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Summary Of On Imagination By Phillis Wheatley

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Recommended: Dualities in Phillis Wheatley's writings and poems

Imagine the beauty of an imperial queen. Who is she? What is her purpose? In “On Imagination” by Phillis Wheatley, she describes who the imperial queen is and gives details of multiple female goddesses who shaped her inner eye identity in the poem as the mental optics. The most valid interpretation of Phillis Wheatley is her poetry and linking her work to other creative writers that produce fairy tales, and Roman, and Nordic mythologies
In the beginning of “On Imagination” from stanza two states, “From Helicon’s refulgent heights attend, Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend: To tell her glories with a faithful tongue, Ye blooming graces, triumph in my song.” Phillis Wheatley interprets that her imperial queen may be Cinderella because …show more content…

Flora has elements of the Love-Goddess with its attendant attributes of fertility, sex, and blossoming (Flora, 2004). Flora was originally the Goddess whose function was to make the grain, vegetables, and trees bloom (Flora, 2004). Wheatley gives praise onto the Goddess of fertility and flowers, Flora, by stating in her poem “Fair Flora may resume her fragrant reign, and with her flow’ry riches deck the plain.” In this couplet, Phillis Wheatley is using her sixth sense to imagine the Goddess Flora bringing spring and good health into the world. Flora is not the only Goddess or God Wheatley refers to; Wheatley also refers to the God of the forest as well.
The second God Wheatley give praise to in, “On Imagination” is Sylvanus, which states “Sylvanus may diffuse his round, and all the forest may with leaves be crown’d: Show’rs may descend, and dews their gems disclose, And nectar sparkle on the blooming rose.” Phillis Wheatley refers to Sylvanus, a Roman God of the countryside and the forest (Lotha, 2012). In the Greek mythology, Sylvanus is sometimes recognized as a similarity between the God Silenus a minor woodland deity or Pan a God of the forest, pastures, and shepherds (Lotha,

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