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2. As Wheatley’s fi nal published poem before her death, “Liberty and Peace” might demonstrate either a growth or a shift in her poetic voice. Compare the poem with one of her earliest and make an argument for either the change or growth you recognize in Wheatley.
FURTHER QUESTIONS ON WHEATLEY AND HER WORK 1. One of the distinguishing factors of several of Wheatley’s poems is their panegyric quality, or their high praise of someone. Select two such poems from Wheatley’s body of work and make an argument both for the kind of person she deems worthy of praise and for the way those qualities have further implications that might be political, moral, or both. 2. Unlike other early writers of color, Wheatley received the freedom she so desperately sought. She was manumitted in 1773, just years before the rebellious colonies that would form the United States won their war against Britain. To what extent is Wheatley’s poetry revolutionary or democratic? How might you argue that Wheatley, rather than Freneau, is the poet of the American Revolution? 3. Compare Wheatley’s treatment of Christianity and slavery with those offered by Jupiter Hammon, Olaudah Equiano, and Harriet Jacobs. 4. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Religion, indeed, has produced a Phillis Whatley [sic]; but it could not produce a poet.” Consider Jefferson’s criticism of Wheatley in light of her use of Christianity to argue for the emancipation of slaves. WORKS CITED AND A DDITIONAL R ESOURCES Collins, Terence. “Phillis Wheatley: The Dark Side of the Poetry.” In Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley,
edited by William H. Robinson, 147–158. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America’s First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2003. Gould, Philip. Genius in Bondage: Literature of the Early Black Atlantic. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001. Isani, Mukhtar Ali. “The Contemporaneous Reception of Phillis Wheatley: Newspaper and Magazine Notices during the Years of Fame, 1765–1774.” Journal of Negro History 85, no. 4 (2000): 260–273. ———. “Phillis Wheatley and the Elegiac Mode.” In Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley, edited by William H. Robinson, 208–214. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982. Jamison, Angelene. “Analysis of Selected Poetry of Phillis Wheatley.” In Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley, edited by William H. Robinson, 128– 135. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982. McAleer Balkun, Mary. “Phillis Wheatley’s Construction of Otherness and the Rhetoric of Performed Ideology.” African American Review 36, no. 1 (2002): 121–135. Poems: Phillis Wheatley. Available online. URL: http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/wheatley.html. Accessed April 23, 2009. Robinson, William H. Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982. Shields, John C. “Phillis Wheatley and the Sublime.” In Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley, edited by William H. Robinson, 189–205. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982. “Phillis Wheatley.” VG: Voices from the Gaps. Available online. URL: http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/ Bios/entries/wheatley_phillis.html. Accessed April 23, 2009. Willard, Carla. “Wheatley’s Turn of Praise: Heroic Entrapment and the Paradox of Revolution.” American Literature 67, no. 2 (1995): 233–256.