Mary Mark Ockerbloom (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} merrigold) wrote,@ 2006-12-20 19:22:00 |
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"An Elegiac Poem" & "Liberty and Peace"
I am happy to announce on-line editions of two poem pamphlets by Phillis Wheatley. Wheatley was the first African American, the first slave, and the third woman in the United States to publish a book of poems.
Phillis Wheatley was born on the western coast of Africa and kidnapped from the Senegal-Gambia region when she was about seven years old. She was sold on July 11, 1761 to John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston. Her American name was created from the name of the ship she sailed in, the Phillis, and the family who purchased her, the Wheatleys.
Originally intended to be a domestic servant and companion to Mrs. Wheatley in her later years, the Wheatleys recognized Phillis' intelligence. Their daughter Mary tutored Phillis in English, Latin, history, geography, religion, and the Bible, at a time when African-Americans were rarely taught even to read or write. Phillis published her first poem in the Newport, Rhode Island, Mercury on December 21, 1767, at age 13.
Phillis became a sensation in Boston in 1770 with publication of her poem on the death of the Reverend George Whitefield. Whitefield, a celebrated evangelical preacher who frequently toured New England, had been the personal chaplain of the Countess of Huntingdon, Selina Hastings. When publishers in Boston refused to publish a book of her poems, the Countess invited Phillis to London. There she was able to publish "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" (1773). I am happy to put on-line the 1770 pamphlet version of Whitefield's Elegy. (The version published in her "Poems" underwent substantial changes.)
"An Elegiac Poem, On the Death of that Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ, the Late Reverend, and Pious George Whitefield"
by Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)
Boston: Russell and Boyles, 1770.
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/wo
Phillis was a strong supporter of independence during the Revolutionary War, writing several poems to George Washington. Her pamphlet "Liberty and Peace" celebrates the end of the Revolutionary War:
"For now kind Heaven, indulgent to our Prayer,
In smiling Peace resolves the Din of War."
"Liberty and Peace"
by Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)
Boston: Warden and Russell, 1784.
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/wo
Wheatley also prefigures the concerns of the civil war in her anti-slavery sentiments. "In every human breast God has implanted a principle, which ... is impatient of oppression, and pants for deliverance; and by the leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same principle lives in us" (Letter to the Rev. Samson Occom, February 11, 1774). Wheatley rarely expressed such views in her printed poems, but was somewhat more open in her letters. Wheatley herself received her freedom on October 18, 1773.
In 1778, Wheatley married a free black man, John Peters, but the marriage was unhappy. The members of the Wheatley family most supportive of Phillis -- Susanna, John, and their daughter Mary -- all died before her. Although Wheatley advertised for subscriptions to a second volume of poems and letters, she died in poverty, on December 5, 1784, before she was able to secure a publisher. The manuscript of her second collection has never been found. Occasionally written manuscripts or publications of individual poems are discovered. A manuscript of "Ocean", a 70-line ode to the sea, sold for $68,500 at a Christie's auction in 1998 -- the only copy of the poem ever found.
Happy holidays to all, Mary
I am happy to announce on-line editions of two poem pamphlets by Phillis Wheatley. Wheatley was the first African American, the first slave, and the third woman in the United States to publish a book of poems.
Phillis Wheatley was born on the western coast of Africa and kidnapped from the Senegal-Gambia region when she was about seven years old. She was sold on July 11, 1761 to John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston. Her American name was created from the name of the ship she sailed in, the Phillis, and the family who purchased her, the Wheatleys.
Originally intended to be a domestic servant and companion to Mrs. Wheatley in her later years, the Wheatleys recognized Phillis' intelligence. Their daughter Mary tutored Phillis in English, Latin, history, geography, religion, and the Bible, at a time when African-Americans were rarely taught even to read or write. Phillis published her first poem in the Newport, Rhode Island, Mercury on December 21, 1767, at age 13.
Phillis became a sensation in Boston in 1770 with publication of her poem on the death of the Reverend George Whitefield. Whitefield, a celebrated evangelical preacher who frequently toured New England, had been the personal chaplain of the Countess of Huntingdon, Selina Hastings. When publishers in Boston refused to publish a book of her poems, the Countess invited Phillis to London. There she was able to publish "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" (1773). I am happy to put on-line the 1770 pamphlet version of Whitefield's Elegy. (The version published in her "Poems" underwent substantial changes.)
"An Elegiac Poem, On the Death of that Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ, the Late Reverend, and Pious George Whitefield"
by Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)
Boston: Russell and Boyles, 1770.
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/wo
Phillis was a strong supporter of independence during the Revolutionary War, writing several poems to George Washington. Her pamphlet "Liberty and Peace" celebrates the end of the Revolutionary War:
"For now kind Heaven, indulgent to our Prayer,
In smiling Peace resolves the Din of War."
"Liberty and Peace"
by Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)
Boston: Warden and Russell, 1784.
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/wo
Wheatley also prefigures the concerns of the civil war in her anti-slavery sentiments. "In every human breast God has implanted a principle, which ... is impatient of oppression, and pants for deliverance; and by the leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same principle lives in us" (Letter to the Rev. Samson Occom, February 11, 1774). Wheatley rarely expressed such views in her printed poems, but was somewhat more open in her letters. Wheatley herself received her freedom on October 18, 1773.
In 1778, Wheatley married a free black man, John Peters, but the marriage was unhappy. The members of the Wheatley family most supportive of Phillis -- Susanna, John, and their daughter Mary -- all died before her. Although Wheatley advertised for subscriptions to a second volume of poems and letters, she died in poverty, on December 5, 1784, before she was able to secure a publisher. The manuscript of her second collection has never been found. Occasionally written manuscripts or publications of individual poems are discovered. A manuscript of "Ocean", a 70-line ode to the sea, sold for $68,500 at a Christie's auction in 1998 -- the only copy of the poem ever found.
Happy holidays to all, Mary
