With short descriptions of natural phenomena, the technique adds artificial simplicity to the setting of the poem. Phillis Wheatley 1773 On Imagination Thy various works, imperial queen, we see, How bright their forms! Showrs may descend, and dews their gems disclose, 5Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: Americas First Black Poet and her Encounters with the Founding Fathers (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2003). Soaring through air to find the bright abode, Phillis Wheatley Analysis: In this poem, Phillis Wheatley communicates that an artist's or poet's pencil brings pictures or words to life. The speaker then addresses the quality of virtue as "[a]uspicious queen," again sending the status of that quality into the higher realms, such as royalty. But if you how deck'd with pomp by thee! Also, the "gentle hand" of that quality will continue to "embrace" the speaker. Given the positive relationship and similar ideals, John Wheatley encouraged Phillis and Nathaniel to travel to London and meet with the Countess to inquire support as a patroness. Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?" ("On Imagination") "Though Winter frowns to Fancy's raptur'd eyes" ("On Imagination") In "On Imagination," Wheatley personifies imagination, winter, and fancy. On the Death of a Young Lady Five Years of Age places emphasis on death as an escape from the hell on Earth that is slavery. And nectar sparkle on the blooming rose. 3 (1974): 257-271. The poem To Maecenas makes evident that Phillis Wheatley faced several challenges due to her race and gender. who can sing thy force? Or with new worlds amaze the unbounded soul. how deck'd with pomp by thee! Image From star to star the mental optics rove, Her first published poem is considered ' An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of that Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant . Choose a poem Learn it by heart Perform it out loud, Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Links Off. And thine the sceptre o'er the realms of thought; circumfusd in air, Celestial Gods in mortal forms appear; Swift as they move hear each recess rebound, Heavn quakes, earth trembles, and the shores resound. She names him in line thirty-seven: The happier Terence all the choir inspird His soul replenishd , and his bosom fird; But say, ye Muses, why this partial grace, To one alone of Africs sable race From age to age transmitting thus his name With the first glory in the rolls of fame?23, Sable marks Africa as the mourning race, an evident theme throughout Poems. This paper will analyze Phillis Wheatleys motives for writing poetry and letters which were rooted in her classical education, as well as the extent to which her allusions to Greek and Roman literary form and content referenced the topic of slavery in Revolutionary America. They chill the tides of Fancy's flowing sea, educated and enslaved in the household of prominent boston commercialist john wheatley, lionized in new england and england, with presses in both places publishing her poems, and paraded before the new republic's political leadership and the old empire's aristocracy, wheatley was the abolitionists' illustrative testimony that blacks could be both Thy wond'rous acts in beauteous order stand, And all attest how potent is thine hand. (Kenneth Silverman, Four New Letters by Phillis Wheatley, Early American Literature 8, No. Terence linked her to the ancient world through African identity and through their similarities in using the stroke of a pen to push the boundaries in gaining freedom. Thornton worked closely with the Countess in the support of Elezer Wheelocks Indian Charity School located in New Hampshire. While a pure stream of light o'erflows the skies. Her enslavement fueled her passion for freedom. She married and took the name Peters, but her life was not a happy one. Free At Last but Not Without Controversy. . The first three stanzas have four lines each, and the rhyme scheme for these stanzas is AABB. Wheatley spent some time in England and received support from various religious leaders and abolitionists who used their influence to help secure the publication of Wheatleys book. Wheatley wrote on how the roots of her love for freedom sprung from her enslavement as seen in the first two lines, Should you my lord, while you peruse my son, wonder whence my love for Freedom sprung. She hoped Legge would share the same ideals as the Countess of Huntingdon (Phillis Wheatleys Poem on Tyranny and Slavery 1772, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/road-revolution/resources/phillis-wheatley%E2%80%99s-poem-tyranny-and-slavery-1772 (Accessed April 24, 2014). But Wheatley's poem does not have the spare tetrameters and clean lines of a protestant hymnal, it is self-consciously grand. The speaker begins describing the movement of that "auspicious queen," as her "retinue" moves downward dressed in "glory" that belongs to the heavenly realm above it. Much of the poem deals with the transformative, inspiring, almost magical strength of the unfettered imagination. Brown, Delindus and Wanda Anderson. $4.50. Her use of Horatian ode and subversive pastoral in To Maecenas displayed her knowledge of classical literary composition. Helicon, referring to Mount Helicon, is a place mentioned in Greek myths. Analysis of "On Imagination". This appellation demonstrates the value that the speaker is placing on her subject, virtue. Phillis Wheatleys theme of racial oppression continues in her letter to Reverend Samson Occom in year 1774 as seen below: I have this Day received your obliging kind Epistle, and am greatly satisfied with your Reasons respecting the Negroes, and think highly reasonable what you offer in Vindication of their natural Rights: Those that invade them cannot be insensible that the divine Light is chasing away the thick Darkness which broods over the Land of Africa; and the Chaos which has reigned so long, is converting into beautiful Order, and reveals more and more clearly, the glorious Dispensation of civil and religious Liberty, which are so inseparably united, that there is little or no Enjoyment of one without the other: Otherwise, perhaps, the Israelites had been less solicitous for their Freedom from Egyptian Slavery; I do not say they would have been contented without it, by no Means, for in every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance; and by the Leave of our Modem Egyptians I will assert, that the same Principle lives in us. And all the forests may with leaves be crowned; .mw-parser-output .wst-smallcaps{font-variant:small-caps}Thy various works, imperial queen, we see 32James Otis, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, 1763. From Tithon's bed now might Aurora rise, She then requests that virtue not allow her to remain in the "false joys of time"a supplication reminiscent of "lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil" (Matthew 6:5-15 KJV). Constant discrimination based upon her race makes its way into not only To Maecenas, but also in On the Death of a Young Lady Five Years of Age. 42Lamore, 142. Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley/On Imagination, Last edited on 14 November 2021, at 21:30, Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley, a native African and a slave, https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Memoir_and_Poems_of_Phillis_Wheatley/On_Imagination&oldid=11885290. Her intellectual curiosity inspired both her love for writing and poetry, as seen in her publication of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in 1773.1. Otis, James. The speaker begins by addressing her subject as "bright jewel." 2 (June 1981): 264- 266. While Homer paints, lo! Gregory A Staley, American Women and Classical Myths (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009). Is it too far-fetched to say that this might make us think of freedom and captivity? However, she continued to live with the Wheatley family until she married a free African American man from Boston named John Peters in 1778.10, Phillis Wheatley received what for a slave girl was an unprecedented classical education from Mary Wheatley, John Wheatleys daughter (and one of twin children).11 Because many slaveholders did not have the opportunity to obtain the sort of education Wheatley had, it is likely they felt threatened by her knowledge of classical literature. Phillis Wheatleys place in society was comparable to that of Terence, an African-born Roman playwright in the first century. Auspicious queen, thine heav'nly pinions spread, And lead celestial Chastity along; Lo! A Wolof girl who was captured and enslaved as a young child, Phillis Wheatley was adopted by a Boston couple who came to treat her like their own daughter. John Shields, Phillis Wheatleys Poetics of Liberation: Backgrounds and Context (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press: 2008), and John Shields, New Essays on Phillis Wheatley (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press: 2011). Bennett, Paula. They chill the tides of Fancys flowing sea, Perhaps a bit of jealousy arose in Wheatley in the lines concerning Terence; his writing brought him social freedom, and hers had yet to do so. In this poem, Wheatley supports the colonial cause, as in her poem addressed to George Washington. Letter to Reverend Samson Occom. The Connecticut Gazette. And it will continue to protect her as it "hovers oer thine head.". She claimed that God created virtue, and therefore each individual inherently has virtue, despite his or her outward appearance. And the soul will continue to pursue that quality in order to reach its goal of "bliss"promised by all great spiritual leaders and avatars. Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies, Till some lov d object strikes her wand ring eyes, Whose silken fetters all the senses bind, And soft captivity involves the mind. Because of her status as an African slave, Wheatley could not directly criticize white authorities or even slavery. Aristotles theory of civic virtue came into play in her letter to Reverend Samson Occom where she claimed all individuals are inherently equal since God created each and every human. Thisenthusiasticmeditation on the power of the imaginationpresents Fancy which is really another word for the faculty of imagination as a queen capable of wondrousacts. During the revolutionary period, white individuals did not commonly believe that blacks could have virtue and intelligence. Complete summary of Phillis Wheatley's To S. M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works. Then the prospect that her soul might sink into despair at abandoning that quality gives rise to her command to her soul not to "sink . 1 (March 2010): 146-149. The final four stanzas have variable line lengths, mostly maintaining the rhyming couplets. 22Shields, New Essays, 69. Shields, John. 1, 2015. Registration takes a minute or two.