Death and Christian Faith
Religion was the main interest of Wheatley’s life,
inseparable from her poetry and its themes. Over
a third of her poems in the 1773 volume were
elegies, or consolations for the death of a loved
one. She wrote them for people she knew and for
prominent figures, such as for George White-
field, the Methodist minister, the elegy that
made her famous. The elegy usually has several
parts, such as praising the dead, picturing them
in heaven, and consoling the mourner with reli-
gious meditations. Although most of her reli-
gious themes are conventional exhortations
against sin and for accepting salvation, there is
a refined and beautiful inspiration to her verse
that was popular with her audience. It is easy to
see the calming influence she must have had on
the people who sought her out for her soothing
thoughts on the deaths of children, wives, min-
isters, and public figures, praising their virtues
and their happy state in heaven.
In ‘‘On Being Brought from Africa to Amer-
ica,’’ Wheatley identifies herself first and foremost
as a Christian, rather than as African or American,
and asserts everyone’s equality in God’s sight. The
poem uses the principles ofProtestant meditation,
which include contemplating various Christian
themes like one’s own death or salvation. Wheat-
ley, however, applies the doctrine of salvation in an
unusual way for most of her readers; she broadens
it into a political or sociological discussion as well.
That is, she applies the doctrine to the black race.
She meditates on her specific case of conversion in
the first half of the poem and considers her con-
version as a general example for her whole race in
the second half.
Freedom
Wheatley was in the midst of the historic Amer-
ican Revolution in the Boston of the 1770s. She
wrote and published verses to George Washing-
ton, the general of the Revolutionary army, say-
ing that he was sure to win with virtue on his
side. Washington was pleased and replied to her.
Benjamin Franklin visited her. She belonged to
a revolutionary family and their circle, and
although she had English friends, when the Rev-
olution began, she was on the side of the colo-
nists, reflecting, of course, on the hope of future
liberty for her fellow slaves as well.
Those who have contended that Wheatley had
no thoughts on slavery have been corrected by such
poems as the one to the Earl of Dartmouth, the
British secretary of state for North America.
Therein, she implores him to right America’s
wrongs and be a just administrator. She adds that
in case he wonders why she loves freedom, it is
because she was kidnapped from her native Africa
and thinks of the suffering of her parents. This is
why she can never love tyranny.
In ‘‘On Being Brought from Africa to Amer-
ica,’’ Wheatley asserts religious freedom as an
issue of primary importance. In fact, the discus-
sions of religious and political freedom go hand
in hand in the poem. The excuse for her race
being enslaved is that it is thought to be evil
and without a chance for salvation; by asserting
that the black race is as competent for and
deserving of salvation as any other, the justifica-
tion for slavery is refuted, for it cannot be right
to treat other divine souls as property. In fact,
Wheatley’s poems and their religious nature
were used by abolitionists as proof that Africans
were spiritual human beings and should not be
treated as cattle.
Style
Neoclassical Poetry
Wheatley wrote in neoclassical couplets of iambic
pentameter, following the example of the most
popular English poet of the times, Alexander
Pope. The pair of ten-syllable rhymes—the heroic
couplet—was thought to be the closest English
equivalent to classical meter. Such couplets were
usually closed and full sentences, with parallel
structure for both halves.
Neoclassicalwas a term applied to eight-
eenth-century literature of the Enlightenment,
or Age of Reason, in Europe. This same spirit
in literature and philosophy gave rise to the rev-
olutionary ideas of government through human
reason, as popularized in the Declaration of
Independence. Just as the American founders
looked to classical democracy for models of gov-
ernment, American poets attempted to copy the
themes and spirit of the classical authors of
Greece and Rome. Phillis Wheatley read quite
a lot of classical literature, mostly in translation
(such as Pope’s translations of Homer), but she
also read some Latin herself. Her poems have the
familiar invocations to the muses (the goddesses
of inspiration), references to Greek and Roman
gods and stories, like the tragedy of Niobe, and
place names like Olympus and Parnassus.
On Being Brought from Africa to America
