Reviews

The Poems of Phillis Wheatley: With Letters and a Memoir by Phillis Wheatley

rryep's review

3.0

#Poetry
 * Non Fiction
 * Main Topics: Poetry, Historical - 1700's, Religion - Christianity, Biography (of sorts)
 * POC author(s)
 * Dedication
 * To The Public 
 * Preface
 * Memoir: backstory of Phillis's life
 * Poems given to the public by the late descendants of Phillis Wheatley

gameoftomes's review

emotional sad medium-paced

3.75

Genius rising above circumstance. The poems here are from the first poetry book published by a Black American.

The little we know of Phillis’s life (some of which is related in a biography written by the descendants of Phillis’s enslavers) is horribly tragic. She was kidnapped and enslaved at the age of 7, by some miracle she learned to read, write, and compose celebrated poems, she earned her freedom at age 19 after the publishing of her book of poems, she married a free Black man, all of her children passed away as youngsters, and then she died at age 31 in absolute poverty. 

In some of Phillis’s poems she alludes to her early life in ways that are hard to read. Since she would be so dependent on her patrons, she writes in the racist dichotomies of a heathen, pagan, unlearned Africa compared to the civilized, Christian, enlightened British colonies. Undoubtedly expected by the white citizens, I hope that Phillis never took such rhetoric to heart. The poem dedicated to the Earl of Dartmouth has lines that are the closest we get to framing slavery as tyranny, as the enemy to freedom.

I think most modern readers will grow bored of the poems on the subject of the recently deceased, but Phillis seems to have been regularly commissioned for such works. Any poet then would have relied on benefactors, and a young, enslaved African girl probably would have to take anything she could get. Most of the language is easily read by a modern audience, but there are some vocabulary more common to the time period as well as the allusions to Greek and Roman myth common then, which I know put off some modern readers. But really, it’s not hard to look up a few things and read some shorter poems, even on topics uninteresting or redundant to the reader. 

Personally, I’m giving this a 7/10. I fully appreciate its place in literary and historical canons. I’m not sure if I would ever reread them except for historical purposes.