Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
Nov 2005 · Cosimo, Inc.
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66
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About this ebook
WE whose Names are under-written, do assure the World, that the POEMS specified in the following Page, were (as we verily believe) written by Phillis, a young Negro Girl, who was but a few Years since, brought an uncultivated Barbarian from Africa...-from the publisher's affidavitProbably the first Black American writer, Phillis Wheatley had to travel to England to see her work published in this 1773 volume, the first collection of poetry by an African America to see print. Her work, considered even at the time sentimental and derivative, was harshly criticized by many, including Thomas Jefferson, and the novelty of its author soon waned to the point that the emancipated Wheatley died in poverty and obscurity. But as one of the earliest firsthand accounts of the slavery in America, it is an important document of life in the colonial era: Some view our sable race with scornful eye, "Their colour is a diabolic die."Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.(from " On being brought from Africa to America")PHILLIS WHEATLEY (c.1753-1784) was captured at the age of around seven and brought to America in 1761, where she became a house slave-and near adopted daughter-of Boston merchant John Wheatley. Demonstrating a talent for languages, she was educated alongside the Wheatley children. After being granted her freedom, she married John Peters, a free Black Bostonian.
About the author
Seized in Senegal/Gambia, West Africa by slave traders, Phillis Wheatley arrived in Boston when she was about seven years old. Purchased as a domestic in 1761, by Susanna and John Wheatley, Phillis Wheatley was frail and asthmatic. Perhaps because of her delicate constitution, she was excused from the most tiring aspects of her domestic duties. Instead, she was taught to read and write and was instructed in the Bible and the classics. Before she was thirteen, Wheatley was writing poetry that gained quick and widespread acclaim; in 1770 she published her first poem---"An Elegiac Poem on the Death of that Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ, the Reverend and Learned George Whitefield"---a work that touched on the terrible conditions of her own Atlantic crossing. By 1772 Phillis Wheatley had compiled a collection of verse. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of John and Susanna Wheatley, no publisher within the colonies was willing to print literature written by an African. Nonetheless, the Wheatleys persisted in their search, and through the intervention of Benjamin Franklin and various British sympathizers, including the abolitionist Earl of Dartmouth, they succeeded in finding a publisher for the work. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was printed in London in 1772; it is the first collection of poetry written by an African American to be published. Three months before Susanna Wheatley died in 1774 she manumitted (freed) Phillis Wheatley. But with Susanna's death, the Wheatley family disintegrated, and Phillis Wheatley suffered from severe financial difficulties during the Revolutionary War. Despite the voiced misgivings of her friends, Phillis Wheatley married John Peters in 1778. Their marriage was troubled by penury and sickness; in 1784, John Peters was confined to jail because of debt. Wheatley bore three children. Of these, two died in infancy and the third outlived her mother by only a few days. Desperate for assistance, Wheatley worked as a charwoman and maid. Destitute, sick, and alone, Phillis Wheatley died in 1784; she was barely thirty. Wheatley wrote approximately 145 poems, including the 64-line work "Liberty and Peace," published as a pamphlet under the name of Phillis Peters. Criticized during the early part of this century for not more openly addressing the theme of slavery, Wheatley's work combines Christian imagery and classical typology with an undeniably elegiac tone. Recent scholarship suggests that her Biblical allusions and metaphors demonstrate an antipathy to slavery and that her elegant and educated verse served to undermine colonial institutions of power.
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