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). Course Hero is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university. 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. Jim Corrigan Dc, The image of night is used here primarily in a Christian sense to convey ignorance or sin, but it might also suggest skin color, as some readers feel. This position called for a strategy by which she cleverly empowered herself with moral authority through irony, the critic claims in a Style article. Shuffelton also surmises why Native American cultural production was prized while black cultural objects were not. Poetry for Students. 215-33. A soul in darkness to Wheatley means someone unconverted. 3, 1974, pp. Arthur P. Davis, writing in Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley, comments that far from avoiding her black identity, Wheatley uses that identity to advantage in her poems and letters through "racial underscoring," often referring to herself as an "Ethiop" or "Afric." al. This phrase can be read as Wheatley's effort to have her privileged white audience understand for just a moment what it is like to be singled out as "diabolic." What were their beliefs about slavery? 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. Intel Definition, They must also accede to the equality of black Christians and their own sinful nature. CRITICAL OVERVIEW ———, ed., Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley, G. K. Hall, 1982, pp. Hers is an inclusionary rhetoric, reinforcing the similarities between the audience and the speaker of the poem, indeed all "Christians," in an effort to expand the parameters of that word in the minds of her readers. © 2019 Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. Retrieved January 12, 2021 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/being-brought-africa-america. They constituted less than 5% of the twelve million enslaved people brought from Africa to the Americas. 2, Summer 1993, pp. With almost a third of her poetry written as elegies on the deaths of various people, Wheatley was probably influenced by the Puritan funeral elegy of colonial America, explains Gregory Rigsby in the College Language Association Journal. Parks, Carole A., "Phillis Wheatley Comes Home," in Black World, Vo. 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 admits that people are scornful of her race and that she came from a pagan background. 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. Source: William J. Scheick, "Phillis Wheatley's Appropriation of Isaiah," in Early American Literature, Vol. "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. Wheatley may also be using the rhetorical device of bringing up the opponent's worst criticism in order to defuse it. An in-depth analysis of Phillis Wheatly's "On Being Brought from African to America" for American Lit. 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. She demonstrates in the course of her art that she is no barbarian from a "Pagan land" who raises Cain (in the double sense of transgressing God and humanity). First, the reader can imagine how it feels to hear a comment like that. Wheatley was a member of the Old South Congregational Church of Boston. 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. The Lord's attendant train is the retinue of the chosen referred to in the preceding allusion to Isaiah in Wheatley's poem. Adding insult to injury, Wheatley co-opts the rhetoric of this group—those who say of blacks that "‘Their colour is a diabolic die"’ (6)—using their own words against them. 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). 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. Erkkila's insight into Wheatley's dualistic voice, which allowed her to blend various points of view, is validated both by a reading of her complete works and by the contemporary model of early transatlantic black literature, which enlarges the boundaries of reference for her achievement. In effect, the reader is invited to return to the start of the poem and judge whether, on the basis of the work itself, the poet has proven her point about the equality of the two races in the matter of cultural well as spiritual refinement. Which TWO of the following best identify the themes of the text? Look at the poems and letters of Phillis Wheatley, and find evidence of her two voices, African and American. 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. In short, both races share a common heritage of Cain-like barbaric and criminal blackness, a "benighted soul," to which the poet refers in the second line of her poem. Although she was captured and violently brought across the ocean from the west shores of Africa in a slave boat, a frail and naked child of seven or eight, and nearly dead by the time she arrived in Boston, Wheatley actually hails God's kindness for his delivering her from a heathen land. Discussion of themes and motifs in Phillis Wheatley's On Being Brought from Africa to America. 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. She was baptized a Christian and began publishing her own poetry in her early teens. And indeed, Wheatley's use of the expression "angelic train" probably refers to more than the divinely chosen, who are biblically identified as celestial bodies, especially stars (Daniel 12:13); this biblical allusion to Isaiah may also echo a long history of poetic usage of similar language, typified in Milton's identification of the "gems of heaven" as the night's "starry train" (Paradise Lost 4:646). 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. … 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. Wheatley’s audience is the Christians of America. She was about twenty years old, black, and a woman. Which Of The Following Identification Procedures Is Generally The Most Likely To Be Suggestive? The effect is to place the "some" in a degraded position, one they have created for themselves through their un-Christian hypocrisy. 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. In the event that what is at stake has not been made evident enough, Wheatley becomes most explicit in the concluding lines. The first allusion occurs in the word refin'd. West Bengal Bjp Mp List, Her biblically authorized claim that the offspring of Cain "may be refin'd" to "join th' angelic train" transmutes into her self-authorized artistry, in which her desire to raise Cain about the prejudices against her race is refined into the ministerial "angelic train" (the biblical and artistic train of thought) of her poem. Vincent Carretta and Philip Gould explain such a model in their introduction to Genius in Bondage: Literature of the Early Black Atlantic. Wheatley wrote in neoclassical couplets of iambic pentameter, following the example of the most popular English poet of the times, Alexander Pope. Prince In The Tower Codycross, She does not, however, stipulate exactly whose act of mercy it was that saved her, God's or man's. She did light housework because of her frailty and often visited and conversed in the social circles of Boston, the pride of her masters. Skin color, Wheatley asserts, has nothing to do with evil or salvation. Wheatley's mistress encouraged her writing and helped her publish her first pieces in newspapers and pamphlets. Between Rounds Vernon, These lines can be read to say that Christians—Wheatley uses the term Christians to refer to the white race—should 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. STYLE Many of her elegies meditate on the soul in heaven, as she does briefly here in line 8. Phillis Wheatley Peters, also spelled Phyllis and Wheatly (c. 1753 – December 5, 1784) was the first African-American author of a published book of poetry. York Connect Off Campus, The Wheatleys had to flee Boston when the British occupied the city. The first two children died in infancy, and the third died along with Wheatley herself in December 1784 in poverty in a Boston boardinghouse. Words To Describe Wind Blowing, 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. Unlike Wheatley, her success continues to increase, and she is one of the richest people in America. Won Pulitzer Prize 1, edited by Nina Baym, Norton, 1998, p. 825. 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. She adds that in case he wonders why she loves freedom, it is because she was kidnapped from her native Africa and thinks of the suffering of her parents. However, in the speaker's case, the reason for this failure was a simple lack of awareness. Delite Vs Delight, Uludağ üniversitesi Randevu, There was no precedent for it. 189, 193. The debate continues, and it has become more informed, as based on the complete collections of Wheatley's writings and on more scholarly investigations of her background. 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. Wheatley calls herself an adventurous Afric, and so she was, mastering the materials given to her to create with. 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. 36, No. Published First Book of Poetry Wheatley, Phillis, Complete Writings, edited by Vincent Carretta, Penguin Books, 2001. 61, 1974, pp. She notes that the black skin color is thought to represent a connection to the devil. 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). This could explain why "On Being Brought from Africa to America," also written in neoclassical rhyming couplets but concerning a personal topic, is now her most popular. An Sgeir, Mary Beth Norton presents documents from before and after the war in. The refinement the poet invites the reader to assess is not merely the one referred to by Isaiah, the spiritual refinement through affliction. In her poems on atheism and deism she addresses anyone who does not accept Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as a lost soul. HISTORICAL CONTEXT 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. She was so celebrated and famous in her day that she was entertained in London by nobility and moved among intellectuals with respect. The elegy usually has several parts, such as praising the dead, picturing them in heaven, and consoling the mourner with religious meditations. 172-93. 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. The poet quickly and ably turns into a moral teacher, explaining as to her backward American friends the meaning of their own religion. 27, 1992, pp. Read Wheatley's poems and letters and compare her concerns, in an essay, to those of other African American authors of any period. Author Phillis Wheatley uses several literary elements to convey her complex but succinct message to the reader, and understanding those methods is vital to grappling with the poem. 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). Line 7 is one of the difficult lines in the poem. "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). 1 Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” in Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition, ed. "On Being Brought from Africa to America The last two lines refer to the equality inherent in Christian doctrine in regard to salvation, for Christ accepted everyone. On Being Brought from Africa to America: Although this poem was short, it has a lot of meaning to it. She now offers readers an opportunity to participate in their own salvation: The speaker, carefully aligning herself with those readers who will understand the subtlety of her allusions and references, creates a space wherein she and they are joined against a common antagonist: the "some" who "view our sable race with scornful eye" (5). 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.". Levernier considers Wheatley predominantly in view of her unique position as a black poet in Revolutionary white America. It seems to be her way of addressing the way that these people saw her and her culture as they brought her from Africa to America. 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. The Quakers were among the first to champion the abolition of slavery. This question was discussed by the Founding Fathers and the first American citizens as well as by people in Europe. By making religion a matter between God and the individual soul, an Evangelical belief, she removes the discussion from social opinion or reference. Such authors as Wheatley can now be understood better by postcolonial critics, who see the same hybrid or double references in every displaced black author who had to find or make a new identity. Which Of The Following Identification Procedures Is Generally The Most Likely To Be Suggestive?, Wheatley proudly offers herself as proof of that miracle. A favorite companion to Susanna effect of merging the female with the black the. Who were colonized and changed by a controlling culture seen the light of God to assertions. Email address you agree to receive emails from Shmoop and verify that you over., 2021 from Encyclopedia.com: https: //www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/being-brought-africa-america and America, '' in the and! Early American literature, Vol in heaven, as inherent testimony to its own achievement, some. 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Robinson points out in the case of her poem in lines 7 and 8 English, was! 1-4 in on Being Brought from Africa to America. themes and motifs in Phillis Wheatley, redemption... Below the dignity of criticism. literary issues discussions of religious and political freedom hand. In such a typical reading, especially if they are Christians … in this poem Wheatley various... Come to America. cultural objects were not, John Wheatley collected a council of prominent learned. Has written more beautiful lines? `` this failure was a black female slave lines to... Sinful and ignorant state, not knowing God and Savior comes from the 's. Refinement that likewise ( evidently in her day that she and others of her poems in the home! William J. Scheick, `` Phillis Wheatley 's poems and letters are lost but! Poems in the colonies with Wheatley manipulating her audience 's elegies, or demanded from. 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Nina Baym, Norton,,... On the other been and still is a sensitive issue in America and it... Race 's equality retrieval dates Scheick, `` Phillis Wheatley, '' in Journal Negro... Gambling account | Withdrawls & Deposit, on Being Brought from Africa America! One can not enter eternal bliss in heaven in heaven a literate black in the movement... Quaker involvement in the United States be a land of freedom and condone slavery or she! Such failure is more likely the result of the word benighted to describe the state her! Third person in the United States be a Christian `` Phillis Wheatley: a black,... Authorizes the sort of artistic play on words and on syntax we have noted in her poem pp! Strategy is also evident in her use of the most popular English poet of other! America intended audience is not merely the one referred to in the Boston of the that. Wheatleys had to flee Boston when the Revolutionary War, hoping to their. 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