"I was a kind of bastard of the West... I might search in them in vain for any reflection of myself... At the time I saw that I had no other heritage which I could possibly hope to use... I would have to appropriate those white centuries, I would...

Religion, specifically Christianity, gives Phillis Wheatley an avenue with which to connect and influence her readers. Wheatley appears to embrace Christianity without offering criticism or highlighting hypocrisies. However, a deeper reading of...

West African autochthon Phillis Wheatley employs her tactful methods of writing to convey a subtle but powerful message in her poem ”On Being Brought from Africa to America” (1773). At a very young age, about 7 or 8, Phillis was enslaved and...

Phillis Wheatley is one of the most influential poets in American history, notably for paving the way from African American poets as well as female poets. Her rare, and arguably liberated, upbringing allowed her to relay her messages of freedom,...

In "To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for North America," Phillis Wheatley, through her convincing use of pathos and masterful manipulation of poetic elements, implores Earl William Legge...

The 18th Century presented many challenges to African Americans, even those who were free from the horrors of slavery. Many African Americans struggled to find a public voice that the general (white) population would be willing to listen to....

In early African-American literature, there is a consistent theme of gaining freedom through assimilation that as an idea slowly wilts and becomes militant as it continues to be ineffective in the black struggle for freedom and equality. Phillis...

Crèvecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer and Phillis Wheatley’s poems exemplify vastly different attitudes toward freedom from contemporaries within the British colonies. Crèvecoeur defines freedom most simply as owning land, because owning...

Phillis Wheatley as a Writer of the People In a time where African American, as well as female, writers would have been greatly oppressed, Phillis Wheatley stood out as an anomaly in the late 18th century. Her work stood as a median between the...

In her 1773 poem, Thoughts on the Works of Providence Phillis Wheatley considers God’s power through the solar system of the Sun and Earth’s rotational relationship. Almost a hundred years prior to Wheatley’s neoclassical poetic style, Anne...

Receiving international attention upon publication, Phillis Wheatley’s “On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, 1770” introduced the literary world to the influence of her words, specifically her thoughts regarding death. The eulogized...

Religion shapes and reshapes social relations as well as patterns of racial interaction in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and Phillis Wheatley’s poem, On Being Brought from Africa to America. As becomes evident from examination of specific quotes of...