Post 2

Phillis Wheatley should certainly be included in our class anthology. In the eighteenth century when she was writing her beautiful poetry, she was a slave living in Boston residing in the house of a very wealthy businessman. Her work was so incredible, the man who she was a slave for, John Wheatley, had her poems printed, pressed, and distributed for the world to see and for history to celebrate. She is amongst the 18th century examples of black excellence, and was an icon for the movement to have slavery abolished. Her poetry was widely critically acclaimed, and inspired a whole generation of former slaves and basically anyone that supported her, to flaunt your intelligence, and master a form of expression. When she was living under the roof of John Wheatley, she was said to be extremely intelligent and was fascinated by every avenue of education. She paved the way for so many excellent poets and should be included in the anthology.

Her bibliography is very spotty because not all of her poems were given titles or preserved on the internet archives, however she has been a very well known contributor to many publications. Her first poem was written when she was only 13, and it was printed in the Newport Mercury publication. The poem was a travel tragedy, centering around a voyage that is metaphorical for the one she took when she was taken from Africa to America. She released a full book of poems in they year 1773, and this was her most famous and acclaimed work she every fully published. It was entitled Poems on Various Subjects, Religious, and Moral. This collection included notorious titles such as, On Being Brought From Africa to America, To The University of Cambridge, in New England, and to Maecenas. She was only the third female in America to publish a collection of poems, and the first slave to do so. Because she was a revolutionary, she also wrote many poems in support of the American revolution, and George Washington, the first president of the United States.

She had a very tragic end to her life, in which John, who was a huge supporter of hers, despite him being a slaveowner, died, leaving her in a household where she would live in retched conditions and lose three children to childbirth.

Phillis Wheatley Biography, Biography.com Editors, biography.com,

https://www.biography.com/writer/phillis-wheatley, February 23, 2020, A&E Television Networks, January 22, 2020, April 2, 2014

Mulder, Megan, et al. “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, by Phillis Wheatley (1773).” ZSR Library, 1 Aug. 2016,

zsr.wfu.edu/2013/poems-on-various-subjects-religious-and-moral-by-phillis-wheatley-1773/.