HOW DO YOU READ PHILLIS WHEATLEY?: IMPLICATIONS FOR PEDAGOGY
…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.
– John Wheatley, Boston, Nov. 14, 1772.
How do you read Phillis Wheatley? Are you one of those who do not hesitate to
dismiss her as a “derivative” or “imitator” of Alexander Pope and the neoclassical
tradition? Do you see her as not being race conscious in her works? Or do you regard her
poetry as the product of “a white mind” because it does not vehemently condemn
slavery? If you are, then, this paper challenges you to reconsider your reading habits and
be “refin’d.” If you are not, then, let us join the poet on her “angelic train” to explore the
moral and religious subjects that she addresses.
You can see what I have begun doing already. I contend that Phillis Wheatley is a
complex writer who wrote for two different types of audiences – the immediate (local)
and narrow readership as well as the remote and broad category of readers. Certain
reactions to her works give us the dichotomy. The local audience is made up of those
who do a superficial reading of her poetry, paying attention to only the surface meaning
of her words and allusions, and conclude that she is the product of a “white mind” while
the second category goes beyond the superficial to see hidden truths that make them
establish that she is a “natural genius.” Where do you belong?
My paper examines the rhetorical project of Phillis Wheatley, using the title of her
1773 published works (Poems on Various Subjects Moral and Religious) as the
framework. The operative words for the discussion are “various subjects,” “moral,” and
religious. I argue that Phillis Wheatley’s poetry is an amalgam of everything that debunks
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her critics’ calumny that she is nothing but an imitator of the neoclassical poetic tradition
introduced by Pope but which they either fail or refuse to appreciate.
My discussion will first involve an exploratory survey of her poetry, beginning
with an identification of what types of poems she wrote, and why she chose those genres,
and how she interrogated the themes. More essentially, I will base my argument on the
rhetorical project that drove her poetry, using evidence from her own works, with the
view to establishing that Phillis Wheatley was no imitator of anybody’s dispensation or
works. I opine that she is not being given due recognition as the precursor of the
(African) American literary tradition of elegiac poetry. Eventually, I will propose
measures for the teaching of her works that should help us counteract the denigration by
her critics.
In this effort, my intention is to draw attention to what can be done to promote a
better teaching and learning of Phillis than has been the case hitherto. It will be my
contribution towards the efforts at immortalizing Phillis Wheatley as the precursor of the
literary culture that derives its strength from the combined use of genres to accomplish
the five aesthetic categories – the imagination, the sublime, the picturesque, the beautiful,
and taste. I begin the discussion with the claims and counter claims of scholars.
Though Vernon Loggins labels Phillis wrongly as an “occasional” poet, he gives
us a clear picture about the extent of her poetry. The scope of my paper demands that I
mention the various works that Phillis wrote so that we could place an assessment of her
in the proper context. According to Loggins, 18 out of Phillis’ 42 poems are elegies
(consolatory poems at the request of friends; five of them are on Ministers of the
Christian religion; two on the wives of a Lt.-Governor and a celebrated physician; the rest
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are on unknown persons, including a number of children who died in infancy). He reveals
that six of Phillis’ poems were inspired by public events of importance (such as the repeal
of the Stamp Act, appointment of George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the
Revolutionary forces, betrayal of General Lee into the hands of the British, and the return
of peace at the close of the Revolution). A number of her poems are also on minor
happenings – voyage of a friend to England, and the providential escape of an
acquaintance from a hurricane at sea.
Phillis used paraphrases too, versifying selections from the Bible (a custom in the
New England, begun in the early days when the Bay Psalm Book was compiled). In all,
she versified eight selections, including the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, and the passage in First
Samuel which describes David’s fight with Goliath. She also adapts a portion of the sixth
book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which tells of Niobe’s distress for her children.
Furthermore, Phillis wrote poems on abstractions (“On Imagination,” “On
Virtue,” “On Recollection,” and “Thoughts on the Works of providence,” among others.)
She also wrote companion hymns (“An Hymn to the Morning” and “An Hymn to the
Evening,”) She wrote prose (letters) too. The complexity of her literary repertoire
emerges and we should begin to relate to it with the appropriate disposition.
Wide-ranging as Phillis’ writings were, they should be expected to cover several
themes at both the superficial and profound levels. It is not surprising that on the surface,
the themes relate to Christian piety, morality, virtue, death, praise of classical heroes, and
a celebration of abstractions. A deep reading of her works will, however, reveal their
anti-slavery sentiments and her protest against the oppression of her race. She protests,
stresses vengeance, and uses her powerful imagery to draw attention to her search for
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power, order, and progress. The recurrence of the sun imagery, train, painting, and
refinement speaks volumes about the hidden agenda in her works, which will take more
than a superficial reading to unravel.
Phillis Wheatley has never ceased to attract attention ever since she shot herself
into the limelight with the release of her elegy on the death of the Reverend George
Whitefield in 1770, through Thomas Jefferson’s outright condemnation of her in his 1782
Notes on the State of Virginia, and through the outbursts against her in the period of the
Harlem Renaissance to date by critics who read “race” and “social status” into her poetry
rather than examining her rhetorical project and complex strategies used to project her
views on moral and religious subjects. Though these critics’ views, to me, have become
hackneyed, they will serve some purposes of this paper if brought up for reference.
The driving force of this audience’s reading of Phillis comes from their ascription
of “race” and “social status” to her worth. The tone for my discussion of the import of
criticism of her work comes from two conflicting eighteenth century reviews that are
important only because they fall in the first category of superficial readers of Phillis. In
one breath, the first part of the review says that the poems “display no astonishing power
of genius” but have special merit because of their singular author. In the same breath, we
get “most [black] people have a turn for imitation, though they have little or none for
invention” (Black Literature Criticism, 1879; Poetry Criticism, 331).
Snatching at the slant of this criticism, M.A. Richmond blames Phillis’
“artificiality” on Pope’s neoclassicism. According to him, neoclassicism encased Phillis
Wheatley within the “tyranny of the couplet” and crushed her talent under “the heavy
burden of ornamental rhetoric,” adding that it taught her regularity. Other critics accuse
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Phillis of “artificiality” and “insincerity” in her poetry, saying that it was the result of the
practice in the eighteenth century. This criticism is at best wrongheaded, according to
available evidence on the relationship between “artificiality” and “neoclassicism” in the
eighteenth-century literary practice. Scruggs (1981) debunks any association of
“artificiality” to “neoclassicism,” in eighteenth century concept, saying that its use was
not pejorative, though it could be used as such. To him, “artificial” meant “artful,
contrived with skill” (Black Literature Criticism, 1890). He strongly maintains that
eighteenth-century poetry made a distinction between “artifice” and “artificiality” and not
between “sincerity” and “artificiality.” Thus, Phillis’ critics failed to recognize the
artifice of eighteenth century poetry and have not seen the competent craftsmanship of
her poems.
Saunders Redding also criticized Phillis in a scathing essay on her, saying that
though the Wheatleys had adopted her, she turned round to adopt their terrific New
England conscience. He contended that Phillis’ conception of the after-life was different
from that of most of the slaves as found expressed in songs and spirituals. I find
Redding’s accusations to be so instructive for an understanding of the mindset of the
first-level audience that I will bring up more of it to illustrate my claim that with such a
disposition, this audience (represented by the likes of Redding) has failed to do a deeper
reading of Phillis.
My stance is buttressed by evidence from these critics themselves. Their penchant
for belittling the potency of Phillis’ works leaves room for much to be desired. Let’s turn
to one clear evidence of such a wrongheaded criticism. Redding says that “the extent to
which she was attached spiritually and emotionally to the slave is even slighter than the
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extent she felt herself a Negro poet” (Black Literature Criticism, 1890). He goes on to
make the most outrageous point when he describes her as “chilly,” and that part of that
chill came from the influence of Pope on her.
Certainly, this viewpoint is poisonous and cannot stand the test of scrutiny. It
crumbles in the face of facts. The preponderance of feeling, movement, and action in
Phillis’ works is obviously antithetical to any attribution of “chill” to her. Her use of
powerful imagery and language to paint clear pictures in the reader’s mind about the
obnoxious goings-on and her persistent call for protest, revenge, and change denote a hotblooded feeling and not a numbing chill. Her words are like swords, cutting through the
mounds of butter. Through her manipulation of genres, she is able to protest strongly
against the hypocrisy and slavery of White America without being scathed. Much use of
the imperative and plosives creates tension in her works that runs counter to the chill that
Redding attributes to her.
More evidence can be adduced from other sources to debunk the critics’ stance. In
her short biography of Phillis in Memoir (1834), Margaretta Odell praises Phillis, saying
that as a young girl, she took to poetry as ducks take to water. She notes that although
people encouraged her to read and write, “nothing was forced upon her, nothing was
suggested, or placed before her as a lure; her literacy efforts were altogether the natural
workings of her own mind” (Black Literature Criticism, 1891). According to Odell,
Phillis was visited by visions in the night, which awakened her and which she wrote
down as poems. “The next morning, she could not remember these dreams which had
inspired her to write poetry.” How does one reconcile this biographical evidence here
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with what Phillis’ critics accuse her of doing – exchanging her conscience with those of
her White enslavers?
Contrary to what her critics say, abundant evidence in Phillis’ poetry suggests that
she uses her poetry to do all that they have failed to acknowledge. Perhaps, her rhetorical
project is too complex for them to grasp or that they just cannot do any deeper reading
without their lenses of racial prejudice. A few examples will suffice here. In driving
home her arguments against slavery and other moral or religious atrocities that her poetry
addresses, Phillis couches her call for freedom, order, power, and vengeance in a
language that is heavily laden with irony, ambiguity, and mythological allusions that an
ordinary reading cannot expose. Her powerful imagery to that effect pervades almost all
her works – the elegies, pastoral, and odes – and it needs the subterranean reading of the
second category of audience to grasp. I will now turn to three of her poems for evidence
to reinforce my claims.
In “To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty’s Principal
Secretary of State of North America and C,” Phillis demonstrates her strong awareness of
the position of her race under slavery and articulates it cleverly. She employs a rhetorical
strategy that belies her real intent, using her persona (imagined self) for rhetorical
persuasion. First, she opens her poem with 14 lines of congratulations:
HAIL, happy day, when, smiling like the morn…
Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway:…
While in thine hand with pleasure we behold
The silken reins, and Freedom’s charms unfold…
Then, in the next five lines, she does something else when she pleads to Dartmouth to
protect and preserve the rights of Americans, vis-à-vis England, in the New World. She
reinforces her plea by deviating from the conventional heroic couplet to use a triplet:
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No more, America, in mournful strain
Of wrongs, and grievance unredressed complain,
No longer shall thou dread the iron chain… (lines 15-17)
Her reference to “iron chain” should condition the careful reader’s mind to expect
something more forceful, and this something is couched in the italicized “Tyranny” and
the succeeding “lawless hand” and “enslave.” She is subtly protesting against slavery.
Suddenly, Phillis plunges into a frontal attack on Dartmouth’s conscience as she
uses the next stanza to establish her bitterness against slavery. She mentions “Freedom”
and her ancestry (“Afric’s fancy’d happy seat”) directly. Here, she makes an analogy
between America’s situation and her own:
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast?
Steel’d was that soul and by no misery mov’d:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway? (lines 24-31)
This part of her poem is significant for several reasons. Not only does Phillis use
it to recollect her ancestry and the excruciating experiences of the Middle Passage, but
she also creates an ambiguity that has continued to astound her readers. What does
“Afric’s fancy’d happy seat” mean? How about the last line (“Others may never feel
tyrannic sway”?) Her critics have pointed out that by referring to “Afric’s fancy’d happy
seat,” Phillis did not believe either in the cruelty of the fate that had dragged thousands of
her race into slavery in America nor in the happiness of their former freedom in Africa.
The operative word used for this interpretation is “fancy’d,” which the critics claim to be
synonymous to “delusory,” indicating that Phillis did not find anything concrete about
any kind of freedom that might be thought as prevailing in her life before her
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enslavement. In other words, Africa had no freedom to offer her unlike what she had
been ushered into in Boston.
This view of the critics is untenable, given the fact that the eighteenth century
interpretation of “fancy” goes beyond “delusion” or “extravagance of imagination,”
which then becomes a “false belief.” In its usage, the word meant that part of the mind
that makes images, which in turn have their origin in sense experience (evidence from Dr.
Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary definition and usage). Both “imagination” and “fancy”
were used interchangeably and placed in the context of the mind’s ability to perceive a
truth beyond its own immediate experience (Black Literature Criticism, 1892). In this
poem, therefore, what Phillis intends “Afric’s fancy’d happy seat” to do is simple: to
paint the picture of Africa as a fruitful paradise, a picture that was common to poets and
others who had used their imaginative abilities to conjecture the continent, not as the
“dark” one but as one that was natural and composed of rich soil and vegetation just like
the Garden of Eden. By using that phrase, therefore, she is not discrediting her ancestry
nor does she intend to shirk her heritage by that usage.
It is noteworthy that Phillis uses this idea entailed by “fancy’d” in “On
Imagination” and the poem to the Navy Officer, Rochfort (“Phillis’ Reply to the
Answer”), part of which I reproduce below for illustration:
And pleasing Gambia on my soul returns,
With native grace in spring’s luxuriant reign,
Smiles the gay mead, and Eden blooms again,…
Just are thy views of Afric’s blissful plain,
On the warm limits of the land and main.” (lines 21-34)
As the poem moves away from this stage, we see Phillis returning to the
persuasive mode once again when she commits Dartmouth to God’s care. By taking the
issue to this level, she complicates matters for the superficial reader. A deeper reading
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will show that Phillis is using the pathos of her own past to persuade Dartmouth to
assuage the wrongs done to the Americans by the British and by implication, to extend
the same dispensation to the enslaved Africans. What we have here is the poetry of
argument, not one of self-expression or elegance.
In assessing Phillis’ verse in terms of race, politics, and religion, Robinson
(1975) brings up issues that support my stance. He does so in the context of Phillis’ life
and works in his attempt to dispel long-standing critical arguments that her poetry falls
short as literature and that she lacked self-awareness as an African American woman. He
says this particular poem (“To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His
Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State of North America and C”) is comparable in
excellence and intention to some of the great poems of the Restoration and the eighteenth
century, especially, “Absalom and Achitophel,” Pope’s “An Essay on Man,” and “An
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot” (Black Literature Criticism, 1891). I have no qualms against
that comparison for as long as it seeks to bring out the complexity of Phillis’ work that
needs more attention than the cursory and dismissive approach that her critics are wont to
adopt in trying to read her poetry. They are so eager to downgrade her that they fail to see
her use of the rhetorical project to protest against the wrong deeds of the enslavers.
Let’s see how Phillis does the manipulation of the rhetorical situation in another
poem (“To the University of Cambridge, in New England”) in which she urges the
students of Harvard to eschew profligacy. This poem has a didactic twist in addition to its
rhetorical purpose to draw a distinction between races and to moralize for their
differences to be acknowledged and accepted. Phillis’ strategy here is rhetorically useful.
She creates an ironic contrast between herself (from “those dark lands” that knew nothing
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about Christianity or the White people’s understanding of civilization) and the Harvard
students (Christians by birth who had privileges of class and were offered knowledge of
the highest civilization attainable by humanity). She is no doubt forcing us to see the
abuses – what was denied her and her race.
From an appeal to their religious sentiments through direct references to Jesus’
sacrificial works and the dangers of sin, she reminds them (and us) not to do what will
destroy them (us). There is more to this interpretation, though. Robinson reads an
archetypal situation into this poem, in which Phillis sets herself apart as an “Ethiop” who
knows that she is nowhere near her immediate audience in social status but chooses to
teach them the lessons of life. Thus, like the Roman slave in antiquity who stands behind
the general marching triumphantly into Rome and who whispers into his ear that he is
mortal, we see that the simple “savage” knows more than the sophisticated Harvard
students.
In another complex poem (“On Being Brought from Africa to America”), Phillis
demonstrates her rhetorical prowess. She begins this eight-line poem by celebrating
God’s mercy in bringing her from the “Pagan land” to the New World, and immediately
creates the complexity that astounds the reader. How are we to interpret her words?
Denotatively to mean that she was condemning her heritage and, therefore, exemplifying
her “white mind”? Or connotatively (which is what a reading of literature entails) to point
to the fact that she is speaking with her tongue in the cheek?:
“T was mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought or knew. (lines 1-4)
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The situation she creates here is profound. She uses ironic contrast again and goes
further to attack the mentality of the enslavers. Didactic as her purpose is, Phillis uses this
ironic contrast to teach the lesson she intends in the remaining four lines, where her direct
references to race and the imagery contained in the Biblical Cain, refinement, and “th’
angelic train” paint the picture clearly that she is against slavery. She accentuates this
hatred through the use of the imperative – “ Remember!” – leaving no doubt in the
careful reader’s mind that she is in full control of her elements and is nobody’s
derivative.
What may baffle the reader is how she could find the courage to command a
white readership that she knew were the enslavers. Through her rhetorical project, she
never ceases to call the reader’s attention to the inequality between her status (as a slave
but mentally free) and that of her enslavers (physically and materially free but morally
enslaved). She frequently refers to “power” and seeks to command it in her works (using
the rhetorical project for that purpose) though it was denied her physically. I daresay that
her poetic powers knew no earthly authority to succumb to.
In this eight-line poem (“On Being Brought from Africa to America”), there is
emphasis, which is achieved with the italicized words. By alluding to Cain, the poet
introduces an important issue: a false analogy of white superiority. She serves notice here
that all human beings – whether white or black – need to be “refin’d” before they can
“join th’ angelic train.” There is a quiet irony here as she uses her own race to push her
argument. If she, the “unletter’d Afric,” could know that truth, why not the White
Christians too?
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Scholars have made connections between what Phillis is doing here and the quiet
irony of Pope’s “lo, the poor indian” in his “An Essay on Man,” where civilized man
thinks himself superior to the naïve savage whose conception of the after-life is
unimaginative (Black Literature Criticism, 1892). For the “poor indian,” Heaven is
simply a place where “No friends torment, no Christians thirst for Gold.” Yet, it is this
very simplicity which serves as a satiric comment on the actual behavior of those people
who call themselves “Christians.” It is obvious that by placing her imagined self in ironic
juxtaposition of the “Christians” who would view her as “diabolic,” Phillis is making the
same satiric point. She is adept at manipulating the imagined self for the sake of
argument and not just setting out to mirror Pope. Her rhetorical project is unique and
deserves more attention than her critics are willing to give her.
It is a rhetorical project derived from inclusionary rhetoric – not to assign blame
openly – but to use the jeremiad and a manipulation of tone, imagery, and literary form to
protest against the goings-on. Using the pulpit oratory, verse epistle, and sermonic
techniques, she succeeds in pressing home her protestations without being brutalized by
White America. Her appeal to the religious sentiments of her audience is also part of the
rhetoric of her poetry whose real effect a cursory reading will not expose.
When she turns the searchlight on her inward (inner) self, especially in the poems
that her critics see as “abstractions” (“To Maecenas,” “On Imagination,” “On Virtue,”
“Thoughts on the Works of Providence,” “On Liberty and Peace,” and “An Elegy on
Leaving”), we see a different Phillis – someone who could soar above ordinariness into
the sublime mode, creating different worlds and making deep connections between the
natural and the supernatural. We need to know more about her make-up to be able to
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fully grasp her worth. This effort demands a revolution in the techniques for teaching and
learning Phillis.
My exploratory survey of Phillis’ poetry reveals certain implications for pedagogy
about her life and works: Given the complexity of her poetry and rhetorical project,
reading her effectively is a difficult task. Being the first African American woman to
publish a book of poems and being the pacesetter of the elegiac mode (20 of the 46
poems published in her lifetime being about death), what should pedagogy do to restore
her to her glory as a literary figure? It is at this point that I establish some mechanisms for
the teaching and learning of Phillis Wheatley. Our students need to become informed
members of the second group of readership to be able to debunk convincingly with
evidence the wrongheaded criticism of Phillis that has threatened to overshadow her
actual contributions to American (and world) literature.
Let us first recall what Benjamin Brawley reports: that before 1840, a dozen
editions of her poems were issued (including those in 1793, 1802, and 1816) and that
after Margaretta Odell’s memoir of Phillis in 1834, there was demand for the book and
two more editions were called for within four years. Additionally, some of the pieces
found their way into school readers. This point is interesting because it tells us that
attempts were made in the past to make Phillis known in the curriculum. But has the
negative propaganda against her lessened through teaching and learning? Let us not
forget her historical importance. The abolitionists cited her as proof of the Negro’s
powers. Thus, Phillis has a kind of historical importance far beyond what her critics
might see the intrinsic merit of her verses as warranting. How much do in our pedagogy
to teach Phillis such that we could help bring out her true worth?
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Angelene Jamison gives us a good point when she says that Phillis “was a poet
who happened to be Black and it is a mistake to refer to her as a Black poet,” though she
also discredits Phillis elsewhere. Teaching Phillis against this background means that we
should do a close contextualization of her works to bring out their proper political
reverberations, racial undertones, and outright manipulation of language for effect. Using
the technique of cognitive poetics should be appropriate for this purpose. In this regard,
there is need for a close marking of her entire rhetorical project – imagery, diction, meter,
and genres – so that the background and foreground features can emerge to give us a
clear picture about her. How about her works illustrating the pietas (patriotism)?
An assignment that invites students to map the imageries will help break the jinx
about the persistent claim by her critics that she was a mere imitator of Pope. One issue to
address is how she could combine several genres in her poetry (the ode, elegy, pastoral,
and romantic modes) to be able to embark on her rhetorical project without creating room
for anybody to suspect her of rabble-rousing through her poetry. In “An Elegy on
Leaving,” she combines the elegiac mode with the pastoral and the romantic.
How she could use her poetry to fight for freedom without betraying her cause to
her enslavers is worth probing. Erkilla (1993) reports that when Phillis’ book was
published, “there was widespread fear of slave revolt; and that Abigail Adams’
September 1774 letter to John on the conspiracy of Boston Negroes is only one of a
number of signs that fear of slave insurrection was spreading from the South to New
England” (231). Does this evidence not debunk the criticism that attributes “chill” to her?
If we want to do any deep teaching and learning of Phillis’ works, we must revisit
the peculiar circumstances under which she lived and worked for ideas with which to
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appreciate what we read. It is my contention that any reading of Phillis that does not
place the constraints under which she lived and worked in the historical context (of
literary works, slavery, Puritan Christian worldview, etc.) will be shoddy. Those who
rush to consign Phillis to the back rows of intellectual and literary endeavors had better
rethink their approach because she is larger than the space they have carved to place her
in. She will not fit in there.
One important question that must guide any teaching of Phillis is: Why was
Phillis hailed by London’s literati if she was a mere derivative of the neoclassical literary
tradition of Pope? An assignment should focus on a selection of poems by both authors
for comparison and contrast. The Pope-Phillis study in the art of the heroic couplet
should be interesting. At the outset, it will reveal how original Phillis is, coming out with
the use of the triplet to inject emphasis into portions of her poetry where she does her
own thing – a skill that is devoid from Pope’s poetry. It is compelling to see how Phillis
devices this rhetorical strategy. Recognizing her worth would, then, emerge as an
appropriate reaction just like the London literati did to establish that their fascination for
Phillis was not adventitious (or an impulsive outburst of misplaced sentiments) but was
the direct upshot of her stature as a “natural genius.” A lesson from Joseph Addison will
serve a useful purpose in this vein. It relates to the eighteenth century aesthetic taste that
borders on the love for “natural genius” - a taste that derived from the Latin aphorism that
“poeta nascitur, non fit,” meaning that says: “a poet is born and not made” (BLC, 1891).
In his writing in 1771 (Spectator, 160), Addison distinguished two kinds of
poetic genius: those artists “who by the mere strength of natural parts, and without any
assistance of art or learning, have produced works that were the delight of their own
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times and the wonder of posterity” (which I conceive Phillis to be); and artists who “have
formed themselves by rules and submitted the greatness of their natural talents to the
corrections and restraints of art” (which, to me, Phillis is not).
Though Addison never imagined this term to be applied to a working-class poet,
by mid-century, the term was given a distinctly democratic twist and the “mute,
inglorious Miltons” emerged. These were the poor who, if only given the chance, would
burst forth in glorious song (poetry). These “unlettered” poets were patronized by people
of position. That the Countess of Huntingdon patronized Phillis’ work was not an isolated
case. The records show that the nobility supported such geniuses. For example, Joseph
Spence sponsored Stephen Duck, the “Thresher-Poet;” William Shenstone, Lady
Montague, and Lord Lyttelton encouraged James Woodhouse, the “Shoemaker Poet;”
Lord Chesterfield helped Henry Jones, the “Bricklayer Poet;” and Hannah Moore
patronized Ann Yearsley, the poet known as Lactilla, the “Milkmaid-Poet,” (Black
Literature Criticism, 1891). This historical account is important because it gives us the
tool with which to appreciate Phillis’ limitations as an “unlettered muse” and how to
approach a deep reading and interpretation of her poetry.
The historical circumstances under which she worked must also be addressed. For
example, James Weldon Johnson claims that her mind was steeped in the classics, citing
as examples, the fact that her verses are filled with classical and mythological allusions,
her knowledge of Ovid, Latin authors, and Alexander Pope. What should we do with
such a claim? Other claims draw attention to the peculiarities of Phillis’ circumstances in
which she was reared and sheltered in the wealthy and cultured Boston family of the
Wheatleys, never had the opportunity to learn life nor did she get the chance to find out
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her true relation to life and to her surroundings. No one refutes the fact that Phillis was
denied physical contact with the people of her African race, though she communicated
with Obour Tanner. More pathetically, she died at only 31. These factors had their own
implications for Phillis and gave her a unique identity as a poet. Thus, when we teach her
works, it is imperative that we bring such historical happenings to bear on our techniques
for ours students to know where she belongs. She cannot be divorced from those
happenings and viewed in isolation as if all she has to recommend her is her “race” and
“social status.” I contend that any reading of her that turns the searchlight on her origin
and social status will be misguided.
On how to analyze the language of her works, we have a huge responsibility to
appreciate what Phillis achieved in less than 31 years. From Odell’s Memoir, we lean that
she never had any “grammatical instructor or knowledge of the structure or idiom of the
English language, except which she imbibed from a perusal of the best English authors
and from mingling in polite circles…” (BLC, 1892). But the quality of language use in
her works is high and she achieves effect through her diction. We need to extend the
Phillis Wheatley curriculum to cover a study of her linguistic repertoire too.
Analyzing her use of language alone should inform the reader about the power
behind her works. She uses the imperative often and makes brazen statements that
anybody with the kind of mentality ascribed to her by her critics couldn’t have done,
given the circumstances under which the writing was being done. She adroitly uses the
word “winter” in “On Imagination” to refer to the white folks whose activities threatened
the wellbeing of her race and could have been punished for heresy had her readers been
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serious enough to read a deeper meaning into these two lines in the same poem quoted
above in which she virtually “crowns” imagination:
Such is thy pow’r, nor are thine orders vain,
O thou the leader of the mental train… (lines 33 and 34)
In “To Maecenas” too, Phillis’ use of language drives along her rhetorical project. We see
in lines 14 and 15, where she uses monosyllables; we see how her she paints a picture of
movement before plunging into the liquid and trisyllabic long vowels that show a more
rapid movement in: “The lenth’ning line moves languishing along” (line 16).
An effective pedagogy must relate to this advice from James Weldon Johnson:
“Wheatley’s work must not be judged by the work and standards of a later day, but by the
work and standards of her own day and her own contemporaries…” (1880). According to
him, then, by this method of criticism, one will see that “Wheatley stands out as one of
the important characters in the making of American literature, without any allowances for
her sex or her antecedents.” A Phillis Wheatley curriculum must involve more than a
mere reading of her works in isolation. Their relevance to the search for the intricacies of
the entire gamut of American (and not only African American) literary tradition must be
analyzed through a comparative study of the literature of the period.
Furthermore, any attempt to teach Phillis Wheatley successfully must begin with
an understanding of the agenda of her critics. How does one counteract their criticism,
which derives not from an unprejudiced reading of her works (style, themes, and
concerns – her entire rhetorical project) but from their use of lenses tainted with prejudice
against her race and social status? We need to understand the mindset of the critics
themselves and to use appropriate scholarly endeavors to counteract their unproductive
criticisms. For example, it will be instructive to interrogate thoroughly a statement from
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Angelene Jamison that “…in any literary analysis of the poetry of Phillis Wheatley from
a Black perspective, we must accept the fact that her poetry is the product of a white
mind, a mind that had been so engulfed in the education, religion, values, and the
freedom of Whites that she expressed no strong sentiments for those who had been cast
into the wretchedness of slavery by those she so often praised with her pen…” (408-16).
What this statement can do to sustain the anti-Phillis sentiment is obvious. We cannot
accept it without fighting back to debunk it with evidence from Phillis’ works. Her poetry
and prose are available for us to study careful for the much-needed evidence.
In this claim, Jamison is drawing attention to what she calls a “fact” about Phillis’
conscience without any proof as if it is easy for one to swap one’s conscience (an innate
quality) with that of another person. The implications of such spurious readings of Phillis
to pedagogy cannot be lost on an astute reader. Jamison’s position must be clear by now
when she says that “any student who is exposed to Phillis Wheatley must be able to
recognize that her poetry expressed the sentiments of eighteenth century Whites because
her mind was controlled by them, her actions were controlled by them, and consequently
her pen” (BLC, 1890). Certainly, this criticism is without any foundation in reality
because Phillis has proved to be anything but what her critics want us to believe.
One major area in which Phillis will be remembered is her attention to the
sublime, which is engendered in her poetry by her constant use of the imagery of
movement to lofty heights of sense experiences through imagination. Her poems on
abstractions (“To Maecenas,” “On Virtue,” “On Imagination,” “On Recollection,” and
“Thoughts on the Works of Providence”) demonstrate her attainment of the sublime,
which is peculiarly hers and not Pope’s. We see her use of the sublime as a vehicle for
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initiating the desire to see death as an escape from the ills of the society and many other
situations that the imagination could dredge up. Her differentiation of “imagination”
from “fancy” is obvious as she lifts the former above the latter and establishes how to use
those faculties. It is in this area that her critics attempt reinforcing their criticism of her as
a derivative of Pope. No serious reader of Phillis will agree with the stance of her critics
because she establishes clearly her own identity as a “natural genius” in the pursuit of the
sublime and achieves it without recourse to anybody’s style. I expect assignments on the
subject of “the sublime” to give students a better opportunity to know the uniqueness of
Phillis’ poetry.
Perhaps, the time has come for me to make an emphatic statement here to
reinforce my stance. The time has come for us to understand that Phillis Wheatley’s
works have their intrinsic good qualities that can be appreciated without necessarily being
read through the lenses of race and social status. In this paper, I have argued that the
rhetorical project under which Phillis wrote her poems and prose is so complex as to defy
any meaningful interpretation through superficial reading. What Phillis’ works suggest is
that the strategy to be used to read her must agree with the complexity of her works.
Anything short of that systematic conceptualization will not help an effective reading of
her works.
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References
Draper, James P. (ed.) Black Literature Criticism: Excerpts from Criticism of the Most
Significant Works of Black Authors over the Past 200 Years. Vo;. 3. MarshallYoung. Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1992.
Erkilla, Betsy. “Phillis Wheatley and the Black American Revolution.” In A Mixed Race:
Ethnicity in Early America. Frank Shuffleton (Ed.). New York: Oxford UP, 1993.
pp. 225-40.
Loggins, Vernon. “The Beginnings of Negro Authorship, 1760-1790.” In his The Negro
Author: His Development in America to 1900, 1931. Reprint by Kennikat Press,
Inc. 1964. pp. 1-47.
Odell, Margaretta Matilda. Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley: A Native-African and
a Slave. 3rd ed. Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1838, p. 155.
Richmond, M.A. “The Critics,.” In his Bid the Vassal Soar: Interpretive Essays on the
Life and Poetry of Phillis Wheatley (ca. 1753-1784) and George Moses Horton
(ca. 1797-1883). Washington, DC.: Howard UP, 1974. pp. 53-66.
Robinson, William H. Phillis Wheatley in the Black American Beginnings. Detroit:
Broadside Press, 1975, 95pp.
Scruggs, Charles. “Phillis Wheatley and the Poetical Legacy of Eighteenth-Century
England.” In Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, vol. 10, 1981. pp. 279-95.
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