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. She was intended to be a personal servant to the wife of John Wheatley. Endnotes. 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. . 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. Both races inherit the barbaric blackness of sin. Phillis Wheatley. It is the racist posing as a Christian who has become diabolical. Biography of Phillis Wheatley It is about a slave who cannot eat at the so-called "dinner table" because of the color of his skin. "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." A second biblical allusion occurs in the word train. Baker, Houston A., Jr., Workings of the Spirit: The Poetics of Afro-American Women's Writing, University of Chicago Press, 1991. answer choices. The prosperous Wheatley family of Boston had several slaves, but the poet was treated from the beginning as a companion to the family and above the other servants. 233, 237. If it is not, one cannot enter eternal bliss in heaven. Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. Wheatley's use of figurative language such as a metaphor and an allusion to spark an uproar and enlighten the reader of how Great Britain saw and treated America as if the young nation was below it. 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. Refine any search. While Wheatley's poetry gave fuel to abolitionists who argued that blacks were rational and human and therefore ought not be treated as beasts, Thomas Jefferson found Wheatley's poems imitative and beneath notice. The justification was given that the participants in a republican government must possess the faculty of reason, and it was widely believed that Africans were not fully human or in possession of adequate reason. For instance, in lines 7 and 8, Wheatley rhymes "Cain" and "angelic train." Could the United States be a land of freedom and condone slavery? For example: land/understandCain/train. So many in the world do not know God or Christ. The difficulties she may have encountered in America are nothing to her, compared to possibly having remained unsaved. That is, she applies the doctrine to the black race. The rest of the poem is assertive and reminds her readers (who are mostly white people) that all humans are equal and capable of joining "th' angelic train." This simple and consistent pattern makes sense for Wheatleys straightforward message. The masters, on the other hand, claimed that the Bible recorded and condoned the practice of slavery. Generally in her work, Wheatley devotes more attention to the soul's rising heavenward and to consoling and exhorting those left behind than writers of conventional elegies have. Today: Since the Vietnam War, military service represents one of the equalizing opportunities for blacks to gain education, status, and benefits. Specifically, Wheatley deftly manages two biblical allusions in her last line, both to Isaiah. Began Simple, Curse Ironically, this authorization occurs through the agency of a black female slave. The typical funeral sermon delivered by this sect relied on portraits of the deceased and exhortations not to grieve, as well as meditations on salvation. 27, No. The major themes of the poem are Christianity, redemption and salvation, and racial equality. 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. While the use of italics for "Pagan" and "Savior" may have been a printer's decision rather than Wheatley's, the words are also connected through their position in their respective lines and through metric emphasis. 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. During his teaching career, he won two Fulbright professorships. As the final word of this very brief poem, train is situated to draw more than average attention to itself. She does not, however, stipulate exactly whose act of mercy it was that saved her, God's or man's. Do you think that the judgment in the 1970s by black educators that Wheatley does not teach values that are good for African American students has merit today? The audience must therefore make a decision: Be part of the group that acknowledges the Christianity of blacks, including the speaker of the poem, or be part of the anonymous "some" who refuse to acknowledge a portion of God's creation. 19, No. Although he, as well as many other prominent men, condemned slavery as an unjust practice for the country, he nevertheless held slaves, as did many abolitionists. Figurative language is used in literature like poetry, drama, prose and even speeches. In alluding to the two passages from Isaiah, she intimates certain racial implications that are hardly conventional interpretations of these passages. . In fact, it might end up being desirable, spiritually, morally, one day. 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. 2, December 1975, pp. Jefferson, a Founding Father and thinker of the new Republic, felt that blacks were too inferior to be citizens. Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. As did "To the University of Cambridge," this poem begins with the sentiment that the speaker's removal from Africa was an act of "mercy," but in this context it becomes Wheatley's version of the "fortunate fall"; the speaker's removal to the colonies, despite the circumstances, is perceived as a blessing. Does she feel a conflict about these two aspects of herself, or has she found an integrated identity? This poem also uses imperative language, which is language used to command or to tell another character or the reader what to do. also Observation on English Versification , Etc. In this verse, however, Wheatley has adeptly managed biblical allusions to do more than serve as authorizations for her writing; as finally managed in her poem, these allusions also become sites where this license is transformed into an artistry that in effect becomes exemplarily self-authorized. She was greatly saddened by the deaths of John and Susanna Wheatley and eventually married John Peters, a free African American man in Boston. Today: African American women are regularly winners of the highest literary prizes; for instance, Toni Morrison won the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature, and Suzan-Lori Parks won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. She did not know that she was in a sinful state. //
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