Phillis Wheatley's 'On Virtue'

In Phillis Wheatley’s “On Virtue” she speaks about the need to understand and get to know love. The poem was written with an emphasis on symbolism with the “Jewel” truly meaning love and she want to attempt to receive it, but she can’t understand it without the help of God. Wheatley opens the poem with “O thou bright jewel in my aim I strive to comprehend thee.” (1-2) which states that the Jewel (love) is within her reach to gain it but she needs to understand and learn about it before she can have it for herself. The first stanza creates a sense of the writer yearning for virtue that is more, something that’s not on the human level of understanding. Wheatley uses the apostrophe method of writing, which addresses an abstract concept to a person who isn’t there,

Throughout the poem, she uses pathos to convey her thinking and reasoning to the reader, but with doing so she also conjures up feeling with her use of syntax. She uses words such as strive, wonder, despair, bliss, sacred, and joys which makes the reader feel joyous for her journey to deeper understanding of God and the way to understanding love which in the end is all she wants. The concept that virtue means love is never implied but with abstract thinking and knowledge of the era, words such as Chastity and promised bliss appeals to the idea she is speaking of her virginity which is what the person who is courting her would want to seek and receive. Wheatley believes virtue to be “goodness” and even though it’s difficult for her to understand she still wants it, and in the end, she is granted what she “strived” for. With her apostrophe approach to the poem, she granted an endless possibly to what she truly meant and by doing so she created a work that can change after every