Hello! Welcome to your sixth lesson.
In our last lesson, we explored the private, intensely spiritual world of Edward Taylor. We saw how his use of the metaphysical conceit and rigid stanza forms in the Preparatory Meditations was a form of personal theological work, a "wilderness baroque" style intended for an audience of One.
Today, we shift from the private devotional poetry of the 17th-century Puritan minister to the public, polished verse of the late 18th century. Our focus is Phillis Wheatley, a figure whose life and work are as remarkable as they are historically significant. Our goal is to analyze the structure and rhetorical strategies in her neoclassical verse. As we'll see, Wheatley's choice of poetic style was a powerful and deliberate act, enabling her to enter the literary world and advocate for her people under the most challenging circumstances imaginable.
1. The Poet and Her Portrait
Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784) was brought to Boston from West Africa as an enslaved child and purchased by the Wheatley family. Recognizing her prodigious intellect, they educated her in English, Latin, and Greek, and she began writing poetry at a young age. Her 1773 collection, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, made her the first African American and one of the first women in America to publish a book of poetry, bringing her international fame.
The frontispiece to her book is an important document in itself.
Wheatley's very existence as a published poet challenged the racist ideologies of her time. As we analyze her work, it's crucial to remember that her poetry was not just an aesthetic object, but a form of public discourse that was scrutinized for what it said about race, religion, and freedom.
2. Neoclassicism and the Heroic Couplet
Unlike the introspective, complex metaphysical style of Edward Taylor, Wheatley wrote in the dominant poetic style of the 18th century: Neoclassicism. As the name suggests, this style looked back to the classical literature of Greece and Rome for its models, emphasizing:
- Reason, order, and logic.
- Clarity, elegance, and polish.
- Public themes (religion, morality, politics, honor).
- A sense of universal human experience.
The signature form of English neoclassical poetry, perfected by its master Alexander Pope (whom Wheatley studied intensely), was the heroic couplet: a pair of rhyming lines written in iambic pentameter.
A classic example from Pope's An Essay on Criticism shows how this works:
True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.
The heroic couplet's balance, symmetry, and self-contained nature made it the perfect vehicle for the neoclassical emphasis on order and rational control.
3. Rhetorical Strategy 1: Appropriating the Master's Tools
For an enslaved African woman, adopting the most fashionable and esteemed poetic form of the day was a profound rhetorical strategy. To understand this, let's explore the concept of using convention as a tool for empowerment.
Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley and the Literary Sphere ...
The following excerpts from Marian Schlotterbeck's paper, 'Modestly Appropriating Conventions,' discuss how both Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley used the established literary forms of their time to gain a voice and claim poetic authority.
Please read the following two selections from the paper: From the introduction, start at 'On the technical level, Bradstreet and Wheatley used the poetic conventions...' and read to the end of that paragraph. In the section titled 'The Form,' read the final paragraph starting with 'Helen Burke summarizes the symbolic appropriations of convention that Wheatley makes...' As you read, focus on the idea that mastering conventional forms was a way for these poets to demonstrate their inclusion in the 'circle of letters' and establish their authority.
As Schlotterbeck's paper argues, by mastering the heroic couplet, the elegy, and classical allusions, Wheatley was not simply imitating. She was demonstrating her intellectual and artistic equality within the very tradition that was, in many ways, an instrument of the culture that enslaved her. By "playing the game" of the literary sphere with consummate skill, she proved that she belonged in it, forcing a public reckoning with the prejudices that would deny her that place. Her use of a refined, ordered form was a direct rebuttal to the racist notion of Africans as "savage" or intellectually inferior.
4. Rhetorical Strategy 2: The "Subtle War" of Double Meanings
While Wheatley's poetry often seems to conform to the pious and patriotic sentiments of her time, a closer look reveals a second, more critical narrative running just beneath the surface. Scholars call this her "subtle war," waged not with overt protest, but with carefully chosen words and allusions.
Her most famous poem, "On Being Brought from Africa to America," is a masterclass in this technique.
’Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.
At first glance, the poem appears to express gratitude for her enslavement because it led to her Christian conversion. But the final lines turn the poem into a sharp rebuke of Christian hypocrisy.
Let's look at a detailed analysis of how she achieves this.
What's 'heroic' about it anyway?
This brief commentary from 'Jacket2' and another excerpt from Schlotterbeck's paper will focus on the rhetorical power packed into the final lines of Wheatley's poem.
First, please read the second paragraph of this short article, which provides a brilliant close reading of the poem's final couplet, focusing specifically on the use of commas.
Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley and the Literary Sphere ...
Now, let's turn back to Schlotterbeck's paper for an analysis of the biblical allusions in the same poem.
Please read the section titled 'The Spiritual.' Focus on the discussion of 'On Being Brought from Africa to America' and how Wheatley uses biblical allusions and color dichotomies to assert equality.
These analyses reveal two powerful rhetorical strategies at work in just two lines:
- Syntactic Leveling: As the
Jacket2piece notes, the line "Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain" uses punctuation to create equality. By placing "Christians" and "Negros" in a parallel list, separated by a comma, Wheatley structurally and grammatically equates the two groups before God, challenging the social hierarchy that separates them. This is a subtle but powerful move that will resonate with your background in linguistics. - Theological Re-appropriation: As Schlotterbeck points out, Wheatley takes the racist association of blackness with the "diabolic" curse of Cain and subverts it. She reminds her "Christian" readers that even those "black as Cain" are eligible for salvation. This re-appropriates the color dichotomy from race to spirituality, arguing that true blackness is sin, which can afflict anyone, and true whiteness is spiritual purity, which is available to anyone through faith.
Test your understanding!
Consider Wheatley's use of the heroic couplet in the last two lines of "On Being Brought...". How does the formal structure of the couplet (balance, closure) reinforce the poem's final rhetorical point?
Show answer
The heroic couplet is a closed, balanced form. The first line, "Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain," presents a moral problem and a direct address. The second line, "May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train," provides the theological solution and resolution. The rhyme of "Cain" and "train" links the state of sin to the possibility of salvation. The couplet's structure provides a sense of finality and logical completeness to her argument, as if to say, "This is the undeniable theological truth." The formal closure of the couplet mirrors the moral and theological finality of her declaration of spiritual equality.
5. Rhetorical Strategy 3: The Public Elegy
Much of Wheatley's work consists of elegies—poems written to mourn the death of a public figure. This genre, a staple of neoclassical poetry, served both a practical and a rhetorical purpose.
- Practical: Writing elegies for prominent local figures was a way for a poet to attract patrons and make a living. It kept her in the public eye and demonstrated her social value.
- Rhetorical: The elegy provided a public platform. In mourning a respected figure, Wheatley could praise virtues like liberty and piety, subtly connecting them to the plight of enslaved people. For example, in her elegy for George Whitefield, a famous evangelist, she emphasizes his message of an impartial heaven available to all, including "Africans." In "To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth," she directly links her own experience of being stolen from her parents to America's fight for freedom from England, making a powerful emotional and political argument.
In all these poems, the structure is neoclassical: elevated language, classical allusions (to muses or gods), and the steady, dignified march of heroic couplets, all working to present her message within an accepted and respected public form.
Conclusion
Phillis Wheatley was far more than a gifted imitator. She was a strategic and brilliant poet who wielded the tools of neoclassicism to build a platform for herself and her people. She adopted the structure of the literary establishment to critique that same establishment from within.
Key Takeaways:
- Phillis Wheatley wrote in the neoclassical style, which emphasized reason, order, and public themes, using its most characteristic form: the heroic couplet.
- Mastering this form was a rhetorical strategy to prove her intellectual equality and claim poetic authority in a society that denied her basic human rights.
- She employed "double narration," using subtle biblical allusions, word choices, and even punctuation to embed a critique of slavery and Christian hypocrisy beneath a conventional surface.
- Her choice of public genres like the elegy was both a practical career move and a way to engage in social and political commentary.
In our next lesson, we will conclude this first module by synthesizing what we've learned. We will directly compare the formal constraints and themes of colonial American poets like Bradstreet, Taylor, and Wheatley with their English Metaphysical and neoclassical models, solidifying your understanding of how American poetry began by both inheriting and adapting its English roots.