The early reviews, often written by people who had met her, refer to her as a genius. Africa, the physical continent, cannot be pagan. Recent critics looking at the whole body of her work have favorably established the literary quality of her poems and her unique historical achievement. Western notions of race were still evolving. The major themes of the poem are Christianity, redemption and salvation, and racial equality. This was the legacy of philosophers such as John Locke who argued against absolute monarchy, saying that government should be a social contract with the people; if the people are not being served, they have a right to rebel. William Robinson, in Phillis Wheatley and Her Writings, brings up the story that Wheatley remembered of her African mother pouring out water in a sunrise ritual. Lines 1 to 4 here represent such a typical meditation, rejoicing in being saved from a life of sin. Susanna Wheatley, her mistress, became a second mother to her, and Wheatley adopted her mistress's religion as her own, thus winning praise in the Boston of her day as being both an intelligent and spiritual being. Show all. Many of her elegies meditate on the soul in heaven, as she does briefly here in line 8. She makes this clear by . But another approach is also possible. 30 seconds. 1-7. Spelling and grammar is mostly accurate. The opening thought is thus easily accepted by a white or possibly hostile audience: that she is glad she came to America to find true religion. The pealing thunder shook the heav'nly plain; Majestic grandeur! The inclusion of the white prejudice in the poem is very effective, for it creates two effects. God punished him with the fugitive and vagabond and yieldless crop curse. The message of this poem is that all people, regardless of race, can be of Christian faith and saved. This racial myth and the mention of slavery in the Bible led Europeans to consider it no crime to enslave blacks, for they were apparently a marked and evil race. The power of the poem of heroic couplets is that it builds upon its effect, with each couplet completing a thought, creating the building blocks of a streamlined argument. Slavery did not become illegal after the Revolution as many had hoped; it was not fully abolished in the United States until the end of the Civil War in 1865. In the lines of this piece, Wheatley addresses all those who see her and other enslaved people as less because of their skin tone. From the start, critics have had difficulty disentangling the racial and literary issues. ' On Being Brought from Africa to America' by Phillis Wheatley is a short, eight-line poem that is structured with a rhyme scheme of AABBCCDD. Surviving the long and challenging voyage depended on luck and for some, divine providence or intervention. Taught my benighted soul to understand May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train. The rest of the poem is assertive and reminds her readers (who are mostly white people) that all humans are equal and capable of joining "th' angelic train." She places everyone on the same footing, in spite of any polite protestations related to racial origins. (February 23, 2023). They can join th angelic train. Wheatley, 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. Some were deists, like Benjamin Franklin, who believed in God but not a divine savior. "Taught my benighted soul to understand" (Line 2) "Once I redemption neither sought nor knew." (Line 4) "'Their colour is a diabolic die.'" (Line 6) "May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train." (Line 8) Report Quiz. The Lord's attendant train is the retinue of the chosen referred to in the preceding allusion to Isaiah in Wheatley's poem.
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on being brought from africa to america figurative language