Phillis Wheatley was the first African American and one of the first female poets to be published. She was born in Senegal in 1753 and sold into slavery at age 7 in Boston. The Wheatley family taught her to read and write, and she showed a great talent for poetry. At age 18, she published her first book of poems, becoming famous on both sides of the Atlantic. However, she struggled with poverty and racism after being freed. Her work helped prove that black people were capable of intellectual achievements.
My name is Phillis Wheatley, and I am the first black woman in America to publish a book. I was born around the year 1754 and I was 7 years old when slave traders captured me from my home in Africa and shipped me to Boston. There, Susanna and John Wheatley bought me as a slave.
The full name of James Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) is James Augustine Aloysius Joyce.
He is an early 20th century Irish novelist and poet.
Joyce is one of the pioneers of ‘stream of consciousness’ technique in novel and a new type of poetry called ‘Prose Poem’.
He is one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century also.
He used the style of ‘the examination of big events through small happenings in everyday lives’.
My name is Phillis Wheatley, and I am the first black woman in America to publish a book. I was born around the year 1754 and I was 7 years old when slave traders captured me from my home in Africa and shipped me to Boston. There, Susanna and John Wheatley bought me as a slave.
The full name of James Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) is James Augustine Aloysius Joyce.
He is an early 20th century Irish novelist and poet.
Joyce is one of the pioneers of ‘stream of consciousness’ technique in novel and a new type of poetry called ‘Prose Poem’.
He is one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century also.
He used the style of ‘the examination of big events through small happenings in everyday lives’.
More Information :- https://www.topfreejobalert.com
The Waste land it’s a epic poem. A poem made of collage of images. In ‘The Waste land’ Image and symbol take in city life.
Introduction of Writer, his works, essay tradition and individual talent, theory of poetry( impersonality of poetry, historical sense, poetic emotion, comparison of Wordsworth and T.S eliot theory of poetry, objective correlative, dissociation of Sensibility, unification of sensibility, meta-physical poetry, conceit , use of Conceit in John Donne’s poetry.
This Presentation is about Modern Century literaure, Modernism, Poetry and Modern Novel. and Stream of Consiousness. also discuss about Poets and Novelists. This era started from 1900 to 1961
Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator.
During this time Arnold wrote the bulk of his most famous critical works, Essays in Criticism (1865) and Culture and Anarchy (1869), in which he sets forth ideas that greatly reflect the predominant values of the Victorian era.
More Information :- https://www.topfreejobalert.com
The Waste land it’s a epic poem. A poem made of collage of images. In ‘The Waste land’ Image and symbol take in city life.
Introduction of Writer, his works, essay tradition and individual talent, theory of poetry( impersonality of poetry, historical sense, poetic emotion, comparison of Wordsworth and T.S eliot theory of poetry, objective correlative, dissociation of Sensibility, unification of sensibility, meta-physical poetry, conceit , use of Conceit in John Donne’s poetry.
This Presentation is about Modern Century literaure, Modernism, Poetry and Modern Novel. and Stream of Consiousness. also discuss about Poets and Novelists. This era started from 1900 to 1961
Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator.
During this time Arnold wrote the bulk of his most famous critical works, Essays in Criticism (1865) and Culture and Anarchy (1869), in which he sets forth ideas that greatly reflect the predominant values of the Victorian era.
2. Early Years
• Phillis Wheatley Born in Senegal, Africa, and named after the ship that brought her
from Africa to America.
• She was captured by Africans, and sold into slavery at the age of seven to John and
Susannah Wheatley of Boston, Massachusetts on July 11, 1761.
• She was a frail child between ages seven and eight and was chosen to be a domestic
servant and a companion to Mrs. Wheatley.
• John and Susannah became close to the young slave, and she was accepted as a
member of the family, Christianized, and raised with the other two Wheatley children.
• The Wheatleys saw Phillis trying to write on a wall with chalk, and knew that she had
the desire to learn. Rather than punish her for trying to learn to write, they
encouraged her.
• The Wheatley’s daughter began to tutor Phillis in reading and writing. She also
learned English literature, Latin and the Bible, but what she did best was writing
poetry.
3. Early Years
• She admired English poets, Milton, Pope and Gray because their poetry touched her
deeply and exerted a strong influence on her verse.
• Phillis’ poems reflect her religious classical New England upbringing, and several of
her poems also were dedicated to famous personalities of the time.
• On December 21, 1767, at the age of fourteen, Phillis published her first poem in the
Newport Mercury entitled: “On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin.”
• Phillis became a Boston sensation after she wrote a poem on the death of the
evangelical preacher George Whitefield in 1770 that was published throughout the
colonies.
• Phillis rarely mentions her own situations in her poems, but her poem “On being
brought from Africa to America” refers to slavery.
4. “On being brought from Africa to America”
‘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 dye’
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.
5. Later Years
• In 1773, Phillis traveled with Nathaniel Wheatley (her master’s son) to England to find
a publisher for her work.
• Selina Hasting, the Countess of Huntington helped to publish: The Collection, Poems
on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, which was the first book ever published by
an African American.
• Phillis’ popularity as a poet both in the United States and England brought her
freedom from slavery on October 18, 1773, but she stayed with the Wheatleys
because they were the only family she had.
• After being freed, she published both an antislavery letter and poem to George
Washington.
• In March 1776, three years after writing the letter to Washington, the President
requested to meet her (but they never met). He liked her poetry because it reflected
independence and the Revolutionary War. President George Washington wrote to
Wheatley thanking and praising her, “great poetic Talents.”
6.
7. Later Years
• The death of the Wheatleys effectively managed to cut Phillis’ ties to the intellectuals
in the White society.
• She married John Peters, who was a free Black grocer and had three children out of
which two died soon after they were born.
• Peters left her and she supported herself and her daughter by working as a scullery
maid.
• In December 1781, Phillis Wheatley died in poverty. She was 31 years old. Her child
died a few hours after her death.
• She had written another volume of poetry, but it has never been found.
8. Negative Responses
• Because many White people found it hard to believe that a Black woman could be so
intelligent as a writer, Phillis had to defend her literary ability in court. She was
examined by John Erving, Reverend Charles Chauncey, John Hancock, Thomas
Hutchinson, and Andrew Oliver, to see if she was capable to produce such writing.
• The publishing company along with Mr. Wheatley continuously wrote letters to defend
Phillis’ work:
“We whose Names are underwritten, do assure the World, that the POEMS specified in the
following Page, were (as we verily believe) written by Phillis, a young Negro Girl, who was
but a few Years since, brought an uncultivated Barbarian from Africa, and has ever since
been, and now is, under the Disadvantage of serving as a Slave in a Family in this Town.
She has been examined by some of the best Judges, and is thought qualified to write
them.”
• Unlike George Washington, President Thomas Jefferson criticized Wheatley’s work.
He wrote:
"Religion indeed has produced a Phillis Wheatley, but it could not produce a poet. The
compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism."
9. Positive Responses
• Wheatley’s success gave African American slaves hope and made them proud. She
was the most famous and well-known African American in the world.
• Voltaire wrote to a friend that Phillis Wheatley had proved that Black people could
write poetry.
• John Paul Jones asked a fellow officer to deliver some of his personal writings to
Phillis Wheatley because she inspired him so much. He called her “Phillis the African
favorite of the Nine and Apollo.”
• In 1778, African American poet Jupiter Hammon wrote an ode to Wheatley and
acknowledged their common bond.
10. In Memory of Ms. Wheatley
•Wheatley High school
established on January 31,
1927 in Houston, Texas.
•Started out as an all Black
school due to Jim Crow Laws,
but in 1970 desegregated.
•Many more schools set up
across the United States in
Wheatley’s honor.
11. In Memory of Ms. Wheatley
Statue located in Boston Women’s Memorial
12. In Memory of Ms. Wheatley
•Today, there are not
only schools dedicated
to Phillis Wheatley, but
parks, and community
centers as well.
•Many African
Americans gather at
these sights to
remember Wheatley’s
great achievements and
work.
Pictured: Michelle Obama, wife of Presidential
candidate Senator Barack Obama at Phillis Wheatley
Community Center in South Carolina.
