Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784)
Autor von Phillis Wheatley: Complete Writings
Über den Autor
Seized in Senegal/Gambia, West Africa by slave traders, Phillis Wheatley arrived in Boston when she was about seven years old. Purchased as a domestic in 1761, by Susanna and John Wheatley, Phillis Wheatley was frail and asthmatic. Perhaps because of her delicate constitution, she was excused from mehr anzeigen the most tiring aspects of her domestic duties. Instead, she was taught to read and write and was instructed in the Bible and the classics. Before she was thirteen, Wheatley was writing poetry that gained quick and widespread acclaim; in 1770 she published her first poem---"An Elegiac Poem on the Death of that Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ, the Reverend and Learned George Whitefield"---a work that touched on the terrible conditions of her own Atlantic crossing. By 1772 Phillis Wheatley had compiled a collection of verse. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of John and Susanna Wheatley, no publisher within the colonies was willing to print literature written by an African. Nonetheless, the Wheatleys persisted in their search, and through the intervention of Benjamin Franklin and various British sympathizers, including the abolitionist Earl of Dartmouth, they succeeded in finding a publisher for the work. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was printed in London in 1772; it is the first collection of poetry written by an African American to be published. Three months before Susanna Wheatley died in 1774 she manumitted (freed) Phillis Wheatley. But with Susanna's death, the Wheatley family disintegrated, and Phillis Wheatley suffered from severe financial difficulties during the Revolutionary War. Despite the voiced misgivings of her friends, Phillis Wheatley married John Peters in 1778. Their marriage was troubled by penury and sickness; in 1784, John Peters was confined to jail because of debt. Wheatley bore three children. Of these, two died in infancy and the third outlived her mother by only a few days. Desperate for assistance, Wheatley worked as a charwoman and maid. Destitute, sick, and alone, Phillis Wheatley died in 1784; she was barely thirty. Wheatley wrote approximately 145 poems, including the 64-line work "Liberty and Peace," published as a pamphlet under the name of Phillis Peters. Criticized during the early part of this century for not more openly addressing the theme of slavery, Wheatley's work combines Christian imagery and classical typology with an undeniably elegiac tone. Recent scholarship suggests that her Biblical allusions and metaphors demonstrate an antipathy to slavery and that her elegant and educated verse served to undermine colonial institutions of power. (Bowker Author Biography) weniger anzeigen
Bildnachweis: Frontispiece engraved by Scipio Moorhead, 1773
(LoC Prints and Photographs Division,
LC-USZC4-5316)
(LoC Prints and Photographs Division,
LC-USZC4-5316)
Werke von Phillis Wheatley
Life and Works of Phillis Wheatley: Containing Her Complete Poetical Works, Numerous Letters, and a Complete Biography… (1916) 7 Exemplare
The Poetry Of Phyllis Wheatley: "Through thickest gloom look back, immortal shade, On that confusion which thy death… (2013) 5 Exemplare
On Being Brought from Africa to America and Other Poems [Squid Ink Classics Edition] (2017) 4 Exemplare
Phillis Wheatley: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral and A Memoir of Phillis Wheatley, a Native African and… (2020) 3 Exemplare
Selected Poems 1 Exemplar
Wheatley Poetry 1 Exemplar
Letter to Rev. Samuel Hopkins [manuscript] 1 Exemplar
Wheatley, Phyllis Archive 1 Exemplar
“To His Excellency General Washington” 1 Exemplar
Zugehörige Werke
(The Making of a Poem) By Strand, Mark (Author) paperback on (04 , 2001) (2000) — Mitwirkender — 1,262 Exemplare
The Heath Anthology of American Literature 1: 001 (1990) — Mitwirkender, einige Ausgaben — 255 Exemplare
Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient… (1992) — Mitwirkender — 159 Exemplare
American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation (2012) — Mitwirkender — 122 Exemplare
Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (2009) — Mitwirkender — 114 Exemplare
In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African-American Poetry (1656) — Mitwirkender — 100 Exemplare
The Penguin Book of Migration Literature: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, Returns (2019) — Mitwirkender — 71 Exemplare
Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century (1996) — Mitwirkender — 40 Exemplare
American Literature: The Makers and the Making (In Two Volumes) (1973) — Mitwirkender — 25 Exemplare
Poemhood: Our Black Revival: History, Folklore & the Black Experience: A Young Adult Poetry Anthology (2024) — Mitwirkender — 16 Exemplare
Early Black British Writing: Olaudah Equiano, Mary Prince, and Others (2003) — Mitwirkender — 9 Exemplare
African American Literature: A Concise Anthology from Frederick Douglass to Toni Morrison (2009) — Mitwirkender — 1 Exemplar
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Wissenswertes
- Andere Namen
- Peters, Phillis Wheatley
- Geburtstag
- 1753-05-08
- Todestag
- 1784-12-05
- Begräbnisort
- Copp's Hill Burying Ground, Copp's Hill, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Geschlecht
- female
- Nationalität
- USA
- Geburtsort
- West Africa
- Sterbeort
- Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Wohnorte
- Gambia
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
London, England, UK
Wilmington, Massachusetts, USA - Berufe
- poet
domestic
slave - Beziehungen
- Peters, John (husband)
Wheatley, John (owner/benefactor)
Wheatley, Susanna (owner/benefactor) - Kurzbiographie
- Phillis Wheatley was the first African American and one of the first women to publish a book of poems in the USA.
At age eight, she was kidnapped from her home in West Africa by slave traders and brought to America, where she was sold to John Wheatley in Boston, Massachusetts. Her first name derived from the slave ship she had traveled on.
Phillis was permitted by the Wheatleys to be educated, and quickly learned to read and write English. She studied the Bible, Greek and Latin classics, British literature, astronomy, and geography. At age 13, she began to write poetry, publishing her first poem in 1767. Her poem "On the Death of the Celebrated Divine Rev. Mr. George Whitefield,” which appeared in 1770, brought her national fame. In 1771, she traveled with the Wheatley's son Nathaniel to visit London, where she was well received and there published her first collection of poems, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Back in Boston, following the death of the elder Wheatleys, Phillis had to support herself and worked as a seamstress. It's unclear when she was emancipated from slavery, although it may have been between 1774 and 1778. In 1776, she wrote a letter and poem praising the appointment of George Washington as the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, although she continued to use her pen to oppose slavery.
In 1778, she married John Peters, a free Black man from Boston who owned a grocery store, and the couple had three children, none of whom survived infancy. Phillis had great difficulty publishing further poetry, and, abandoned by her husband, worked as a servant. She died in poverty at age 31 in 1784. Two collections of her works were issued posthumously, Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley (1834), with a preface and short biography by Margaretta Matilda Odell, a collateral descendant of the Wheatleys; and Letters of Phillis Wheatley, the Negro Slave-Poet of Boston (1864).
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