Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley – And a Brief History Of the US

Background:

She was the first black poet ever published – connect her to Anne Bradstreet (the first female poet)

She was a slave when she began to write; however, her talent won her freedom for her – though she was free, she opted to continue serving the family as a paid servant

Elegy – there are two main kinds of elegies:

1. general elegy – a general reflection upon death, not concerned with any particular person

2. specific elegy – a poem mourning the death of a specific person – e.g. the elegy A. Bradstreet wrote mourning the death of one of her children

In colonial America, the literature was primarily historical and religious; there were also many political documents (federalist papers, constitution, declaration of independence) – however, there was also poetry

Puritan revival – John Edwards began the thoughts of resurrecting Puritanism

George Whitefield and Phillis Wheatley – they led the resurrection in Europe before coming to America where 1000s turned out to hear them speak

George Whitefield:

When he was in Philadelphia, Ben Franklin went (as a scientist, not to be converted) to hear him speak, Ben had heard great things about him and wanted to know if they were true, so he paced the distance from the first person in the crowd to the people to the back and found it to be about ¼ of a mile – he could still hear GW clearly from the very back

It has been said that GW could take one word and get the audience to cry by saying it – e.g. MESOPOTAMIA – and the whole audience would be in tears – he was a great orator, unlike others who merely read their speeches off a screen, he actually knew how to speak from his heart and move an audience

Style of PW:

The popular writing style of the US lagged behind that of England by about 30 years, this means that when Phillis was writing, she already wrote in an outmoded style – she wrote in the styles present from 1680 – 1750, only she wrote in 1770

Heroic Couplets – this was the style she wrote in, it is composed of 2 line rhyming couplets written in iambic pentameter (u/u/u/u/u/) – it is like blank verse, but with rhyme

Free verse – the style that was (and to some extent still is) popular throughout the rest of the world, it has no fixed rhythm

Fatalism vs. Free Will:

PW and G Whitefield had arguments regarding free will – GW argued that god was responsible for all the happenings in the world while PW said that all people had free will

Although they fought long and hard regarding this topic, neither was willing to bend at all – GW ultimately says that they are wasting paper because neither will change, he says that there is no real difference in the end result – if a person is converted he says, “you will give the converted person the credit while I give the credit to god” – either way a person is converted – they agreed to disagree

Elegy:

There are two different types of elegy:

General – a writing that is a general reflection upon death and the nature of the afterlife

Specific – a poem written to mourn the death of a specific person [e.g. On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield]

Within a specific elegy, there are two sections:

Evocation – the introduction, it describes the personality of the dead person – it also expresses the sorrow – how the author “misses him/her”

Consolation – the second part – includes the idea that he/she went to heaven so we should be happy, not sad – e.g. so what if he’s dead? He’s up with the angels now

Heart vs. Intellect:

There are two strands of the mind, the heart, which invokes passions, and the intellect, which requires logical foundations for beliefs

PW says that Whitefield was able to invoke both the heart and the intellect in his speeches

The question of whether or not heart and mind should be separated, e.g. should our passions be in line with what is logical? Or are passions merely irrational feelings that we have towards people or things

Criticism of pure heart – in the 1700s, intellectuals would criticize those driven by passion saying that they were “too enthusiastic” – reason says that we should either approve or disapprove, not throw ourselves down in front of people or ideas

To summarize,

heart says “this is the greatest thing ever”

reason says “I’m paying the bill”

Irony of Phillis Wheatley’s Conversion:

PW is converted to Christianity and comes to hate her roots – she believes that Africa was a pagan land [autry says that one should treasure his or her roots e.g. pine trees shouldn’t hate their roots when in the company of oak trees… don’t ask me he was probably high when he gave this example]

The irony occurs when she at once declares her home continent of Africa to be evil and pleas for racial tolerance – e.g. “we’re all evil pagans but treat us as though we were good Christians” – she acknowledges the entire continent as being pagan but says that god wants more harmony and that all people are called to the “conversion train”

The Truth About Washington:

Washington was not the composed, happy person we are acquainted with in portraits and history books – in reality he was unintelligent [in comparison to the geniuses of Thomas Jefferson and Alex Hamilton] and irritable [had a temper – he didn’t talk much and he cursed a lot]

It is also interesting to note that though he is the father of our country he had no children – he was sterile after contracting mumps as a boy

Often, Hamilton would whisper war plans in his ear – Washington would say “well I got to think about that for a while” – the next day he would present the idea as his own idea – this is analogous to a multiple choice test – Washington had no idea what to do, but given multiple choices, he was always able to pick out the best one

Also, he was a ‘gold digger’ he preferred rich women whether or not they were good looking

James Madison

Wrote the majority of the constitution

Believed that the republic is best form of government because it creates a large enough pool of leaders to be relatively free from corruption

Thomas Jefferson

Wrote the majority of the decl. of independence

Articles of Confederation

They were written after the war and mandated that the government had no standing army – it did not work very well

Compromise @ Constitutional Convention

Many of the anti-federalist states did not support the constitution and feared that it would create a tyrannical government like that of King George – when they were attempting to ratify it the federalists included provisions for the modification immediately following the ratification

Federalist Paper #10

Said that the republic was the safeguard against power for personal gain over national gain – e.g. bribery

Also recall the group project example – autry was “outvoted” by the dumb people who were wrong – a republic seeks to safeguard against the decisions of the unthinking majority by putting qualified people in positions of power and allowing the idiotic populous to vote upon the smart people so that we have the “dumb of the smart” as a government rather than the “dumb of the dumb” directly passing bills with their overwhelming voting power