PHILLIS WHEATLEY 1753 1784 Luciano Cabral American Literature

PHILLIS WHEATLEY (1753 -1784) Luciano Cabral American Literature I https: //uerjundergradslit. wordpress. com/

Phillis Wheatley (1753 -1784) the first one? “Although records show that Lucy Terry had written a poem as early as 1746, Briton Hammond had written a short slave pamphlet by 1760 and Jupiter Hammon had written some poetry by 1761, Phillis Wheatley was the first Black American to succeed in getting a book of poems published. Her book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published in England in 1773”.

PHILLIS WHEATLEY (1753 -1784) • The first black woman poet of note in the United States. • Born c. 1753, present-day Senegal/Gambia(? ), West Africa, and forcefully brought to Boston in 1761. • Phillis was named after the vessel that brought her to the US, by her masters John and Susannah Wheatley. • Remarkably intelligent from the start, Phillis was taught to read and write. • She also learned Latin and even translated a tale by Ovid. • Literarily, influenced by John Milton, Alexander Pope, and Thomas Gray. • Became famous for her poem on the death of Reverend George Whitefield. • Published her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in London, in 1773. • Died December 5, 1784, Boston, Massachusetts, U. S. ),

PHILLIS WHEATLEY (1753 -1784) • Themes: Christian piety, elegy, morality, virtue, death, American revolution. • White-Oriented Poetry: But there are very few poems on her experiences as black, on freedom and slavery • Form: heroic couplets, neoclassical style “Wheatley launched two traditions at once – the black American literary tradition and the black woman’s literary tradition. It is extraordinary that not just one but both of these traditions were founded simultaneously by a black woman – certainly an event unique in the history of literature – it is also ironic that this important fact of common, coterminous literary origin seems to have escaped most scholars” [Henry Louis Gates Jr. ]