In appealing to these two audiences, Wheatley's persona assumes a dogmatic ministerial voice. On Being Brought from Africa to America was written by Phillis Wheatley and published in her collection Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in 1773. The Impact of the Early Years Wheatley's first name, Phillis, comes from the name of the ship that brought her to America. These documents are often anthologized along with the Declaration of Independence as proof, as Wheatley herself said to the Native American preacher Samson Occom, that freedom is an innate right. answer not listed. To the University of Cambridge, in New England, Instant downloads of all 1699 LitChart PDFs 30 seconds. This quote sums up the rest of the poem and how it relates to Walter . The Puritan attitude toward slaves was somewhat liberal, as slaves were considered part of the family and were often educated so that they could be converted to Christianity. At this point, the poem displaces its biblical legitimation by drawing attention to its own achievement, as inherent testimony to its argument. Descriptions are unrelated to the literary elements. 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." The enslavement of Africans in the American colonies grew steadily from the early seventeenth century until by 1860 there were about four million slaves in the United States. This voice is an important feature of her poem. Question 14. 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). Wheatley may also be using the rhetorical device of bringing up the opponent's worst criticism in order to defuse it. Wheatley continued to write throughout her life and there was some effort to publish a second book, which ultimately failed. Wheatley's criticisms steam mostly form the figurative language in the poem. Over a third of her poems in the 1773 volume were elegies, or consolations for the death of a loved one. She admits that people are scornful of her race and that she came from a pagan background. [CDATA[ Line 5 boldly brings out the fact of racial prejudice in America. Mistakes do not get in the way of understanding. Wheatley reminded her readers that all people, regardless of race, are able to obtain salvation. Baker offers readings of such authors as Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Ntozake Shange as examples of his theoretical framework, explaining that African American women's literature is concerned with a search for spiritual identity. In addition, their color is consider evil. Wheatleys most prominent themes in this piece are religion, freedom, and equality. One of the first things a reader will notice about this poem is the rhyme scheme, which is AABBCCDD. In the poem, she gives thanks for having been brought to America, where she was raised to be a Christian. She was planning a second volume of poems, dedicated to Benjamin Franklin, when the Revolutionary War broke out. Won Pulitzer Prize Thomas Jefferson's scorn (reported by Robinson), however, famously articulates the common low opinion of African capability: "Religion, indeed, has produced a Phillis Whately, but it could not produce a poet. The latter is implied, at least religiously, in the last lines. The first time Wheatley uses this is in line 1 where the speaker describes her "land," or Africa, as "pagan" or ungodly. For example, "History is the long and tragic story . For example, Saviour and sought in lines three and four as well as diabolic die in line six. She returned to America riding on that success and was set free by the Wheatleysa mixed blessing, since it meant she had to support herself. Some of her poems and letters are lost, but several of the unpublished poems survived and were later found. Indeed, the idea of anyone, black or white, being in a state of ignorance if not knowing Christ is prominent in her poems and letters. On the other hand, Gilbert Imlay, a writer and diplomat, disagreed with Jefferson, holding Wheatley's genius to be superior to Jefferson's. . What type of figurative language does Wheatley use in most of her poems . She grew increasingly critical of slavery and wrote several letters in opposition to it. Shockley, Ann Allen, Afro-American Women Writers, 1746-1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide, G. K. Hall, 1988. Such a person did not fit any known stereotype or category. But in line 5, there is a shift in the poem. Get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons. Additional information about Wheatley's life, upbringing, and education, including resources for further research. The poet needs some extrinsic warrant for making this point in the artistic maneuvers of her verse. the colonies have tried every means possible to avoid war. They signed their names to a document, and on that basis Wheatley was able to publish in London, though not in Boston. The opening sentiments would have been easily appreciated by Wheatley's contemporary white audience, but the last four lines exhorted them to reflect on their assumptions about the black race. More on Wheatley's work from PBS, including illustrations of her poems and a portraitof the poet herself. This allusion to Isaiah authorizes the sort of artistic play on words and on syntax we have noted in her poem. For example: land/understandCain/train. 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. Another instance of figurative language is in line 2, where the speaker talks about her soul being "benighted." Ironically, this authorization occurs through the agency of a black female slave. She notes that the poem is "split between Africa and America, embodying the poet's own split consciousness as African American." Phillis Wheatley 's poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America" appeared in her 1773 volume Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, the first full-length published work by an African American author. In this instance, however, she uses the very argument that has been used to justify the existence of black slavery to argue against it: the connection between Africans and Cain, the murderer of Abel. 189, 193. Line 6, in quotations, gives a typical jeer of a white person about black people. White people are given a lesson in basic Christian ethics. Vincent Carretta and Philip Gould explain such a model in their introduction to Genius in Bondage: Literature of the Early Black Atlantic. Get LitCharts A +. She was the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry and was brought to America and enslaved in 1761. It has been variously read as a direct address to Christians, Wheatley's declaration that both the supposed Christians in her audience and the Negroes are as "black as Cain," and her way of indicating that the terms Christians and Negroes are synonymous. Baldwin, Emma. Read more of Wheatley's poems and write a paper comparing her work to some of the poems of her eighteenth-century model. The world as an awe-inspiring reflection of God's will, rather than human will, was a Christian doctrine that Wheatley saw in evidence around her and was the reason why, despite the current suffering of her race, she could hope for a heavenly future. Line 7 is one of the difficult lines in the poem. 2, Summer 1993, pp. If the "angelic train" of her song actually enacts or performs her argumentthat an African-American can be trained (taught to understand) the refinements of religion and artit carries a still more subtle suggestion of self-authorization. It has a steady rhythm, the classic iambic pentameter of five beats per line giving it a traditional pace when reading: Twas mer / cy brought / me from / my Pag / an land, Taught my / benight / ed soul / to und / erstand. To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. This poem is a real-life account of Wheatleys experiences. 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. Shuffelton also surmises why Native American cultural production was prized while black cultural objects were not. These lines can be read to say that ChristiansWheatley uses the term Christians to refer to the white raceshould 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. No wonder, then, that thinkers as great as Jefferson professed to be puzzled by Wheatley's poetry. 372-73. She had written her first poem by 1765 and was published in 1767, when she was thirteen or fourteen, in the Newport Mercury. Wheatley's identity was therefore somehow bound up with the country's in a visible way, and that is why from that day to this, her case has stood out, placing not only her views on trial but the emerging country's as well, as Gates points out. Andersen holds a PhD in literature and teaches literature and writing. Wheatley gave birth to three children, all of whom died. Benjamin Rush, a prominent abolitionist, holds that Wheatley's "singular genius and accomplishments are such as not only do honor to her sex, but to human nature." Wheatley's verse generally reveals this conscious concern with poetic grace, particularly in terms of certain eighteenth-century models (Davis; Scruggs). The question of slavery weighed heavily on the revolutionaries, for it ran counter to the principles of government that they were fighting for. Through her rhetoric of performed ideology, Wheatley revises the implied meaning of the word Christian to include African Americans. Hers is a seemingly conservative statement that becomes highly ambiguous upon analysis, transgressive rather than compliant. In "On Being Brought from Africa to America," the author, Phillis Wheatley uses diction and punctuation to develop a subtle ironic tone. 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. 135-40. It is also pointed out that Wheatley perhaps did not complain of slavery because she was a pampered house servant. In regards to the meter, Wheatley makes use of the most popular pattern, iambic pentameter. Washington was pleased and replied to her. Then, there's the matter of where things scattered to, and what we see when we find them. The last two lines of the poem make use of imperative language, which is language that gives a command or tells the reader what to do. 36, No. And she must have had in mind her subtle use of biblical allusions, which may also contain aesthetic allusions. 'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,Taught my benighted soul to understandThat there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.Some view our sable race with scornful eye,"Their colour is a diabolic die. In this poem Wheatley gives her white readers argumentative and artistic proof; and she gives her black readers an example of how to appropriate biblical ground to self-empower their similar development of religious and cultural refinement. In effect, she was attempting a degree of integration into Western culture not open to, and perhaps not even desired by, many African Americans. Iambic pentameter is traditional in English poetry, and Wheatley's mostly white and educated audience would be very familiar with it. 7Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain. 2002 2023 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is a poem written by Phillis Wheatley, published in her 1773 poetry collection "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral." The poem describes Wheatley's experience as a young girl who was enslaved and brought to the American colonies in 1761. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism." Too young to be sold in the West Indies or the southern colonies, she was . Africa, the physical continent, cannot be pagan. Wheatley was in the midst of the historic American Revolution in the Boston of the 1770s. 422. William Robinson provides the diverse early. What were their beliefs about slavery? The reception became such because the poem does not explicitly challenge slavery and almost seems to subtly approve of it, in that it brought about the poet's Christianity. Phillis Wheatley was brought through the transatlantic slave trade and brought to America as a child. 92-93, 97, 101, 115. In 1773, Poems of Various Subjects, Religious and Moral appeared. Back then lynching was very common and not a good thing. "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is a statement of pride and comfort in who she is, though she gives the credit to God for the blessing. In fact, although the lines of the first quatrain in "On Being Brought from Africa to America" are usually interpreted as celebrating the mercy of her white captors, they are more accurately read as celebrating the mercy of God for delivering her from sin. All in all a neat package of a poem that is memorable and serves a purpose. Wheatley was then abducted by slave traders and brought to America in 1761. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. This word functions not only as a biblical allusion, but also as an echo of the opening two lines of the poem: "'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, / Taught my benighted soul to understand." It also uses figurative language, which makes meaning by asking the reader to understand something because of its relation to some other thing, action, or image. Wheatley perhaps included the reference to Cain for dramatic effect, to lead into the Christian doctrine of forgiveness, emphasized in line 8. The book includes a portrait of Wheatley and a preface where 17 notable Boston citizens verified that the work was indeed written by a Black woman. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. Nevertheless, that an eighteenth-century woman (who was not a Quaker) should take on this traditionally male role is one surprise of Wheatley's poem. 4, 1974, p. 95. Many of her elegies meditate on the soul in heaven, as she does briefly here in line 8. The result is that those who would cast black Christians as other have now been placed in a like position. Source: Susan Andersen, Critical Essay on "On Being Brought from Africa to America," in Poetry for Students, Gale, Cengage Learning, 2009. Even before the Revolution, black slaves in Massachusetts were making legal petitions for their freedom on the basis of their natural rights. This line is meaningful to an Evangelical Christian because one's soul needs to be in a state of grace, or sanctified by Christ, upon leaving the earth. Recent critics looking at the whole body of her work have favorably established the literary quality of her poems and her unique historical achievement. "The Privileged and Impoverished Life of Phillis Wheatley" Today: Since the Vietnam War, military service represents one of the equalizing opportunities for blacks to gain education, status, and benefits. From the zephyr's wing, Exhales the incense of the blooming spring. Wheatley is saying that her soul was not enlightened and she did not know about Christianity and the need for redemption. Slaves felt that Christianity validated their equality with their masters. The resulting verse sounds pompous and inauthentic to the modern ear, one of the problems that Wheatley has among modern audiences. Imperative language shows up in this poem in the last two lines. Albeit grammatically correct, this comma creates a trace of syntactic ambiguity that quietly instates both Christians and Negroes as the mutual offspring of Cain who are subject to refinement by divine grace. 103-104. It was written by a black woman who was enslaved. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. 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. Carretta and Gould note the problems of being a literate black in the eighteenth century, having more than one culture or language. Open Document. The poem consists of: Phillis Wheatley was abducted from her home in Africa at the age of 7 (in 1753) and taken by ship to America, where she ended up as the property of one John Wheatley, of Boston. 233 Words1 Page. In Jackson State Review, the African American author and feminist Alice Walker makes a similar remark about her own mother, and about the creative black woman in general: "Whatever rocky soil she landed on, she turned into a garden.". The idea that the speaker was brought to America by some force beyond her power to fight it (a sentiment reiterated from "To the University of Cambridge") once more puts her in an authoritative position. These ideas of freedom and the natural rights of human beings were so potent that they were seized by all minorities and ethnic groups in the ensuing years and applied to their own cases. Of course, Wheatley's poetry does document a black experience in America, namely, Wheatley's alone, in her unique and complex position as slave, Christian, American, African, and woman of letters. POETRY POSSIBILITES for BLACK HISTORY MONTH is a collection of poems about notable African Americans and the history of Blacks in America. Indeed, at the time, blacks were thought to be spiritually evil and thus incapable of salvation because of their skin color. 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. Several themes are included: the meaning of academic learning and learning potential; the effect of oral and written language proficiency on successful learning; and the whys and hows of delivering services to language- and learning-disabled students. As such, though she inherited the Puritan sense of original sin and resignation in death, she focuses on the element of comfort for the bereaved. John Peters eventually abandoned Wheatley and she lived in abject poverty, working in a boardinghouse, until her death on December 5, 1784. Following fuller scholarly investigation into her complete works, however, many agree that this interpretation is oversimplified and does not do full justice to her awareness of injustice. "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. The members of this group are not only guilty of the sin of reviling others (which Wheatley addressed in the Harvard poem) but also guilty for failing to acknowledge God's work in saving "Negroes." For instance, the use of the word sable to describe the skin color of her race imparts a suggestion of rarity and richness that also makes affiliation with the group of which she is a part something to be desired and even sought after. Almost immediately after her arrival in America, she was sold to the Wheatley family of Boston, Massachusetts. "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is really about the irony of Christian people who treat Black people as inferior. answer choices. The final and highly ironic demonstration of otherness, of course, would be one's failure to understand the very poem that enacts this strategy. Here she mentions nothing about having been free in Africa while now being enslaved in America. Poetry for Students. . The speaker uses metaphors, when reading in a superficial manner, causes the reader to think the speaker is self-deprecating. POEM SUMMARY Most descriptions tell what the literary elements do to enhance the story. Poems to integrate into your English Language Arts classroom. Such couplets were usually closed and full sentences, with parallel structure for both halves. The line in which the reference appears also conflates Christians and Negroes, making the mark of Cain a reference to any who are unredeemed. Educated and enslaved in the household of prominent Boston commercialist John Wheatley, lionized in New England and England, with presses in both places . The two allusions to Isaiah in particular initially serve to authorize her poem; then, in their circular reflexivity apropos the poem itself, they metamorphose into a form of self-authorization. Cain The black race itself was thought to stem from the murderer and outcast Cain, of the Bible. That is, she applies the doctrine to the black race. The first is "overtaken by darkness or night," and the second is "existing in a state of intellectual, moral, or social darkness." Why, then, does she seem to destroy her argument and admit that the African race is black like Cain, the first murderer in the Bible? It is easy to see the calming influence she must have had on the people who sought her out for her soothing thoughts on the deaths of children, wives, ministers, and public figures, praising their virtues and their happy state in heaven. It is not mere doctrine or profession that saves. Betsy Erkkila describes this strategy as "a form of mimesis that mimics and mocks in the act of repeating" ("Revolutionary" 206). She addresses her African heritage in the next lines, stating that there are many who look down on her and those who look like her. This is a chronological anthology of black women writers from the colonial era through the Civil War and Reconstruction and into the early twentieth century. Mercy is defined as "a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion." Through all the heav'ns what beauteous dies are . An error occurred trying to load this video. The power of the poem of heroic couplets is that it builds upon its effect, with each couplet completing a thought, creating the building blocks of a streamlined argument. Phillis Wheatley became famous in her time for her elegant poetry with Christian themes of redemption. Susanna Wheatley, her mistress, became a second mother to her, and Wheatley adopted her mistress's religion as her own, thus winning praise in the Boston of her day as being both an intelligent and spiritual being. 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." Barbara Evans. In regards to the meter, Wheatley makes use of the most popular pattern, iambic pentameter. Taking Offense Religion, Art, and Visual Culture in Plural Configurations In addition to editing Literature: The Human Experience and its compact edition, he is the editor of a critical edition of Richard Wright's A Native Son . A soul in darkness to Wheatley means someone unconverted. "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is part of a set of works that Henry Louis Gates Jr. recognized as a historically . Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Contents include: "Phillis Wheatley", "Phillis Wheatley by Benjamin Brawley", "To Maecenas", "On Virtue", "To the University of Cambridge", "To the King's Most Excellent Majesty", "On Being Brought from Africa to America", "On the Death of the Rev. the English people have a tremendous hatred for God. Additional information about Wheatley's life, upbringing, and education, including resources for further research. Common Core State Standards Text Exemplars, A Change of World, Episode 1: The Wilderness, To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Lady's Brother and Sister, and a Child of the Name, To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth, To S. M. A Young African Painter, On Seeing His Works. Following are the main themes. 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. Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land. Baker, Houston A., Jr., Workings of the Spirit: The Poetics of Afro-American Women's Writing, University of Chicago Press, 1991. Cain is a biblical character that kills his brother, an example of the evil of humanity. Wheatley was freed from slavery when she returned home from London, which was near the end of her owners' lives. //

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