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This style of poetry hardly appeals today because poets adhering to it strove to be objective and used elaborate and decorous language thought to be elevated. Wheatley's verse generally reveals this conscious concern with poetic grace, particularly in terms of certain eighteenth-century models (Davis; Scruggs). Source: Susan Andersen, Critical Essay on "On Being Brought from Africa to America," in Poetry for Students, Gale, Cengage Learning, 2009. Wheatley continues her stratagem by reminding the audience of more universal truths than those uttered by the "some." Anne Bradstreet Poems, Biography & Facts | Who is Anne Bradstreet? In short, both races share a common heritage of Cain-like barbaric and criminal blackness, a "benighted soul," to which the poet refers in the second line of her poem. One result is that, from the outset, Wheatley allows the audience to be positioned in the role of benefactor as opposed to oppressor, creating an avenue for the ideological reversal the poem enacts. 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. Most of the slaves were held on the southern plantations, but blacks were house servants in the North, and most wealthy families were expected to have them. As placed in Wheatley's poem, this allusion can be read to say that being white (silver) is no sign of privilege (spiritually or culturally) because God's chosen are refined (purified, made spiritually white) through the afflictions that Christians and Negroes have in common, as mutually benighted descendants of Cain. "On Being Brought from Africa to America" finally changes from a meditation to a sermon when Wheatley addresses an audience in her exhortation in the last two lines. She has master's degrees in French and in creative writing. 257-77. Jefferson, a Founding Father and thinker of the new Republic, felt that blacks were too inferior to be citizens. In fact, blacks fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War, hoping to gain their freedom in the outcome. , ed., Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley, G. K. Hall, 1982, pp. More on Wheatley's work from PBS, including illustrations of her poems and a portraitof the poet herself. Wheatley wrote in neoclassical couplets of iambic pentameter, following the example of the most popular English poet of the times, Alexander Pope. Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. The way the content is organized. On Being Brought from Africa to America Summary & Analysis. Eleanor Smith, in her 1974 article in the Journal of Negro Education, pronounces Wheatley too white in her values to be of any use to black people. "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. May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train. Being brought from Africa to America, otherwise known as the transatlantic slave trade, was a horrific and inhumane experience for millions of African people. On Being Brought from Africa to America Summary & Analysis - LitCharts While ostensibly about the fate of those black Christians who see the light and are saved, the final line in "On Being Brought From Africa to America" is also a reminder to the members of her audience about their own fate should they choose unwisely. Providing a comprehensive and inspiring perspective in The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., remarks on the irony that "Wheatley, having been pain-stakingly authenticated in her own time, now stands as a symbol of falsity, artificiality, of spiritless and rote convention." These were pre-Revolutionary days, and Wheatley imbibed the excitement of the era, recording the Boston Massacre in a 1770 poem. Try refreshing the page, or contact customer support. Baker, Houston A., Jr., Workings of the Spirit: The Poetics of Afro-American Women's Writing, University of Chicago Press, 1991. Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain. Thus, in order to participate fully in the meaning of the poem, the audience must reject the false authority of the "some," an authority now associated with racism and hypocrisy, and accept instead the authority that the speaker represents, an authority based on the tenets of Christianity. She traveled to London in 1773 (with the Wheatley's son) in order to publish her book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. to America") was published by Archibald Bell of London. Phillis lived for a time with the married Wheatley daughter in Providence, but then she married a free black man from Boston, John Peters, in 1778. In "On Being Brought from Africa to America" Wheatley alludes twice to Isaiah to refute stereotypical readings of skin color; she interprets these passages to refer to the mutual spiritual benightedness of both races, as equal diabolically-dyed descendants of Cain. This same spirit in literature and philosophy gave rise to the revolutionary ideas of government through human reason, as popularized in the Declaration of Independence. Neoclassical was a term applied to eighteenth-century literature of the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason, in Europe. 422. Line 3 further explains what coming into the light means: knowing God and Savior. In this book was the poem that is now taught in schools and colleges all over the world, a fitting tribute to the first-ever black female poet in America. It also contains a lot of figurative language describing . Beginning in 1958, a shift from bright to darker hues accompanied the deepening depression that ultimately led him . On Being Brought from Africa to America Quiz - Quizizz LitCharts Teacher Editions. Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. Nevertheless, in her association of spiritual and aesthetic refinement, she also participates in an extensive tradition of religious poets, like George Herbert and Edward Taylor, who fantasized about the correspondence between their spiritual reconstruction and the aesthetic grace of their poetry. 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. themes in this piece are religion, freedom, and equality, https://poemanalysis.com/phillis-wheatley/on-being-brought-from-africa-to-america/, Poems covered in the Educational Syllabus. Wheatley's first name, Phillis, comes from the name of the ship that brought her to America. Given this challenge, Wheatley managed, Erkkila points out, to "merge" the vocabularies of various strands of her experiencefrom the biblical and Protestant Evangelical to the revolutionary political ideas of the dayconsequently creating "a visionary poetics that imagines the deliverance of her people" in the total change that was happening in the world. Reading Wheatley not just as an African American author but as a transatlantic black author, like Ignatius Sancho and Olaudah Equiano, the critics demonstrate that early African writers who wrote in English represent "a diasporic model of racial identity" moving between the cultures of Africa, Europe, and the Americas. 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. Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain. Skin color, Wheatley asserts, has nothing to do with evil or salvation. However, the date of retrieval is often important. This is followed by an interview with drama professor, scholar and performer Sharrell Luckett, author of the books Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches and African American Arts: Activism, Aesthetics, and Futurity. To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Lady's Brother and Sister, and a Child of the Name Avis, Aged One Year. The very distinctions that the "some" have created now work against them. But another approach is also possible. In the case of her readers, such failure is more likely the result of the erroneous belief that they have been saved already. 1 Phillis Wheatley, "On Being Brought from Africa to America," in Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition, ed. In the meanwhile, until you change your minds, enjoy the firefight! She was kidnapped and enslaved at age seven. The poem was published in 1773 when it was included in her book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Wheatley is guiding her readers to ask: How could good Christian people treat other human beings in such a horrific way? The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. She was baptized a Christian and began publishing her own poetry in her early teens. Whilst showing restraint and dignity, the speaker's message gets through plain and clear - black people are not evil and before God, all are welcome, none turned away. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem. The final word train not only refers to the retinue of the divinely chosen but also to how these chosen are trained, "Taught to understand." Her benighted, or troubled soul was saved in the process. The fur is highly valued). Erkkila, Betsy, "Phillis Wheatley and the Black American Revolution," in A Mixed Race: Ethnicity in Early America, edited by Frank Shuffelton, Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. Shields, John C., "Phillis Wheatley and the Sublime," in Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley, edited by William H. Robinson, G. K. Hall, 1982, pp. Western notions of race were still evolving. Endnotes. (Born Thelma Lucille Sayles) American poet, autobiographer, and author of children's books. Many readers today are offended by this line as making Africans sound too dull or brainwashed by religion to realize the severity of their plight in America. . This legitimation is implied when in the last line of the poem Wheatley tells her readers to remember that sinners "May be refin'd and join th' angelic train." 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. The Cambridge Grammar Of The English Language [PDF] [39mcl5ibdiu0] The Lord's attendant train is the retinue of the chosen referred to in the preceding allusion to Isaiah in Wheatley's poem. by Phillis Wheatley. Poem Analysis, https://poemanalysis.com/phillis-wheatley/on-being-brought-from-africa-to-america/. "Taught my benighted soul to understand" (Line 2) "Once I redemption neither sought nor knew." (Line 4) "'Their colour is a diabolic die.'" (Line 6) "May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train." (Line 8) Report Quiz. assessments in his edited volume Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley. , They have become, within the parameters of the poem at least, what they once abhorredbenighted, ignorant, lost in moral darkness, unenlightenedbecause they are unable to accept the redemption of Africans. Does she feel a conflict about these two aspects of herself, or has she found an integrated identity? Chosen by Him, the speaker is again thrust into the role of preacher, one with a mission to save others. A sensation in her own day, Wheatley was all but forgotten until scrutinized under the lens of African American studies in the twentieth century. 61, 1974, pp. Wheatley may also be using the rhetorical device of bringing up the opponent's worst criticism in order to defuse it. She did not know that she was in a sinful state. Suddenly, the audience is given an opportunity to view racism from a new perspective, and to either accept or reject this new ideological position. THEMES (122) $5.99. 4 Pages. Publication of Wheatley's poem, "An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of the Celebrated Divine George Whitefield," in 1770 made her a household name. May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train. The title of one Wheatley's most (in)famous poems, "On being brought from AFRICA to AMERICA" alludes to the experiences of many Africans who became subject to the transatlantic slave trade.Wheatley uses biblical references and direct address to appeal to a Christian audience, while also defending the ability of her "sable race" to become . African American Protest Poetry - National Humanities Center Cain Postmodernism, bell hooks & Systems of Oppression, Introduction to Gerard Manley Hopkins: Devout Catholicism and Sprung Rhythm, Leslie Marmon Silko | Biography, Poems, & Books, My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass | Summary & Analysis, George Eliot's Silly Novels by Lady Novelists: Summary & Analysis, The Author to Her Book by Anne Bradstreet | Summary & Analysis, Ruined by Lynn Nottage | Play, Characters, and Analysis, Neuromancer by William Gibson | Summary, Characters & Analysis, The Circular Ruins by Jorge Luis Borges | Summary & Analysis. She was greatly saddened by the deaths of John and Susanna Wheatley and eventually married John Peters, a free African American man in Boston. 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. 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. At the same time, she touches on the prejudice many Christians had that heathens had no souls. Either of these implications would have profoundly disturbed the members of the Old South Congregational Church in Boston, which Wheatley joined in 1771, had they detected her "ministerial" appropriation of the authority of scripture. Such couplets were usually closed and full sentences, with parallel structure for both halves. Show all. This view sees the slave girl as completely brainwashed by the colonial captors and made to confess her inferiority in order to be accepted. The irony that the author, Phillis Wheatley, was highlighting is that Christian people, who are expected to be good and loving, were treating people with African heritage as lesser human beings. It is organized into rhyming couplets and has two distinct sections. In this regard, one might pertinently note that Wheatley's voice in this poem anticipates the ministerial role unwittingly assumed by an African-American woman in the twenty-third chapter of Harriet Beecher Stowe's The Minister's Wooing (1859), in which Candace's hortatory words intrinsically reveal what male ministers have failed to teach about life and love. Phillis Wheatley - Poems by the Famous Poet - All Poetry Endnotes. This poem is more about the power of God than it is about equal rights, but it is still touched on. The speaker of this poem says that her abduction from Africa and subsequent enslavement in America was an act of mercy, in that it allowed her to learn about Christianity and ultimately be saved. She was instructed in Evangelical Christianity from her arrival and was a devout practicing Christian. Like them (the line seems to suggest), "Once I redemption neither sought nor knew" (4; my emphasis). 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. Despite what might first come to someones mind who knows anything about slavery in the United States, she saw it as an act of kindness. "On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phillis Wheatley". Because Wheatley stands at the beginning of a long tradition of African-American poetry, we thought we'd offer some . From the zephyr's wing, Exhales the incense of the blooming spring. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral His professional engagements have involved extensive travel in North and South America, Asia, North Africa, and Europe, and in 1981 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Foreign Languages Institute, Beijing. She was born in West Africa circa 1753, and thus she was only a few years younger than James Madison. "On Being Brought from Africa to America I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. Wheatley was a member of the Old South Congregational Church of Boston. Thus, she explains the dire situation: she was in danger of losing her soul and salvation. The black race itself was thought to stem from the murderer and outcast Cain, of the Bible. FRANK BIDART But in line 5, there is a shift in the poem. Phillis Wheatley was taken from what she describes as her pagan homeland of Africa as a young child and enslaved upon her arrival in America. Question 4 (2 points) Identify a type of figurative language in the following lines of Phillis Wheatley's On Being Brought from Africa to America. In fact, Wheatley's poems and their religious nature were used by abolitionists as proof that Africans were spiritual human beings and should not be treated as cattle. 189, 193. Levernier, James, "Style as Process in the Poetry of Phillis Wheatley," in Style, Vol. 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. The line leads the reader to reflect that Wheatley was not as naive, or as shielded from prejudice, as some have thought. Richard Abcarian (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) is a professor of English emeritus at California State University, Northridge, where he taught for thirty-seven years. The collection was such an astonishing testimony to the intelligence of her race that John Wheatley had to assemble a group of eighteen prominent citizens of Boston to attest to the poet's competency. . Wheatley admits this, and in one move, the balance of the poem seems shattered. Art of the African Diaspora: Gray Loft Gallery At the age of 14, she published her first poem in a local newspaper and went on to publish books and pamphlets. Line 5 does represent a shift in the mood/tone of the poem. The Multiple Truths in the Works of the Enslaved Poet Phillis Wheatley Every single person that visits Poem Analysis has helped contribute, so thank you for your support. As Christian people, they are supposed to be "refin'd," or to behave in a blessed and educated manner. SOURCES Redemption and Salvation: The speaker states that had she not been taken from her homeland and brought to America, she would never have known that there was a God and that she needed saving. She demonstrates in the course of her art that she is no barbarian from a "Pagan land" who raises Cain (in the double sense of transgressing God and humanity). She does more here than remark that representatives of the black race may be refined into angelic mattermade, as it were, spiritually white through redemptive Christianizing. In thusly alluding to Isaiah, Wheatley initially seems to defer to scriptural authority, then transforms this legitimation into a form of artistic self-empowerment, and finally appropriates this biblical authority through an interpreting ministerial voice. Daniel Garrett's appreciation of the contributions of African American women artists includes a study of Cicely Tyson, Angela Bassett, Viola Davis, and Regina King. "Some view our sable race with a scornful eye, "Their colour is a diabolic dye." Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain." Personification Simile Hyperbole Aphorism Q. On Being Brought From Africa To America By Phillis Wheatley 974 Words 4 Pages To understand the real meaning of a literary work, we need to look into the meaning of each word and why the author has chosen these particular words and not different ones. Her religion has changed her life entirely and, clearly, she believes the same can happen for anyone else. For example, Saviour and sought in lines three and four as well as diabolic die in line six. //]]>. Wheatley goes on to say that when she was in Africa, she knew neither about the existence of God nor the need of a savior. In fact, all three readings operate simultaneously to support Wheatley's argument. An error occurred trying to load this video. Full text. Another instance of figurative language is in line 2, where the speaker talks about her soul being "benighted." Among her tests for aesthetic refinement, Wheatley doubtless had in mind her careful management of metrics and rhyme in "On Being Brought from Africa to America." It is organized into four couplets, which are two rhymed lines of verse. INTRODUCTION. window.__mirage2 = {petok:"cajhZ6VFWaUJG3veQ.det3ab.5UanemT4_W4vp5lfYs-86400-0"}; In this poem Wheatley finds various ways to defeat assertions alleging distinctions between the black and the white races (O'Neale). Tracing the fight for equality and womens rights through poetry. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. English is the single most important language in the world, being the official or de facto . Not an adoring one, but a fair one. Gates documents the history of the critique of her poetry, noting that African Americans in the nineteenth century, following the trends of Frederick Douglass and the numerous slave narratives, created a different trajectory for black literature, separate from the white tradition that Wheatley emulated; even before the twentieth century, then, she was being scorned by other black writers for not mirroring black experience in her poems. By Phillis Wheatley. Read Wheatley's poems and letters and compare her concerns, in an essay, to those of other African American authors of any period. For Wheatley's management of the concept of refinement is doubly nuanced in her poem. Of course, her life was very different. The eighteen judges signed a document, which Phillis took to London with her, accompanied by the Wheatley son, Nathaniel, as proof of who she was. Read the full text of On Being Brought from Africa to America, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, "The Privileged and Impoverished Life of Phillis Wheatley". Encyclopedia.com. 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. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. Judging from a full reading of her poems, it does not seem likely that she herself ever accepted such a charge against her race. She published her first poem in 1767, later becoming a household name. Figurative language is used in this poem. There is no mention of forgiveness or of wrongdoing. This is a reference to the biblical Book of Genesis and the two sons of Adam. She was about twenty years old, black, and a woman. The inclusion of the white prejudice in the poem is very effective, for it creates two effects. Benjamin Franklin visited her. 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." We sense it in two ways. Pagan is defined as "a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions." Mary Beth Norton presents documents from before and after the war in. , The poem consists of: A single stanza of eight lines, with full rhyme and classic iambic pentameter beat, it basically says that black people can become Christian believers and in this respect are just the same as everyone else. One may wonder, then, why she would be glad to be in such a country that rejects her people. Erkkila's insight into Wheatley's dualistic voice, which allowed her to blend various points of view, is validated both by a reading of her complete works and by the contemporary model of early transatlantic black literature, which enlarges the boundaries of reference for her achievement. To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth - eNotes She was planning a second volume of poems, dedicated to Benjamin Franklin, when the Revolutionary War broke out. She also indicates, apropos her point about spiritual change, that the Christian sense of Original Sin applies equally to both races. This comparison would seem to reinforce the stereotype of evil that she seems anxious to erase. https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/being-brought-africa-america. The resulting verse sounds pompous and inauthentic to the modern ear, one of the problems that Wheatley has among modern audiences. Phillis Wheatley was born in Africa in 1753 and enslaved in America. The Art Of Public Speaking [PDF] [7ljt3gng4060] - vdoc.pub Wheatley, Phillis, Complete Writings, edited by Vincent Carretta, Penguin Books, 2001. In returning the reader circularly to the beginning of the poem, this word transforms its biblical authorization into a form of exemplary self-authorization. The Impact of the Early Years In this poem, Wheatley posits that all people, from all races, can be saved by Christianity. Her poems have the familiar invocations to the muses (the goddesses of inspiration), references to Greek and Roman gods and stories, like the tragedy of Niobe, and place names like Olympus and Parnassus. STYLE Mr. George Whitefield . 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.