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Phyllis Wheatley

Phyllis Wheately, as much as Phillip Freneau, was the poetess of the Revolutionary Period.

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Phyllis Wheatley, A Thumbnail biography

Phillis Wheatley was the first black poet in America to publish a book. She was born around 1753 in West Africa and brought to New England in 1761, where John Wheatley of Boston purchased her as a gift for his wife. Although they brought her into the household as a slave, the Wheatleys took a great interest in Phillis's education. Many biographers have pointed to her precocity; Wheatley learned to read and write English by the age of nine, and she became familiar with Latin, Greek, the Bible, and selected classics at an early age. She began writing poetry at thirteen, modeling her work on the English poets of the time, particularly John Milton, Thomas Gray, and Alexander Pope. Her poem "On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield" was published as a broadside in cities such as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia and garnered Wheatley national acclaim. This poem was also printed in London. Over the next few years, she would print a number of broadsides elegizing prominent English and colonial leaders.

Wheatley's doctor suggested that a sea voyage might improve her delicate health, so in 1771 she accompanied Nathaniel Wheatley on a trip to London. She was well received in London and wrote to a friend of the "unexpected and unmerited civility and complaisance with which I was treated by all." In 1773, thirty-nine of her poems were published in London as Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. The book includes many elegies as well as poems on Christian themes; it also includes poems dealing with race, such as the often-anthologized "On Being Brought from Africa to America." She returned to America in 1773.

After Mr. and Mrs. Wheatley died, Phillis was left to support herself as a seamstress and poet. It is unclear precisely when Wheatley was freed from slavery, although scholars suggest it occurred between 1774 and 1778. In 1776, Wheatley wrote a letter and poem in support of George Washington; he replied with an invitation to visit him in Cambridge, stating that he would be "happy to see a person so favored by the muses." In 1778, she married John Peters, who kept a grocery store. They had three children together, all of whom died young. Because of the war and the poor economy, Wheatley experienced difficulty publishing her poems. She solicited subscribers for a new volume that would include thirty-three new poems and thirteen letters, but was unable to raise the funds. Phillis Wheatley, who had once been internationally celebrated, died alone in a boarding house in 1784. She was thirty-one years old. Many of the poems for her proposed second volume disappeared and have never been recovered.

Courtesy:  Academy of American Poets, Poets.org. [By permission]
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  • Home
    • What is STORY
    • The Elements of Fiction
    • What Is A Short Story
    • Literary Theory Guide
  • Lit. 214
    • Class Presentations
  • Colonial Period
    • Native American >
      • Red Jacket's Speech
      • Story Collections
      • Lyrics, Poems and Chants
    • Spanish Explorers
    • Early Colonial >
      • New England Primer
      • Anne Bradstreet
      • Mary Rowlandson
      • John Winthrop
      • John Smith
      • Colonial Song Lyrics
    • Colonial and Revolutionary >
      • Readings >
        • Ben Franklin >
          • Advice on the Choice of a Mistress
          • Excerpts from The Autobiography
          • A Tale
        • Phyllis Wheatly >
          • Poems
        • Thomas Paine >
          • Common Sense
        • Philip Freneau >
          • Freneau Poems
        • Thomas Jefferson >
          • Writings
        • Jupiter Hammon >
          • An Evening Thought
      • Lyrics
  • Romantic Period
    • Elements of American Romanticism
    • Authors >
      • Washington Irving >
        • Irving's Place >
          • Irving's Place2
        • Irving on the Tale
        • Rip Van Winkle
        • Rip 2
        • Rip 3
        • Poetry
      • James Fenimore Cooper >
        • LOTH Silent Movie
        • Chapter 32
        • Chapter 32 B
      • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. >
        • Selected Poems
      • Ralph Waldo Emerson >
        • Selected Writings
        • Transcendentalism
      • Edgar Allen Poe >
        • Poe's Approach to Fiction
        • Life of Poe
        • Selected Poems
        • "The Raven"
        • The Black Cat
        • The Tell-Tale Heart
      • William Cullen Bryant >
        • Bryants Poems
      • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow >
        • Selected Poetry
      • Margaret Fuller
      • Fanny Fern
      • Herman Melville >
        • Moby Dick
      • Nathaniel Hawthorne >
        • Scarlett Letter Excepts
        • Young Goodman Brown
      • C. Clement Moore
    • Lyrics >
      • Folk / Gospel
      • Parlor Music
      • Music Hall
      • Stephen Foster >
        • Music
      • George Root
  • Civil War Period
    • 1850 - 1861 >
      • Harriet Anne Jacobs
      • Francis Harper
      • Frederick Douglass
      • Songs of Protest, Freedom, Sadness
    • 1861 - 1866 >
      • Julie Ward Howe
      • Emily Dickinson
      • Walt Whitman >
        • Excerpts
      • Abraham Lincoln
      • Louisa May Alcott
      • Misc. Poets
      • Warriors & Memoirs
    • Civil War Songs