She was taught theology, English, Latin, Greek, mythology, literature, geography, and astronomy. An online version of Wheatley's poetry collection, including "On Being Brought from Africa to America.". Being brought from Africa to America, otherwise known as the transatlantic slave trade, was a horrific and inhumane experience for millions of African people. She describes Africa as a "Pagan land." 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." She also indicates, apropos her point about spiritual change, that the Christian sense of Original Sin applies equally to both races. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Figurative language is used in this poem. 1 Phillis Wheatley, "On Being Brought from Africa to America," in Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition, ed. 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). 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. She is grateful for being made a slave, so she can receive the dubious benefits of the civilization into which she has been transplanted. In just eight lines, Wheatley describes her attitude toward her condition of enslavementboth coming from Africa to America, and the culture that considers the fact that she is a Black woman so negatively. Whilst there is no mention of the physical voyage or abduction or emotional stress, the experience came about through the compassion of God. Influenced by Next Generation of Blac, On "A Protestant Parliament and a Protestant State", On Both Sides of the Wall (Fun Beyde Zaytn Geto-Moyer), On Catholic Ireland in the Early Seventeenth Century, On Community Relations in Northern Ireland, On Funding the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, On His Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-Three, On Home Rule and the Land Question at Cork. In returning the reader circularly to the beginning of the poem, this word transforms its biblical authorization into a form of exemplary self-authorization. More on Wheatley's work from PBS, including illustrations of her poems and a portraitof the poet herself. Following are the main themes. In line 1 of "On Being Brought from Africa to America," as she does throughout her poems and letters, Wheatley praises the mercy of God for singling her out for redemption. This is a reference to the biblical Book of Genesis and the two sons of Adam. Mistakes do not get in the way of understanding. al. Negros ." too: Those who have contended that Wheatley had no thoughts on slavery have been corrected by such poems as the one to the Earl of Dartmouth, the British secretary of state for North America. On Virtue. Line 2 explains why she considers coming to America to have been good fortune. Some view our sable race with scornful eye. The opening thought is thus easily accepted by a white or possibly hostile audience: that she is glad she came to America to find true religion. 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. At a Glance A great example of figurative language is a metaphor. Source: Mary McAleer Balkun, "Phillis Wheatley's Construction of Otherness and the Rhetoric of Performed Ideology," in African American Review, Vol. the English people have a tremendous hatred for God. Throughout the poem, the speaker talks about God's mercy and the indifferent attitude of the people toward the African-American community. Wheatley's identity was therefore somehow bound up with the country's in a visible way, and that is why from that day to this, her case has stood out, placing not only her views on trial but the emerging country's as well, as Gates points out. It was written by a black woman who was enslaved. This is why she can never love tyranny. On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phillis Wheatley is a simple poem about the power of Christianity to bring people to salvation. 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. "On Being Brought From Africa to America" by Phillis Wheatley. While it is a short poem a lot of information can be taken away from it. Indeed, at the time, blacks were thought to be spiritually evil and thus incapable of salvation because of their skin color. "On Being Brought From Africa to America" is an unusual poem. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. Encyclopedia.com. Teacher Editions with classroom activities for all 1699 titles we cover. While she had Loyalist friends and British patrons, Wheatley sympathized with the rebels, not only because her owners were of that persuasion, but also because many slaves believed that they would gain their freedom with the cause of the Revolution. The fur is highly valued). 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. Wheatley gave birth to three children, all of whom died. 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. 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. 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). Poetic devices are thin on the ground in this short poem but note the thread of silent consonants brought/Taught/benighted/sought and the hard consonants scornful/diabolic/black/th'angelic which bring texture and contrast to the sound. 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. Wheatley may also cleverly suggest that the slaves' affliction includes their work in making dyes and in refining sugarcane (Levernier, "Wheatley's"), but in any event her biblical allusion subtly validates her argument against those individuals who attribute the notion of a "diabolic die" to Africans only. Wheatley is talking about the people who live in Africa; they have not yet been exposed to Christianity or the idea of salvation. 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. The Challenge "There are more things in heav'n and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."Hamlet. In fact, it might end up being desirable, spiritually, morally, one day. 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." By rhyming this word with "angelic train," the author is connecting the ideas of pure evil and the goodness of Heaven, suggesting that what appears evil may, in fact, be worthy of Heaven. She ends the poem by saying that all people, regardless of race, are able to be saved and make it to Heaven. That Wheatley sometimes applied biblical language and allusions to undercut colonial assumptions about race has been documented (O'Neale), and that she had a special fondness for the Old Testament prophecies of Isaiah is intimated by her verse paraphrase entitled "Isaiah LXIII. 4.8. 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. She was baptized a Christian and began publishing her own poetry in her early teens. both answers. The last two lines of the poem make use of imperative language, which is language that gives a command or tells the reader what to do. According to "The American Crisis", God will aid the colonists and not aid the king of England because. (including. 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. God punished him with the fugitive and vagabond and yieldless crop curse. 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First, the reader can imagine how it feels to hear a comment like that. Phillis Wheatley Peters was one of the best-known poets in pre-19th century America. This color, the speaker says, may think is a sign of the devil. Educated and enslaved in the household of . 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. 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. //

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