Phyllis Wheatley Phi

The Connection Between Wheatley and Belinda

Phillis Wheatley was an eighteenth century African-American poet who was also a slave. She wrote a number of poems that have been preserved and which illustrate her strength as a creative voice in a society that refused to recognize her talent and accomplishments (Bennett 64). "Petition of an African Slave," written or at least narrated by the salve woman named Belinda, was published at the same time that Wheatley's work was reaching the public.

Some have suggested that Wheatley may have been Belinda's amanuensis. The purpose of this brief report is to examine work by both women to determine if internal evidence garnered from the work (i.e., diction, tone, imagery, and theme) support this association. It will be argued that while some similarities can be identified with respect to Belinda's "Petition" and selected poems by Wheatley, it is not likely that Wheatley was the "unidentified transcriber" who "translated this African woman's oral narrative into conventional eighteenth-century discourse that romanticizes the autobiographical elements of Belinda's early life and invokes the language of the law that has perpetrated the system of slavery (Pitcher 200)."

Wheatley's poems, particularly "To Maecenas," and "On Being Brought to from Africa to America," employ the linguistic conventions of the era. In "On Being Brought from Africa to America," Wheatley used such images as "my benighted soul," which references the color of

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It is unlikely that an African woman who spent almost 60 years in slavery and who gives no evidence that she had received any formal or even informal education would have been able to construct the elegant prose found in Belinda's "Petition." This is not to suggest that Belinda was an unintelligent woman or that she was incapable of articulating the concepts (both abstract and factual) that are present in her Petition. However, the greater likelihood is that Belinda's oral narrative was in effect "translated" as well as "transcribed" by an unknown individual. Wheatley's epic poem modeled on Homer's The Iliad indicates that Wheatley was quite well educated. Indeed, "she was bought by a wealthy family from Boston. The family taught her how to read and write, and soon Wheatley was writing well-crafted poems about morality and religion (Current Events 2)." In formal terms, "To Maecenas" is "an invocation to the muses, an introduction to the poetic hole - setting the tone for the volume, as well as establishing patterns of imagery, symbolism, and (inter) textual bonds (Watson 108)." In this poem, Wheatley asserts that all poets share an immersion in the sacred flame which links together creative voices, regar

Category: Literature - P