As Wheatley pertinently wrote in "On Imagination" (1773), which similarly mingles religious and aesthetic refinements, she aimed to embody "blooming graces" in the "triumph of [her] song" (Mason 78). — An overview of Wheatley's life and work. Boston, Massachusetts She was taught to read and write. This has been a typical reading, especially since the advent of African American criticism and postcolonial criticism. Thus, John Wheatley collected a council of prominent and learned men from Boston to testify to Phillis Wheatley's authenticity. Source: Susan Andersen, Critical Essay on "On Being Brought from Africa to America," in Poetry for Students, Gale, Cengage Learning, 2009. 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). Form two groups and hold a debate on the topic. In fact, the discussions of religious and political freedom go hand in hand in the poem. Wheatley’s work is convincing based on its content. And indeed, Wheatley's use of the expression "angelic train" probably refers to more than the divinely chosen, who are biblically identified as celestial bodies, especially stars (Daniel 12:13); this biblical allusion to Isaiah may also echo a long history of poetic usage of similar language, typified in Milton's identification of the "gems of heaven" as the night's "starry train" (Paradise Lost 4:646). This voice is an important feature of her poem. She was seven or eight years old, did not speak English, and was wrapped in a dirty carpet. Poet and World Traveler Levernier considers Wheatley predominantly in view of her unique position as a black poet in Revolutionary white America. Wheatley's growing fame led Susanna Wheatley to advertise for a subscription to publish a whole book of her poems. Her strategy relies on images, references, and a narrative position that would have been strikingly familiar to her audience. Phillis Wheatley: Complete Writings (2001), which includes "On Being Brought from Africa to America," finally gives readers a chance to form their own opinions, as they may consider this poem against the whole body of Wheatley's poems and letters. Surely, too, she must have had in mind the clever use of syntax in the penultimate line of her poem, as well as her argument, conducted by means of imagery and nuance, for the equality of both races in terms of their mutually "benighted soul." She separates herself from the audience of white readers as a black person, calling attention to the difference. 92-93, 97, 101, 115. Both races inherit the barbaric blackness of sin. Wheatley Question 1: Who is Wheatley’s audience in "On Being Brought from Africa to America? The members of this group are not only guilty of the sin of reviling others (which Wheatley addressed in the Harvard poem) but also guilty for failing to acknowledge God's work in saving "Negroes." "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is a poem written by Phillis Wheatley, published in her 1773 poetry collection "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral." No one is excluded from the Savior's tender mercy—not the worst people whites can think of—not Cain, not blacks. Here she mentions nothing about having been free in Africa while now being enslaved in America. Smith, Eleanor, "Phillis Wheatley: A Black Perspective," in Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 2, December 1975, pp. Wheatley lived in the middle of the passionate controversies of the times, herself a celebrated cause and mover of events. Some view our sable race with scornful eye, The first four lines of the poem could be interpreted as a justification for enslaving Africans, or as a condoning of such a practice, since the enslaved would at least then have a chance at true religion. She was in a sinful and ignorant state, not knowing God or Christ. This poem must be about the speaker's thoughts about being brought as a slave from Africa (West Africa, probably, like Senegal or Gambia—someplace that was not a Christian country at the time) to America. On Being Brought from Africa to America - 'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, 'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, - The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. In a few short lines, the poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America" juxtaposes religious language with the institution of slavery, to touch on the ideas of equality, salvation, and liberty. What difficulties did they face in considering the abolition of the institution in the formation of the new government? Ironically, this authorization occurs through the agency of a black female slave. This discrepancy between the rhetoric of freedom and the fact of slavery was often remarked upon in Europe. 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." 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." Phillis Wheatley’s poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America” presented to its audience various mixed ideas and her positive position as being a slave. , … Wheatley's cultural awareness is even more evident in the poem "On Being Brought From Africa to America," written the year after the Harvard poem in 1768. Therefore, this poem has autobiographical component. Following the poem (from Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, 1773), are some observations about its treatment of the theme of enslavement: On being brought from Africa to America. 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. Wheatley calls herself an adventurous Afric, and so she was, mastering the materials given to her to create with. In the final four lines of the poem, she discusses that all people, no matter race, religion, etc. Wheatley, however, applies the doctrine of salvation in an unusual way for most of her readers; she broadens it into a political or sociological discussion as well. It is supremely ironic and tragic that she died in poverty and neglect in the city of Boston; yet she left as her legacy the proof of what she asserts in her poems, that she was a free spirit who could speak with authority and equality, regardless of origins or social constraints. Many of her elegies meditate on the soul in heaven, as she does briefly here in line 8. Once again, Wheatley co-opts the rhetoric of the other. Specifically, Wheatley deftly manages two biblical allusions in her last line, both to Isaiah. For Wheatley's management of the concept of refinement is doubly nuanced in her poem. In "On Being Brought from Africa to America," Wheatley identifies herself first and foremost as a Christian, rather than as African or American, and asserts everyone's equality in God's sight. Wheatley was a member of the Old South Congregational Church of Boston. INTRODUCTION 4, 1974, p. 95. He deserted Phillis after their third child was born. 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. By writing the poem in couplets, Wheatley helps the reader assimilate one idea at a time. It is the racist posing as a Christian who has become diabolical. Remember, discusses being brought from her "Pagan land" to America, where she is introduced to the idea of God and Christianity. 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. Walker, Alice, "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Honoring the Creativity of the Black Woman," in Jackson State Review, Vol. If it is not, one cannot enter eternal bliss in heaven. On being brought from Africa to America By: Phillis Wheatley Rhyme Scheme Land A Understand A Too B Knew B Eye C Die Diction C Cain D Benighted- Ignorant to the fact that someone can take her and sell her Train D Sable Race- The poem is about how negros were viewed and how they She meditates on her specific case of conversion in the first half of the poem and considers her conversion as a general example for her whole race in the second half. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism." 1-8." On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phillis Wheatley Lesson Plans by Rebecca Ray In a few short lines, the poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America" juxtaposes religious language with the institution of slavery, to touch on the ideas of equality, salvation, and liberty. Bibliography Background-Phillis Wheatley Phillis Wheatley was brought to America when she was 7 years old. Taught my benighted soul to understand They must also accede to the equality of black Christians and their own sinful nature. She admits that people are scornful of her race and that she came from a pagan background. Negros . Deonca Pierce ENG 350 American Literature I 2 September 2011 Response paper 3: “On Being Brought from Africa to America” To the literary world, Phillis Wheatley is recognized as the first black American poet (Archiving Early America, 2011). That is, she applies the doctrine to the black race. The poet quickly and ably turns into a moral teacher, explaining as to her backward American friends the meaning of their own religion. It is not only "Negroes" who "may" get to join "th' angelic train" (7-8), but also those who truly deserve the label Christian as demonstrated by their behavior toward all of God's creatures. While it is true that her very ability to write such a poem defended her race against Jefferson's charge that black people were not intelligent enough to create poetry, an even worse charge for Wheatley would have been the association of the black race with unredeemable evil—the charge that the black race had no souls to save. She was so celebrated and famous in her day that she was entertained in London by nobility and moved among intellectuals with respect. 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 perhaps included the reference to Cain for dramatic effect, to lead into the Christian doctrine of forgiveness, emphasized in line 8. ." As the final word of this very brief poem, train is situated to draw more than average attention to itself. 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. 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. As a title, "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is about as straightforward as you can get. Because she was physically frail, she did light housework in the Wheatley household and was a favorite companion to Susanna. https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/being-brought-africa-america. Read more of Wheatley's poems and write a paper comparing her work to some of the poems of her eighteenth-century model. She notes that the black skin color is thought to represent a connection to the devil. Wheatley was bought as a starving child and transformed into a prodigy in a few short years of training. 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. It is no accident that what follows in the final lines is a warning about the rewards for the redeemed after death when they "join th' angelic train" (8). She was about twenty years old, black, and a woman. One may wonder, then, why she would be glad to be in such a country that rejects her people. On Being Brought From Africa to America Phillis Wheatley : 1 : On Being Brought From Africa to America. 2. The refinement the poet invites the reader to assess is not merely the one referred to by Isaiah, the spiritual refinement through affliction. Line 3 further explains what coming into the light means: knowing God and Savior. Washington was pleased and replied to her. Wheatley, Phillis, Complete Writings, edited by Vincent Carretta, Penguin Books, 2001. Encyclopedia.com. Published First Book of Poetry The pair of ten-syllable rhymes—the heroic couplet—was thought to be the closest English equivalent to classical meter. The debate continues, and it has become more informed, as based on the complete collections of Wheatley's writings and on more scholarly investigations of her background. In lieu of an open declaration connecting the Savior of all men and the African American population, one which might cause an adverse reaction in the yet-to-be-persuaded, Wheatley relies on indirection and the principle of association. Albeit grammatically correct, this comma creates a trace of syntactic ambiguity that quietly instates both Christians and Negroes as the mutual offspring of Cain who are subject to refinement by divine grace. 'TWAS mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand Refer to each style’s convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. 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. Line 4 goes on to further illustrate how ignorant Wheatley was before coming to America: she did not even know enough to seek the redemption of her soul. Wheatley was hailed as a genius, celebrated in Europe and America just as the American Revolutionbroke out in the colonies. She does not, however, stipulate exactly whose act of mercy it was that saved her, God's or man's. In this poem, the speaker contends with being "brought from Africa to America," calling this a merciful act as their "benighted soul" was taught to "understand/ That there's a God" and a Saviour. In the case of her readers, such failure is more likely the result of the erroneous belief that they have been saved already. In the poem, she gives thanks for having been brought to America, where she was raised to be a Christian. Wheatley's shift from first to third person in the first and second stanzas is part of this approach. Parks, writing in Black World that same year, describes a Mississippi poetry festival where Wheatley's poetry was read in a way that made her "Blacker." Even before the Revolution, black slaves in Massachusetts were making legal petitions for their freedom on the basis of their natural rights. The result is that those who would cast black Christians as other have now been placed in a like position. Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. Within the “Cite this article” tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. transatlantic slave trade, part of the global slave trade that transported 10–12 million enslaved Africans to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th century. However, in the speaker's case, the reason for this failure was a simple lack of awareness. Line 2 explains why she considers coming to America to have been good fortune. — Additional information about Wheatley's life, upbringing, and education, including resources for further research. 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