Phyllis Whealty: The Origin of African American Prose

Phillis Wheatley: A Founder of African American Verse

At the young age of seven, Phillis Wheatley was brought from Africa to America where she would be sold to a well-off Bostonian family. The Wheatley's eighteen-year-old daughter, Mary, began teaching various subjects to Phillis including English, Latin, and The Bible. Proving to be a talented student, within 18 months, Phillis could read and write difficult passages that would have even been hard for a white son of the same age to do. This was a remarkable feat not only for a girl of the time, but was basically unheard of for slaves. By the age of 14, Phillis was publishing poems and becoming well renowned for her work among British and American circles. The publishing of these poems marks the beginning of African American verse and Wheatley must be duly recognized for her influence on the African American literary tradition.

Phillis Wheatly's contribution to literature should be acknowledged as a monumental influence. Her struggle to follow this passion of hers in a society that was determined to keep her and those like her in the dark marks a push in the direction of equal rights that was revolutionary for her time. Many doubted the idea that Phillis, being not only a slave but a woman as well, had the ability to read and write and therefore her poems could not be hers. In order to best understand Phillis' accomplishment, one must have an idea of the atmosphere in which she lived. According to Henry Louis Gates Jr., people of the time struggled with the question of "what kind of creatures Africans truly were": Were they human beings just like the white man or were they some other "species of men related more to apes than Europeans?" If the latter were true, then the education of African Americans would be a waste of time because they weren't capable of intricate thinking and would therefore, not benefit from it. This is where Phillis Wheatley's influence comes into play. After 18 prominent members of Boston society had examined her work and testified that, "under the Disadvantage of serving as a Slave in a Family in this Town", Wheatley was "qualified to write them" (Baym, 824). In her poem "To Maecenas" (Maecenas meaning Blacks), Phillis writes to her fellow people "Read o'er what poets sung, and shepherds, played. / Who felt those poets but you feel the same? / Does not your soul possess the sacred flame? Their noble strains your equal genius shares/ In softer language, and diviner airs." (Baym, 825-826). In this, she is asserting the equality of African Americans; that they are capable of doing the same things as whites. Through her poetry, Wheatley was proving that she was just as competent as any white poet of her time and on a grander scale that Africans in general deserved equal treatment and educated. Hopefully in seeing this, more and more white people would have seen the value in their own slaves and Wheatley's poetry can be seen as a push in the direction of equal rights and gave hope to other blacks that they could write as well.

Phillis Wheatley is known for her bold and clever writing, expressing her true beliefs on faith and politics through poetry while also appeasing her white readers. An amazing aspect of Wheatley's writing is that, while she was taught through an English education, she began to expand and write in a style more true to her nature. Being educated with all English and biblical texts, June