Phillis Wheatley
1753 - 1784
Boston Women’s Memorial
Abigail Adams, Phillis Wheatley & Lucy Stone commemorated for their writing
and their impact on society. Each figure represents a different age and creative
temperament. The women have come down off their pedestals (as in this
century women have, symbolically) in order to use them as work surfaces.
Wheatley
• Background
• Relating her to Bradstreet
• Acknowledging neo-classic tradition
(Neo-classic tradition: a. A revival in literature in the
late 17th and 18th centuries, characterized by a
regard for the classical ideals of reason, form, and
restraint.)
• Use of Figurative Language
Figurative Language
Definition: Figurative language is a word or
phrase that departs from everyday literal
language for the sake of comparison, emphasis,
clarity, or freshness.
Examples of use: Metaphors, similes, hyberbole,
synechdoche, puns, and personification are all
“figures of speech”.
Personification
Definition: A figure of speech where animals,
ideas or inorganic objects are given human
characteristics. (UNCP)
• By giving human characteristics to things that do not have
them, it makes these objects and their actions easier to
visualize for a reader.
• Personification is most often used in poetry, coming to
popularity during the 18th century.
Example: In James Stephens’s poem "The Wind”: “The wind
stood up and gave a shout. He whistled on his two fingers.”
and “Kicked the withered leaves about….And thumped the
branches with his hand.”
Wheatley reviewed
• As James A. Levernier notes, “Wheatley used
her considerable linguistic talent to embed in
the poem, at a very sophisticated level, a far
different message than that which the poem
superficially conveys” (25). It is through this
artful manipulation of the English language
that we are able to gain insight into the full
genius of Wheatley’s work.
• Not only is Wheatley’s work instrumental in
negating the existing belief of African
intellectual inferiority; it also provides
students a lens through which one can
examine an author’s craft, emphasizing how
authors utilize a combination of personal
experiences and preexisting conventions (i.e.
poetic devices) to create a voice.
• In view of her biography, the study of “On Being
Brought from Africa to America,” takes on a new
shape and interpretation. It is engaging and
enriching for students, like many scholars, to note
and address the question of Wheatley’s identity.
Was she an African slave who fought to subtly
attack the institution that raped her of her
freedom, or was she a content Negro slave who
respected her captors and willingly emulated the
literary figures whom she most admired?
• Debate = is she of histroical significance only, or is she so talented in
her own right?
• In determining information that is important to know and do, it is
necessary to look closely at Wheatley’s poem, “On Being Brought
from Africa to America.” In eight short lines, Wheatley is able both
to examine deeply an issue that thematically connects much of her
work and master an effective use of literary and poetic devices.
Here, she addresses the issues surrounding the transatlantic slave
trade in a manner that appeals to the slave-holder, as well as to the
slave. As James A. Levernier notes, “Wheatley used her
considerable linguistic talent to embed in the poem, at a very
sophisticated level, a far different message than that which the
poem superficially conveys” (25). It is through this artful
manipulation of the English language that we are able to gain
insight into the full genius of Wheatley’s work.
TONE
Tone is the author’s attitude toward the writing (his
characters, the situation) and the readers. A work of
writing can have more than one tone. An example of
tone could be both serious and humorous. Tone is set
by the setting, choice of vocabulary and other details.
Tone is the attitude that an author takes toward the
audience, the subject, or the character. Tone is
conveyed through the author's words and details.
MOOD
Mood is the general atmosphere created by the
author’s words. It is the feeling the reader gets
from reading those words. It may be the same,
or it may change from situation to situation.
Mood: (sometimes called atmosphere) the
overall feeling of the work
(these are added as notes in the
MOOD slide)
• Mood is the emotions that you (the reader) feel while
you are reading. Some literature makes you feel sad,
others joyful, still others, angry. The main purpose for
some poems is to set a mood. Writers use many
devices to create mood, including images, dialogue,
setting, and plot. Often a writer creates a mood at the
beginning of the story and continues it to the end.
However, sometimes the mood changes because of the
plot or changes in characters. Examples of MOODS
include: suspenseful, joyful, depressing, excited,
anxious, angry, sad, tense, lonely, suspicious,
frightened, disgusted
This was added as “notes” to the
“tone slide”
•
•
•
•
•
•
Words That Describe Mood Fanciful Melancholy Frightening Mysterious
Frustrating Romantic Gloomy Sentimental Happy Sorrowful Joyful Suspenseful
Words That Describe Tone Amused Humorous Pessimistic Angry Informal Playful
Cheerful Ironic Pompous Horror Light Sad Clear Matter-of-fact Serious Formal
Resigned Suspicious Gloomy Optimistic Witty
TONE: the way feelings are expressed
Tone is the attitude that an author takes toward the audience, the subject, or the
character. Tone is conveyed through the author's words and details. Use context
clues to help determine the tone.
In literature an author sets the tone through words. The possible tones are as
boundless as the number of possible emotions a human being can have. Has
anyone ever said to you, "Don't use that tone of voice with me?" Your tone can
change the meaning of what you say. Tone can turn a statement like, " You're a big
help!" into a genuine compliment or a cruel sarcastic remark. It depends on the
context of the story.
Tone
Tone: the writer's attitude toward the material
and/or readers. (Brooklyn, CUNY)
Examples for use: Tone may be playful, formal,
intimate, angry, serious, ironic, outraged,
baffled, tender, serene, depressed, etc.
On Virtue ~ Phillis Wheatley
Definitions of Virtue (Merriam Webster online, accessed on 10/2/12)
1 a: conformity to a standard of right : MORALITY b: a
particular moral excellence
2 plural: an order of angels — see CELESTIAL HIERARCHY
3: a beneficial quality or power of a thing
4: manly strength or courage : VALOR
5: a commendable quality or trait : MERIT
6: a capacity to act : POTENCY
7: chastity especially in a woman
Wheatley
•
Prior to Wheatley, major canonical texts include Puritan poetry (Anne Bradstreet
[1612-1672]), nonfiction pieces (William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation
[1650]), and sermons (Jonathan Edwards’ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
[1741]). Prior knowledge of the Puritan era and its seminal texts enables readers of
Wheatley to note how Puritan ideologies helped shape her work and how her
work is a departure from these ideals. In her essay “Phillis Wheatley's Construction
of Otherness and the Rhetoric of Performed Ideology,” Mary Balkun asserts that
Wheatley’s writing was for a bifurcated audience. She writes poems intended for
her Christian audience, yet many of her poems use a variety of literary techniques
to take “the audience from a position of initial confidence and agreement, to
confusion and uncertainty, to a new ideological position at the conclusion of each
poem” (Balkun 121). Through Wheatley’s poetry it is evident that she is a product
of Puritan ideology, and through her writing (particularly her elegies) she appeals
to that audience. However, it can also be clearly noted that she possesses many
ideals stemming from Enlightenment ideals such as the preoccupation with
freedom and equality, evident through her use of sarcasm and irony (Balkun 121).
• Some critics have been disturbed that her poetry is not
more attuned to modern politlcal and racial awareness,
that she seems to have adopted a "white voice" and
abandoned her own race. This hardly seems fair, though it
has led many to focus on the tragedy of her life rather than
her poetry. Collins argues that her work should also be
explored to see how the slave mentality affected her selfidentity, although he acknowledges her slave condition was
most unusual. Is she demeaning her own blackness in many
poems, or is she establishing credibility based on her
unique experience? She had to tread a very fine line-between her own feelings, her patrons and readers, and
the Christian God in whom she devoutedly believed.
•
Phillis was seized from Senegal/Gambia, West Africa, when she was about seven years old. She was
transported to the Boston docks with a shipment of "refugee" slaves, who because of age or
physical frailty were unsuited for rigorous labor in the West Indian and Southern colonies, the first
ports of call after the Atlantic crossing. In the month of August 1761, "in want of a domestic,"
Susanna Wheatley, wife of prominent Boston tailor John Wheatley, purchased "a slender, frail
female child ... for a trifle" because the captain of the slave ship believed that the waif was
terminally ill, and he wanted to gain at least a small profit before she died. A Wheatley relative later
reported that the family surmised the girl—who was "of slender frame and evidently suffering from
a change of climate," nearly naked, with "no other covering than a quantity of dirty carpet about
her"—to be "about seven years old ... from the circumstances of shedding her front teeth."
After discovering the girl's precociousness, the Wheatleys, including their son Nathaniel and their
daughter Mary, did not entirely excuse Phillis from her domestic duties but taught her to read and
write. Soon she was immersed in the Bible, astronomy, geography, history, British literature
(particularly John Milton and Alexander Pope), and the Greek and Latin classics of Vergil, Ovid,
Terence, and Homer. In "To the University of Cambridge in New England" (probably the first poem
she wrote but not published until 1773) Phillis indicated that despite this exposure, rich and
unusual for an American slave, her spirit yearned for the intellectual challenge of a more academic
atmosphere.