Phillis Wheatley: A Critical Analysis Of Philis Wheatley

Mark Ledezma

English Literature

Professor Acker

March 21, 2018

Phillis Wheatley Critical Response

Based on what if read about Phillis Wheatley, it talks about how Phillis Wheatley expresses her life as an enslaved African American through a poem, how she astonishes authors about her achievements and determination of being the only African American to learn to read and write at that time and how she has inspired other authors and African American people. In my opinion I would agree about how she astonishes author on her achievements and determination and how she expresses her life in the form of a lyric poem.

The first reason why if agree with this article is because Phillis wheatley shows others authors about the life of an enslaved African

one quote that I found was "genius in all parts of the earth" (Flanzbaum). This quote represents that she was more than just an author, she was an inspiration to authors and African American people, Wheatley 's impact on the human rights showed her public presence stands as a powerfully concrete example of the slave 's inherent "humanity." (Nott 72). Phillis wheatley has showed that with her poem "On being brought from Africa to America” a great expression of a life as an enslaved woman. she is showing the meaning of a lyric poem which by definition is one of the primary poetic forms, which also include narrative and dramatic expressions. Wheatley transformed the revolutionary discourse on liberty, natural rights, and human nature into a subtle critique of the color and the oppressive racial structures of the people. Wheatley 's poetry has been overlooked in favor of a discussion of her historical

The second reason why I agree with this article is because Phillis Wheatley 's presence in the public sphere of 18th-century America gave her the ability to influence public political opinion. Her ability to create poetry despite being an enslaved black woman resulted in constant references to her transformation from barbarian to genius in the public 's eye. She became a recognizable figure, and this allowed her poetry and her beliefs to influence the perceptions of all slaves. A quote I found from Flanzbaum says "There was no great poetry in the eighteenth century, and Wheatley 's poetry was as good as the best American poetry of her age,"(Flanzbaum 59). Flanzbaum has described that poems from Phillis Wheatley where like no other poem, they were more unique to her because no poet would express the way she expresses her poems, they are a true definition of lyrical poems. Wheatley 's work was important to the public sphere during the eighteenth century. Wheatley participated in this politically and culturally powerful arena. Seen within this context, Wheatley 's apparently conventional verse appears less an aesthetic and ethnic "treason" than as a deliberate strategy to power, she became the primary criterion for admittance to the public sphere. but Wheatley 's Poems on Various Subjects threatened the assumptions of the public sphere at a number of points, Wheatley 's public presence affected the dominant culture 's aesthetic and racial assumptions. Wheatley 's poetry served