The Poems of Phillis Wheatley: With Letters and a Memoir

by Phillis Wheatley

Overview

Born in Africa in 1753, Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped at the age of seven and sold into slavery. At nineteen, she became the first Black American poet to publish a book, Poems on Various Subjects: Religious and Moral, on which this volume is based. Wheatley's poetry created a sensation throughout the English-speaking world, and the young poet read her work in aristocratic drawing rooms on both sides of the Atlantic. The London Chronicle went so far as to declare her "perhaps one of the greatest instances of pure, unassisted genius that the world ever produced."
Wheatley's elegies and odes offer fascinating glimpses into the origins of African-American literary traditions. Most of the poems express the effects of her religious and classical New England education, consisting of elegies for the departed and odes to Christian salvation. This edition of Wheatley's historic works includes letters and a biographical note written by one of the poet's descendants. Includes a selection from the Common Core State Standards Initiative: "On Being Brought from Africa to America."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486475936
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	01/14/2010
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	296,068
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.30(d)
Lexile:	1330L (what's this?)

About the Author

The first published African-American poet, Phillis Wheatley (1753-84) was born in West Africa, captured, and sold as a slave to the Wheatley family of Boston. Educated alongside her master's children, Wheatley achieved international renown with her initial poems but slipped into obscurity shortly afterward and died in poverty.

Table of Contents

Dedication
To the Public
Preface
Mr. Wheatley's Letter to the Publisher

Poems:
To Maecenas
On virtue
On being brought from Africa to America
To the University of Cambridge, in New England
To the Kings's Most Excellent Majesty
On the Death of the Rev. Dr. Sewell
On the Death of the Rev. George Whitfield
On the Death of a Young Lady of five years of age
On the Death of a Young Gentleman
To a Lady, on the Death of her Husband
Goliath of Gath
Thoughts on the Works of Providence
To a Lady, on the Death of three Relationships
To a Clergyman on the Death of his Lady
Hymn of the Morning
Hymn of the Evening
Isaiah-63rd Chap. 1st and 8th Verses
On Recollection
On Imagination
A Funeral Poem on the Death Of C.E., an Infant of twelve months
To Captain H——-D
To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth
Ode to Neptune, on Mrs. W——'s Voyage to England
To a Lady, on her coming to North America with her Son , for the Recovery of her Health
To a Lady, on her remarkable Preservation in a Hurricane, in North Carolina
To a Lady and her Children, on the Death of her Son and their Brother
To a Gentleman and Lady, on the Death of the Lady's Brother and sister, and a Child of the name of Avis, aged one year
On the Death of Dr. Samuel Marshall
To a Gentleman, on his voyage to Great Britain, for the Recovery of his Health
To the Rev. Dr. Thomas Amory, on reading his Sermons on Daily Devotion, in which that Duty is recommended and assisted
On the Death of J.C., an Infant
A Hymn to Humanity
To the Hon. T.H., Esq., on the Death of his Daughter
Niobe in Distress for her Children slain by Apollo
To S.M., a young African Painter, on seeing his Works
To his Honor the Lieutenant Governor, on the Death of his Lady
A Farewell to America
A Rebus
Answer to the Rebus

Memoir