Voice | Academy of American Poets She knew redemption through this transition and banished all sorrow from her life. On Virtue. 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. The question of slavery weighed heavily on the revolutionaries, for it ran counter to the principles of government that they were fighting for. For example, while the word die is clearly meant to refer to skin pigmentation, it also suggests the ultimate fate that awaits all people, regardless of color or race. ' On Being Brought from Africa to America' by Phillis Wheatley is a short, eight-line poem that is structured with a rhyme scheme of AABBCCDD. Because Wheatley stands at the beginning of a long tradition of African-American poetry, we thought we'd offer some . The poem was "On Being Brought from Africa to America," written by a 14-year-old Phillis in the late 18th century. With almost a third of her poetry written as elegies on the deaths of various people, Wheatley was probably influenced by the Puritan funeral elegy of colonial America, explains Gregory Rigsby in the College Language Association Journal. Wheatley reminded her readers that all people, regardless of race, are able to obtain salvation. 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. HubPages is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. 23, No. 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. Wheatley, however, is asking Christians to judge her and her poetry, for she is indeed one of them, if they adhere to the doctrines of their own religion, which preaches Christ's universal message of brotherhood and salvation. This simple and consistent pattern makes sense for Wheatley's straightforward message. It is the racist posing as a Christian who has become diabolical. Her being saved was not truly the whites' doing, for they were but instruments, and she admonishes them in the second quatrain for being too cocky. Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more. Source: Mary McAleer Balkun, "Phillis Wheatley's Construction of Otherness and the Rhetoric of Performed Ideology," in African American Review, Vol. This racial myth and the mention of slavery in the Bible led Europeans to consider it no crime to enslave blacks, for they were apparently a marked and evil race. "On Being Brought from Africa to America" by Phillis Wheatley , black as In the final lines, Wheatley addresses any who think this way. Unlike Wheatley, her success continues to increase, and she is one of the richest people in America. Rather than creating distinctions, the speaker actually collapses those which the "some" have worked so hard to create and maintain, the source of their dwindling authority (at least within the precincts of the poem). In the first four lines, the tone is calm and grateful, with the speaker saying that her soul is "benighted" and mentioning "redemption" and the existence of a "Saviour." Line 3 further explains what coming into the light means: knowing God and Savior. Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes, And through the air their mingled music floats. Neoclassical was a term applied to eighteenth-century literature of the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason, in Europe. The very distinctions that the "some" have created now work against them. This failed due to doubt that a slave could write poetry. Phillis Wheatley is all about change. . 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. . Although she was an enslaved person, Phillis Wheatley Peters was one of the best-known poets in pre-19th century America. In the case of her readers, such failure is more likely the result of the erroneous belief that they have been saved already. Wheatley's shift from first to third person in the first and second stanzas is part of this approach. Some of her poems and letters are lost, but several of the unpublished poems survived and were later found. The latter is implied, at least religiously, in the last lines. "In every human breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Lov, Gwendolyn Brooks 19172000 "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. This is a metaphor. Source: Susan Andersen, Critical Essay on "On Being Brought from Africa to America," in Poetry for Students, Gale, Cengage Learning, 2009. Literature in Context This could explain why "On Being Brought from Africa to America," also written in neoclassical rhyming couplets but concerning a personal topic, is now her most popular. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. Could the United States be a land of freedom and condone slavery? At this time, most African American people were unable to read and write, so Wheatley's education was quite unusual. Speaking for God, the prophet at one point says, "Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction" (Isaiah 48:10). We respond to all comments too, giving you the answers you need. That this self-validating woman was a black slave makes this confiscation of ministerial role even more singular. 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. "On Being Brought from Africa to America" by Phillis Wheatley, is about how Africans were brought from Africa to America but still had faith in God to bring them through. She did light housework because of her frailty and often visited and conversed in the social circles of Boston, the pride of her masters. The poem uses the principles of Protestant meditation, which include contemplating various Christian themes like one's own death or salvation. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., "Phillis Wheatley and the Nature of the Negro," in Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley, edited by William H. Robinson, G. K. Hall, 1982, pp. It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed, "Sooo much more helpful thanSparkNotes. Speaking of one of his visions, the prophet observes, "I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple" (Isaiah 6:1). 18 On being brought from AFRICA to AMERICA. To be "benighted" is to be in moral or spiritual darkness as a result of ignorance or lack of enlightenment, certainly a description with which many of Wheatley's audience would have agreed. Wheatley's verse generally reveals this conscious concern with poetic grace, particularly in terms of certain eighteenth-century models (Davis; Scruggs). In line 7 specifically, she points out the irony of Christian people with Christian values treating Black people unfairly and cruelly. Figurative language is used in this poem. 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. Similarities Between A Raisin In The Sun And Langston Hughes The first allusion occurs in the word refin'd. Indeed, at the time, blacks were thought to be spiritually evil and thus incapable of salvation because of their skin color. 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. The Wheatleys noticed Phillis's keen intelligence and educated her alongside their own children. The effect is to place the "some" in a degraded position, one they have created for themselves through their un-Christian hypocrisy. 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. Her published book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), might have propelled her to greater prominence, but the Revolutionary War interrupted her momentum, and Wheatley, set free by her master, suddenly had to support herself. Surviving the long and challenging voyage depended on luck and for some, divine providence or intervention. This position called for a strategy by which she cleverly empowered herself with moral authority through irony, the critic claims in a Style article. That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. In spiritual terms both white and black people are a "sable race," whose common Adamic heritage is darkened by a "diabolic die," by the indelible stain of original sin. The liberty she takes here exceeds her additions to the biblical narrative paraphrased in her verse "Isaiah LXIII. THEMES As the first African American woman . 12th Grade English: Homework Help Resource, Works by African American Writers: Homework Help, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison: Summary & Characters, Psychological Research & Experimental Design, All Teacher Certification Test Prep Courses, "On Being Brought from Africa to America" by Phillis Wheatley, "On Being Brought from Africa to America" Summary, "On Being Brought from Africa to America" Analysis, British Prose for 12th Grade: Homework Help, British Poetry for 12th Grade: Homework Help, British Plays for 12th Grade: Homework Help, The Harlem Renaissance: Novels and Poetry from the Jazz Age, W.E.B. answer not listed. The resulting verse sounds pompous and inauthentic to the modern ear, one of the problems that Wheatley has among modern audiences. Both well-known and unknown writers are represented through biography, journals, essays, poems, and fiction. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Our work is created by a team of talented poetry experts, to provide an in-depth look into poetry, like no other. Barbara Evans. The pair of ten-syllable rhymesthe heroic coupletwas thought to be the closest English equivalent to classical meter. She notes that the black skin color is thought to represent a connection to the devil. An error occurred trying to load this video. In effect, she was attempting a degree of integration into Western culture not open to, and perhaps not even desired by, many African Americans. Africans were brought over on slave ships, as was Wheatley, having been kidnapped or sold by other Africans, and were used for field labor or as household workers. What difficulties did they face in considering the abolition of the institution in the formation of the new government? Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. But the women are on the march. POEM TEXT 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. At the age of 14, she published her first poem in a local newspaper and went on to publish books and pamphlets. In A Mixed Race: Ethnicity in Early America, Betsy Erkkila explores Wheatley's "double voice" in "On Being Brought from Africa to America." If it is not, one cannot enter eternal bliss in heaven. She was kidnapped and enslaved at age seven. Smith, Eleanor, "Phillis Wheatley: A Black Perspective," in Journal of Negro Education, Vol. Erin Marsh has a bachelor's degree in English from the College of Saint Benedict and an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University's Low Residency program. She was unusually precocious, and the family that enslaved her decided to give her an education, which was uncommon for an enslaved person. 422. The poem is more complicated that it initially appears. In the following excerpt, Balkun analyzes "On Being Brought from Africa to America" and asserts that Wheatley uses the rhetoric of white culture to manipulate her audience. As the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry, Wheatley uses this poem to argue that all people, regardless of race, are capable of finding salvation through Christianity. This objection is denied in lines 7 and 8. Phillis Wheatley. Imperative language shows up in this poem in the last two lines. The speaker has learned of God, become enlightened, is aware of the life of Christ on Earth, and is now saved, having previously no knowledge or need of the redemption of the soul. She was born in West Africa circa 1753, and thus she was only a few years younger than James Madison. There is no mention of forgiveness or of wrongdoing. From this perspective, Africans were living in darkness. An example is the precedent of General Colin Powell, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War (a post equal to Washington's during the Revolution). The early reviews, often written by people who had met her, refer to her as a genius. The brief poem Harlem introduces themes that run throughout Langston Hughess volume Montage of a Dream Deferred and throughout his, Langston Hughes 19021967 Provides readers with strategies for facilitating language learning and literacy learning. Most descriptions tell what the literary elements do to enhance the story. Because she was physically frail, she did light housework in the Wheatley household and was a favorite companion to Susanna. Such authors as Wheatley can now be understood better by postcolonial critics, who see the same hybrid or double references in every displaced black author who had to find or make a new identity. PDF downloads of all 1699 LitCharts literature guides, and of every new one we publish. In appealing to these two audiences, Wheatley's persona assumes a dogmatic ministerial voice. She was taught theology, English, Latin, Greek, mythology, literature, geography, and astronomy. She makes this clear by . "On Being Brought From Africa to America" is eight lines long, a single stanza, and four rhyming couplets formed into a block. Publication of Wheatley's poem, "An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of the Celebrated Divine George Whitefield," in 1770 made her a household name. Like many Christian poets before her, Wheatley's poem also conducts its religious argument through its aesthetic attainment. 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. Read about the poet, see her poem's summary and analysis, and study its meaning and themes. Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. His art moved from figurative abstraction to nonrepresentational multiform grids of glowing, layered colors (Figure 15). This means that each line, with only a couple of questionable examples, is made up of five sets of two beats. 27, 1992, pp. 1, 2002, pp. Her collection Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in 1773. Illustrated Works Look at the poems and letters of Phillis Wheatley, and find evidence of her two voices, African and American. Explore "On Being Brought from Africa to America" by Phillis Wheatley. 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. That same year, an elegy that she wrote upon the death of the Methodist preacher George Whitefield made her famous both in America and in England.