Wheatley, Phillis

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A vital foremother of African-American literature

Complete Writings (Penguin Classics)
Phillis Wheatley , and Vincent Carretta
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 014042430X
Release Date: 2001-01-30

Book Description

In 1761, a young girl arrived in Boston on a slave ship, sold to the Wheatley family, and given the name Phillis Wheatley. Struck by Phillis' extraordinary precociousness, the Wheatleys provided her with an education that was unusual for a woman of the time and astonishing for a slave. After studying English and classical literature, geography, the Bible, and Latin, Phillis published her first poem in 1767 at the age of 14, winning much public attention and considerable fame. When Boston publishers who doubted its authenticity rejected an initial collection of her poetry, Wheatley sailed to London in 1773 and found a publisher there for Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.

This volume collects both Wheatley's letters and her poetry: hymns, elegies, translations, philosophical poems, tales, and epyllions-including a poignant plea to the Earl of Dartmouth urging freedom for America and comparing the country's condition to her own. With her contemplative elegies and her use of the poetic imagination to escape an unsatisfactory world, Wheatley anticipated the Romantic Movement of the following century. The appendices to this edition include poems of Wheatley's contemporary African-American poets: Lucy Terry, Jupiter Harmon, and Francis Williams.

Customer Reviews:

A vital foremother of African-American literature.......2001-09-23

"Complete Writings" brings together a rich collection of the work of Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784). The book has been edited by Vincent Carretta, who also provides an introduction and notes. Wheatley, a Black African-born woman, was taken from her homeland as a child and sold into slavery in the United States. Her owners provided her with an excellent education, and she became a poet: indeed, a foremother of African-American poetry.

This volume contains Wheatley's poems, including the contents of her historic collection "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" (1773).The book also contains more than 20 of her letters, thus allowing readers to appreciate her prose style. As appendixes, the book also contains the writings of three other pioneering New World poets of African heritage: Lucy Terry Prince (c. 1730-1821), Jupiter Hammon (1711-c. 1806), and Francis Williams (c. 1700-c. 1770). Seeing the works of these Black poets helps one to read Wheatley's work in a larger context.

Yes, one could say that some of Wheatley's work is derivative and repetitive. But the best of her poetry is truly extraordinary: technically impressive, moving, and thought-provoking. Much of her work is animated by her fervent evangelical Christian beliefs. But particularly significant are those poems that articulate an African or African-American consciousness. The most noteworthy of her poems invite careful re-reading. And the collection of her letters creates a fascinating portrait of a young African-American woman striving to create a career for herself as a literary artist in the 18th century. This book is essential for those with a serious interest in U.S. history and literature, as well as for those with an interest in African Diaspora studies.

The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley (Schomburg Library of Nineteenth Century Black Women Writers)
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The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley (Schomburg Library of Nineteenth Century Black Women Writers)
Phillis Wheatley
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Complete Writings (Penguin Classics)

ASIN: 0195060857

Book Description

The past two decades have seen a dramatic resurgence of interest in black women writers, as authors such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison have come to dominate the larger Afro-American literary landscape. Yet the works of the writers who founded and nurtured the black women's literary tradition--nineteenth-century Afro-American women--have remained buried in research libraries or in expensive hard-to-find reprints, often inaccessible to twentieth-century readers. Oxford University Press, in collaboration with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research unit of The New York Public Library, rescued the voice of an entire segment of the black tradition by offering thirty volumes of these compelling and rare works of fiction, poetry, autobiography, biography, essays, and journalism. Responding to the wide recognition this series has received, Oxford now presents four of these volumes in paperback. Each book contains an introduction written by an expert in the field, as well as an overview by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the General Editor. Individually, each of these four works now in paperback--including The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimke, Elizabeth Keckley's Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House, Six Women's Slave Narratives, and The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley--stands as a unique literary contribution in its own right. Collectively providing a rich sampling of the range of works written by black women over the course of more than a century, they pay tribute (now long overdue) to an extraordinary and influential group of Afro-American women. These new editions will enable teachers, students, and general readers of American literature, history, Afro-American culture, and women's studies to hear at last, and learn from, the lost voice of the nineteenth-century black woman writer.

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Poems of Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley
Manufacturer: Applewood Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Rhapsody in Plain Yellow: Poems

ASIN: 1557092338

Book Description

Phillis Wheatley was America's first published Black poet. Her poems were published before the Revolutionary War and were recognized throughout the English speaking world. She was born in Africa, sold as a slave in America, and became a celebrity in Europe. In addition to the poems of Phillis Wheatley, this volume contains a short and poignant memoir of her life.

Great Poems by American Women: An Anthology (Dover Thrift Editions)

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For the Sentimentalists

Great Poems by American Women: An Anthology (Dover Thrift Editions)
Anne Bradstreet , Phillis Wheatley , Marianne Moore , Sylvia Plath , Emily Dickinson , Hilda Doolittle , Edna St. Vincent Millay , Amy Lowell , and Emma Lazarus
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Awakening

ASIN: 0486401642

Book Description

More than 200 inspiring poems offer a superb introduction to the women poets of America, from the colonial-era works of Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley to the modern poetry of Marianne Moore and Sylvia Plath. Other authors include Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Amy Lowell, Emma Lazarus, and more.

Customer Reviews:

For the Sentimentalists.......2001-09-11

I bought this Dover Thrift knowing that I would at least like a few of the poems, and even one great poem would be worth a measly dollar. These are poems that speak of the greatness of America, or the treachery of slavery, or other such things that bring tears to your eyes if you don't fall asleep before its over. Now don't get me wrong, every poem in this book marks a great step for women in poetry, and all of the poems are good. For those who like surrealism and dreamlike imagery though (like me), this book is more worth buying for the poems such as: "Daddy" (S. Plath's jerking rendering of the thoughts of a half-Jew, half-German woman), "Bluebeard's Closet" (R. Cooke's portrayal of the horrors of the room filled with dead wives), and a few other such of the like. The title, "Great Poems by American Women" should read "Great First Poems by American Women". The great poems of more recent poets were awfully ignored in the making of this mediorce (but hey, not a bad trade for the price) anthology.

African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1927 (Dover Thrift Editions)

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A compact but rewarding sampling
simply amazing

African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1927 (Dover Thrift Editions)

Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486296040

Book Description

Rich selection of 74 poems ranging from the religious and moral verse of Phillis Wheatley Peters (ca. 1753–1784) to 20th-century work of Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. Other contributors include James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, many others. Indispensable for students of the black experience in America and any lover of fine poetry.

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A compact but rewarding sampling.......2001-09-04

"African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1927," edited by Joan Sherman, is a powerful and rewarding gathering of poems. Sherman has packed a lot into just 82 pages. Many of the giant names of African-American literature are here: Phillis Wheatley, Frances E.W. Harper, James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and many more. There are also poets who are perhaps less well-known, but still admirable as literary creators. As a whole, these poets write with an intriguing variety of voices: solemn, satirical, militant, etc.

Many of black America's most important and most memorable poems are in here: Wheatley's "On Being Brought from Africa to America," Dunbar's "Sympathy" (with its significant line, "I know why the caged bird sings..."), and Countee Cullen's "Yet Do I Marvel." There are poems about slavery, literacy, religion, racial uplift, folk culture, and more. It is interesting to see the juxtaposition (sometimes from the same author) between poems written in vernacular language and those written in very formal English with classical references.

The only weak aspect of the book are the author bios. They are simply too short. Some are only a single sentence long, and they don't contain much bibliographic data. I would have liked a little more for each author. Still, this is an excellent anthology whose compact size and focus make it great both for classroom use and for general reading.

simply amazing.......2000-05-18

This book is simply amazing. I contains more culture than I have ever read in just one book. I definitely reccomend it to anyone.

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral

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Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
Phillis Wheatley
Manufacturer: Cosimo Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1596052880

Book Description

WE whose Names are under-written, 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... -from the publisher's affidavit Probably the first Black American writer, Phillis Wheatley had to travel to England to see her work published in this 1773 volume, the first collection of poetry by an African America to see print. Her work, considered even at the time sentimental and derivative, was harshly criticized by many, including Thomas Jefferson, and the novelty of its author soon waned to the point that the emancipated Wheatley died in poverty and obscurity. But as one of the earliest firsthand accounts of the slavery in America, it is an important document of life in the colonial era: Some view our sable race with scornful eye, "Their colour is a diabolic die." Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train. (from " On being brought from Africa to America") PHILLIS WHEATLEY (c.1753-1784) was captured at the age of around seven and brought to America in 1761, where she became a house slave-and near adopted daughter-of Boston merchant John Wheatley. Demonstrating a talent for languages, she was educated alongside the Wheatley children. After being granted her freedom, she married John Peters, a free Black Bostonian.

Letters of Phillis Wheatley: the Negro-slave poet of Boston.

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Letters of Phillis Wheatley: the Negro-slave poet of Boston.
Phillis Wheatley
Manufacturer: Cornell University Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Book Description

Originally published in 1864. 22 pages. This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection

Life and Works of Phillis Wheatley, Containing Her Complete Poetical Works, Numerous Letters and a Complete Biography of This Famous Poet of a Centur

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Life and Works of Phillis Wheatley, Containing Her Complete Poetical Works, Numerous Letters and a Complete Biography of This Famous Poet of a Centur
Phillis Wheatley , and Phillis Peters
Manufacturer: Beaufort Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0836986857

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Religious and Moral Poems
Phillis Wheatley
Manufacturer: Hard Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1406943738
Release Date: 2006-11-03

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Poems
Phillis Wheatley
Manufacturer: University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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