedness of slavery with crime and sin. Since slavery cannot be attacked directly, for it was legal, she chooses to focus upon racism and white superiority as well as the contradiction between their Christian beliefs and unchristian actions. For Christians all human should be equal, brothers and sisters within the Christian family. COMPARE AND CONTRAST EQUIANO WITH WHEATLEY: When compared with Equiano, Wheatley’s critiques are less explicit, more indirect. Instead of ‘African’ she prefers to use ‘Ethiop’ which implies a more positive view of her race. When she points at the contradictions between political freedom represented by George Washington and the existence and maintenance of slavery. Instead of Equiano’s humour we find rhetorical irony and shifts in tone. She also uses more classical allusions than him. “On Being Brought from Africa to America” (1768 and revised in 1773) 1. 'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, 2. Taught my benighted soul to understand 3. That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too: 4. Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. 5. Some view our sable race with scornful eye, 6. "Their colour is a diabolic die." 7. Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain, 8. May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.  

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Line 2. Benighted: ignorant. Literary “be-night-ed” means overtaken by night, that is, in a state of darkness. Line 3. The term Saviour can be interpreted both as “delivered from sin” and in conjunction with God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt. Line 4. Redemption may refer both to religious salvation and redemption from slavery. Line 5. Sable: black; the colour of a sable, or marten. In Wheatley’s time, “sable race” was considered a more elegant way to refer to black people than the term “Negroes,” used in line 7. Line 6. Die: dye, colour. Line 7. Cain slew his brother Abel and was marked by God so that nobody would kill him. In the past, this mark has sometimes been taken to be the origin of dark-skinned people.

 Line 8. Refined: purified. Angelic train: procession of angels. This short poem, probably written in 1768 and revised for the London volume of 1773, has been cited as an instance of Wheatley’s denigration of her native African homeland and of her supposed full acceptance of dominant discourses in colonial Boston. However, readers will perceive how Wheatley used certain stylistic strategies to undermine such difference in tone and content between the first four lines and the second half of the poem:   Central idea: There is always hope of redemption for pagans.  First quatrain: the poet expresses her gratitude for being introduced to Christianity and assumes a non-threatening tone by using the confessional voice that would attract her genteel audience. It is clear that the poet is neither disapproving Africa because of its black population nor justifying the enslavement of Africans, but basically criticizing the paganism of her homeland.   Second quatrain: the author adopts an accusatory tone that abruptly reserves the movement of the poem. She makes a direct challenge to racial prejudice through an allusion to injustice in line 5, which is morally censorious of those who show contempt for blacks because of the colour of their skins. The term “scornful” is used here to qualify those who despise blacks, just as “scorn” is the main characteristic ascribed to those who crucified Jesus in the poem “To the University of Cambridge, in New England.” Line 6 appears in quotes, recorded as an actual comment made by those who thought that black was the colour of the devil. Line 7 begins with an imperative, “Remember,” which resounds as an unmitigated command intended to reproach the so-called Christians who have been quoted in the previous line. The last two lines contain a radical refutation of some 18th-century racist notions according to which the souls of black people were everlastingly doomed. The poet denies any connection between spiritual darkness and skin colour. Wheatley counters the notion that black people are damned when she firmly asserts that they may expect to go to heaven and join the ranks of the purified because they belong to the same Christian community as her white audience. By italicizing the terms Christians, Negroes and Cain, the poet links them rhetorically so as to tell her readers that both Christians and Negroes, like Cain, are the descendants of Adam and Eve, and not only inheritors of the original sin, but also equally able to be redeemed or saved by God. There is a further subversive message in the use of the word “refin’d” because it evokes God’s address to the people of Israel in the words of the prophet. The biblical allusion reinforces Wheatley’s identification of “Negroes” with Jews, emphasizes their common suffering under bondage, and strengthens their hope. This last past of the poem also contains a pun on the name of “Cain,” pronounced like “cane,” both susceptible to be “refin’d” or purified, Cain by being turned into a saved soul, and cane by being transformed into sugar. This punning, together with the one on “die/dye” (line 6), emphasizes the extent of Wheatley’s accusation when we consider these word associations in their historical context. This eight-line poem is among the shortest Wheatley wrote. Like most of her other poems, it is written in heroic couplets (iambic pentameters, rhyming in pairs). Wheatley did not try to be original, but made efforts to master her models (Alexander Pope’s heroic couplets).

The poem is written in heroic couplets (iambic pentameters which rhyme on consecutive lines). There is a change in tone: In the first quatrain, the poet expresses her gratitude for being introduced to Christianity, and denies any connection between spiritual darkness and skin colour. The tone is of gratitude. Salvation can be universal. In the second quatrain Wheatley makes a direct challenge to racial prejudice trough an allusion to injustice. The tone is accusatory. She confronts racism, presents black people on the path of spiritual salvation and asserts the supreme importance of religion over white racial superiority). “On Being Brought from Africa to America” as an elaboration on the theme of the “fortunate fall,” that is, the belief that enslavement was an introduction to Christianity and, consequently, to eternal salvation. In this poem Phillis Wheatley is thankful for being brought to America, for being able to become a Christian, something that couldn’t have happened in her homeland Africa. Paradoxically, it can be said that thanks to being a slave and suffering its consequences in life, she will enjoy eternal redemption. The reading of the first half of the poem doesn’t provide a satisfactory interpretation of the whole poem because Wheatley seems to be denigrating Africa and accepting the dominance in colonial Boston. However, deploring the African paganism, neither disparaging Africa because of its black population nor justifying the enslavement of Africans. This is perhaps the most controversial of Wheatley’s poems. Wheatley claims that every Christian person in the world, no matter the country, continent, race, culture, and the colour of the skin, as long as respects God and follows Him, will be saved and will enjoy the eternal life. Although Wheatley writes both Christians and Negroes, as if the latter were not considered Christians, in the next line she claims all of them will be refined; this means purified and joined the angelical train. So, she makes perfectly clear that the important thing to be saved is to believe in God, not taking part of paganism, like in her African homeland. “To the University of Cambridge, in New England” (1767- published in 1773) 1. While an intrinsic ardor prompts to write, 2. The muses promise to assist my pen; 3. 'Twas not long since I left my native shore 4. The land of errors, and Egyptian gloom: 5. Father of mercy, 'twas thy gracious hand 6. Brought me in safety from those dark abodes. 7. Students, to you 'tis giv'n to scan the heights 8. Above, to traverse the ethereal space, 9. And mark the systems of revolving worlds. 10. Still more, ye sons of science ye receive 11. The blissful news by messengers from heav'n, 12. How Jesus' blood for your redemption flows. 13. See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross; 14. Immense compassion in his bosom glows; 15. He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn: 16. What matchless mercy in the Son of God! 17. When the whole human race by sin had fall'n, 18. He deign'd to die that they might rise again, 19. And share with him in the sublimest skies,

20. Life without death, and glory without end. 21. Improve your privileges while they stay, 22. Ye pupils, and each hour redeem, that bears 23. Or good or bad report of you to heav'n. 24. Let sin, that baneful evil to the soul, 25. By you be shun'd, nor once remit your guard; 26. Suppress the deadly serpent in its egg. 27. Ye blooming plants of human race divine, 28. An Ethiop tells you 'tis your greatest foe; 29. Its transient sweetness turns to endless pain, 30. And in immense perdition sinks the soul. Line 1. Intrinsic ardor: inner passion  Line 4. Egyptian gloom: “And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days” (Exodus 10:22).  Line 5. Father of Mercy: God.  Line 6. Abodes: home, place where one lives.  Line 7. Scan: study, examine.  Line 15. Revilers: those who rail, or assail with abusive language.  Lin...