wheatley males

8/13/2019 Wheatley Males

1/22

Fieled 1

Phillis Wheatley and Male Authority

Phillis WheatleysPoems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, served as her

introduction to the world and to public life. As a book, it is notable not only for what it

contains but for what it does not contain. Wheatley was black, a woman, and a slave; her

everyday life was tied ineluctably to domesticity. Yet Wheatley bypassed the route which would

have led her to compose safe, domestic poetry. Instead, she made the ambitious choice of

writing about large subjects: God, death, political power, and the desire for freedom. This

made her first book unprecedented; and she was able, through it, to create a sensation. Yet

it is important to note that were she not tactful and diplomatic in her poems, she would not

have been able to reach a wide audience. Who, exactly, did Wheatley need to be tactful with,

if not everyone? I would like to argue that Wheatleys central endeavor, as a poet, was to

perpetuate a textual engagement, not merely with males and maleness, but with the

maleness demonstrated in male authority, and in male authority figures. Rather than deal

with modest subjects, Wheatley looks straight to the social acme for engagement, affirmation,

and intercourse. What this piece will explore is the ways Wheatley connects male authority

with suffering. This connection, which seems simple, actually rests on a contradiction, the

manifestations of which are evident throughoutPoems. I will enumerate this contradiction,

and then use it to gloss several poems from the book. I will argue for readings of these poems

which place overt conflict with male authority at a hermeneutic center, using readings by


2/22

Fieled 2

Mary Balkun, James Levernier, Carla Willard, and Antonio Bly as foils.

Here is Wheatleys Contradiction: Wheatley sees male authority as a connection, via

religion, to Heaven, which is conflated with a cessation of suffering. Yet the suffering which

Wheatley encounters inPoemsis often caused (directly or indirectly) by male authority, and

its myriad manifestations: war, slavery, politics, and organized religion. Wheatley, as has been

noted, demonstrates extraordinary bravery in tackling these subjects directly. This was certainly

not expected from a woman, let alone a slave. So, Wheatleys bravery in confronting a largely

male, public world was often expressed in terms of duality, in a central binary opposition:

Wheatley affirms the male authority that will lead her to Heaven (via conventional Christianity),

and thus cause a cessation of suffering, while deflecting and gently demonstrating disapproval

of the forms of male authority which cause suffering in the world. Either way, male authority is

metonymically linked to suffering. Male authority is both cause and cure; thus, negotiating the

contradictions of male authority, how it can both cause and cure suffering, becomes more than

an adjunct theme to Wheatleys desire to negotiate her own self-hood in these poems. She charts

the contradictions of male authority, which, importantly, is seen to occupy positions of social

power, and it helps her to find a livable textual space for herself. This is a negotiated realm

where she is free to tell her version of truth, and to adumbrate her own experiences of suffering

and salvation. Because domesticity is not directly addressed, it becomes difficult to tell how

Wheatley feels about the realms of female authority; her poems concern themselves almost

exclusively with what, in Wheatleys day, were primarily male concerns.

I want to approach each poem I gloss here in a three-fold manner; first, I will present the

poem, or substantial parts of it; then, I will spend some time giving the poem my own gloss;


3/22

Fieled 3

finally, I will join the critical conversation about the poem, and show where my arguments do

and do not concur. I will begin with a short poem, quoted in full, which demonstrates both how

the contradictions of male authority affected Wheatley and how she chose to respond to them.

This is On being brought from Africa to America:

Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan

land,

Taught my benighted soul to understand

That theres a God, that theres a Saviourtoo:Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

Their colour is a diabolic die.Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,

May be refind, and join th angelic train. (Wheatley, 18)

The title itself, could stand to be parsed. A poem that treated slavery in a direct, referential way,

and one written by a slave, no less, was unheard of in Wheatleys day. What is important in an

evaluation of Wheatley is that she knew thisshe demonstrated a keen awareness of the shock

value that her work would have. The sins of the father applies here rather literally; Wheatley is

exteriorizing both her status as a slave, and the involuntary nature of this status. Wheatley is not

settling for any half-way measures in her approach to male authority: this poems title enacts the

scenario of one who walks right up and tells truth to power. Yet the title shows sensitivity to

linguistic nuance: she says brought rather than stolen or kidnapped. Honesty is tempered

by craftiness, and an awareness of audience. It is an audience deliberately and assiduously

sought: that of male authority. Implicit in this sensitivity and assiduous courting is a realization:

that those who took her into slavery have the power to free her again.

Of course, a look at the first line, and we discern that Wheatley is making an interesting

rhetorical gambit: she suggests that the males who took her into bondage were actually granting


4/22

Fieled 4

her mercy, as they wound up making a Christian of her and saving her. I think you could

call this line rhetorical revisionism, and it functions on a number of levels. It establishes that

Wheatley is a Christian, while also demonstrating that she disapproves of Paganism; it

demonstrates an awareness of Wheatleys origins, and a willingness to publicly disclose them

(at a time when it would perhaps have been easier for her to hide behind a pseudonym), at the

same time that these origins are dismissed as being inferior; it shows that Wheatley has her own

mind and is able to pass her own judgments on her life (i.e. her statement is authoritative and

declarative), even as she accepts the male authority vested in organized religion. The forces of

male authority which Wheatley addresses are complex; she responds with an equal complexity.

In a title and a single line of a poem, Wheatley has established not a self but a multitude of

selves. The duality she notes (male authority creating and curing suffering) is reflected back in

a construct which acknowledges both sides in a complex gesture.

The personification of mercy is continued through lines 2, 3, and 4. It creates a sense

of ambiguity; since mercy is not seen to be embodiedby anyone specific, we only know that

mercy happens to be white because of a metonymic link of whiteness with Christianity (and,

likewise, of blackness with Paganism.) In this way, Wheatley creates a self which enacts a push-

pull with the white world: she credits it with her salvation, without valorizing any one person.

In line three, God and Jesus (Saviour) appear. In a way, it seems that Wheatley privileges

God and Jesus, to the exclusion of white people; they have only been useful in opening the door

to salvation for her; she walked through it herself, and alone. This subtle privileging is a way

for Wheatley to usurp power from the white, male audience that she seemed to be writing for.

It is inferred that, though she uses deft rhetoric, when the chips are down she will submit to no


5/22

Fieled 5

one but God and Jesus. Yet, the complexity of Wheatleys approach would make it difficult for

all but the most discerning readers to understand her implications. It is ironic that Wheatley has

been derided for being simplistic; in fact, the audience that she was, in fact, granted (with male

authority) has everything to do with artful compressions, skillful dodges, and darkling hints.

This exceptional skill is demonstrated in the last two lines of the poem. Rather than

accusing Christians of being racist, she reminds them not to be, as if they had once known

but had since forgotten. By approaching them in this fashion, she assumes a form of moral

authority; but she deflates her own authority by calling black people black as Cain,and

using provisional language (they may be refined, not they will be refined.) It also shows

exceptional skill to use the blanket phrase Christians to implicate racists; it points to an

obvious hypocrisy (Christians who support slavery) without naming it overtly. It is also

interesting to note yet another ambiguity: Wheatley does not seem to be arguing for a better

place for blacks in this world: she is arguing for a better place for them in the next world (i.e.

the angelic train.) Does this reflect Wheatleys disbelief that whites would ever wholly accept

blacks in this world, or does it reflect Wheatleys preoccupation with the promised Christian

afterlife? It would seem fair to say that the poem expresses a little bit of both; Wheatley is

subtle, but she does not want to appear unreasonable. The ambiguities run so deep in this

eight-line poem that even a miniaturized analysis hits brick walls and unanswerable questions.

Wheatley was accepted by male authority (and its manifestation, the white intelligentsia)

because Christian avowal became her hook, her way in. The deeper questions of race,

power, and identity seem to have been left more-or-less untouched by them.

A question which seems to dog critics to this day about this poem, and about Wheatley in


6/22

Fieled 6

general, is the question of intentionality. Was Wheatley deliberately including these ambiguities

and unanswerable questions, and if she was, what was her intention? James Levernier sees in

Wheatleys approach here a kind of cynical, manipulative quality, with Wheatley compromising

herself to gain an audience:

With a deliberately nave tone and with full knowledge that readers of her day

would take her literally because they would unquestioningly assume a black

female slave incapable of ironically stylistic sophistication, Wheatley inserts

into the poem an intentionally misleading symbolic pattern that appears toequate darkness with African paganism and goodness with the promises of

bogus American interpretations of traditional Christian doctrine (Levernier, 9).

I take issue with Leverniers reading on a number of levels. There is nothing nave about a black

slave calling a poem On being brought from Africa to America. The very title of the poem will

be taken, Wheatley knew, as a challenge and a threat. Levernier claims to have full knowledge

of Wheatleys intentions, and of Wheatleys readers responses, but I would argue for a reading

which takes account of Wheatleys sophistication in balancing artifice and transparency. I do not

see why Wheatley would have the motivation to mislead her audience; her symbolic pattern

may not have been an exact replica of her interior truth, but there is also no evidence in the poem

that the Christianity she evinces is anything less than earnest. Moreover, I see evidence in the

poem that there is at least a modicum of trust in the male authorities who she is hoping to reach.

If she mistrusted them as completely as Levernier seems to think, why would she have bothered

writing the poem in the first place? A cynical, deliberately misleading Wheatley would never

demonstrate the ambition that Wheatley demonstrates here; there is also little evidence in the

poem that Wheatley finds Christian doctrine to be in any way bogus.

Mary Balkuns reading to me seems more perceptive. To Balkun, Wheatley is actually

positing a kind of egalitarianism: she wants to reach out and include people, rather than shutting


7/22

Fieled 7

them out. Her ambiguities help her to do this: Balkun addresses the unspecified group, some,

which Wheatley assigns to those who view blacks in a condescending fashion:

because the membership of the some is not specified (aside from theircommon attitude), the audience is not automatically classified as

belonging with themHer refusal is to assign blamean important

element in Wheatleys rhetorical strategy andone of the reasons herpoetry was published in the first place (Balkun, 130).

Balkun brings in, at the end of her statement, another important part of Wheatleys endeavor.

Wheatley was clearly ambitious, but circumstances forced her to be practical. Part of Wheatleys

pragmatism was letting the weight of her poems rest on ambiguities, rather than on blunt

iterations. I would argue that this pragmatism does not, as Levernier claims, keel over into

cynicism and manipulation. Rather, Wheatley has a specific audience who she wants to reach

(male authority) and the best way to reach that audience is by a graceful combination of tact and

honesty. It is the balance between tact and honesty which creates the ambiguities that I have

pointed out. Part of the suffering inflicted by male authority is control of public outlets like

publishing. Wheatley wants to publish, so she must find a way to enact what you might call a

kind of textual magic trick. Yet the honesty included in the gestalt, the direct reference to

Wheatleys African heritage, is extraordinary and undeniable.

Marsha Watson sees in this poem a dissociation of the spiritual and physical (Watson,

123.) I would concur with this up to a point; it does seem that Wheatley wants to make a case for

human beings (or, specifically, Christians) as potentially purely spiritual entities. However, I

think you could take Watsons formulation in a different direction; that the poem, with its title

being On being brought from Africa to America, makes physical the process of salvation;

Wheatley is, after all, stating that it was because she made a physical journey that she was saved.


8/22

Fieled 8

Interestingly, Watson also reads unmistakable sarcasm (Watson, 123) in Wheatleys

Some view our sable race with scornful eye. I do not detect any sarcasm at all in the line.

It seems to me that Wheatley is more-or-less in earnest. The truth, at the time, might have been

more like, Most view our sable race, but Wheatley was compelled by pragmatism and

ambition to amend the statement. It is artful, but it bespeaks a genuine need to arrest and a real

talent to connect with an audience. Nothing, it would seem, would have been a bigger turn off

for a white, male audience, than sarcasm from a black woman. Watson may see it there, but it

is hardly unmistakable. I would argue that its presence or non-presence was another ambiguity.

What is most unmistakable in Wheatley is the desire to engage with authority; the dances she

does in the process leave something to the imagination, sometimes.

Wheatleys interest in male authority is only half-explicit in On being brought. There

are other pieces inPoemsin which this interest is directly addressed. One such poem is To the

University of Cambridge in New England. Here, we really see the degree to which male power

is an obsession for Wheatley. In the context of the poem, she puts herself in the position of

lecturing to college students, acting as a kind of advisor. These students are in a liminal place,

regarding the male roles that they are yet to fulfill; they are neither causing suffering nor

preventing it. Wheatley takes on the role of spiritual advisor, leading them to fulfill societal

roles of preventing, rather than causing suffering:

Improve your privileges while they stay,

Ye pupils, and each hour redeem, that bears

Or good or bad report of you to heavn.

Let sin, that baneful evil to the soul,By you be shunnd, nor once remit your guard;

Suppress the deadly serpent in its egg.

Ye blooming plants of human race divine,AnEthioptells you tis your greatest foe;


9/22

Fieled 9

Its transient sweetness turns to endless pain,And in immense perdition sinks the soul (Wheatley, 21-30).

The most striking feature of this piece is the manner in which Wheatley draws attention to her

own racial characteristics. She chooses to define herself, not as a Christian or as a slave, but as

an Ethiop. It makes a strange contrast to the setting and context in which she is speaking (to

white male college students) and brings up the question of intentionality all over again. What

does Wheatley have to gain from revealing her race here? I would argue that it can be taken as a

kind of shock tactic. Wheatley knows that, if she chooses not to reveal her race in the poem and

it is then discovered, she will be discredited. However, if she chooses to not only mention her

race but emphasizeit, she assures herself that she will be dealt with as she is. She will not be

discredited except by those who refuse to believe that an Ethiop could have anything pertinent

to say. The fact that the poem is articulate, combined with its overt self-portraiture, could make

it evince the quality of authority. Self-mastery, expressed as self-portraiture, becomes a kind of

shorthand for general mastery. There is also the mastery expressed in the word privileges,

because in demonstrating the privileged lives of her subjects, she surmounts them. Yet, as in

On beingbrought, this is done with a minimum of verbiage and a great deal of tact. We learn

that Wheatley understands worldly privilege; and that she perceives it around her, but does not

partake of it. She also understands the limits of worldly privilege, and thus asks her audience to

improve on it. This is Wheatley acting as a hard-headed pragmatist, staring what she can never

have in the face without flinching. Her anchor is Christian doctrine; there is also an implicit

message that Wheatley has seen worldly privilege corrupt. This can be taken as an implication

of male authority; male authority figures being the materially privileged in the milieu in which

Wheatley lived. It is indirect, as it must be; but it would be wrong to assume, as James Levernier


10/22

Fieled 10

does, that Wheatleys ambiguities were invisible to her audience because she was black.

The authority of heaven, which is not distinctly identified as male, again supersedes

human authority and privilege. There is an irony in talking to college students about good or

bad report of you to heavn (23), but Wheatley expresses the irony with a straight face, and

no visible change in expression. Earlier in the poem, there is an important conflation of the

cosmos, as it is studied by these students, and a visualized Christian heaven:

Students, to you tis givn to scan the heights

Above, to transverse the ethereal space,

And mark the systems of revolving worlds.Still more, ye sons of science ye receive

The blissful news by messengers from heavn,

How Jesus blood for your redemption flows. (Wheatley, 6-11)

Wheatley accomplishes two things by putting the young scholars knowledge in this perspective:

she demonstrates an awareness of their endeavor (and this awareness qualifies her to address

them) and she demonstrates an ability to contextualize their endeavor (which places her in the

role of an authority, someone who sees beyond what they are doing.) Wheatleys authority

is predicated on a complete dedication to Christian principle; it would be possible to make a

case that Wheatleys strategy is to out-Christian the Christians. By hitting her white, male

audience up-front with her dedication, she makes it difficult for them to discredit her. She

identifies with the authority of heaven which, in the jurisdiction of Christians, holds sway

over all other worlds. In the context of this poem, her assumed authority is predicated on a

self-representation which hinges on frequent and intense assertions of piety. Wheatleys version

of Christianity is aggressive; it is a mode of confrontation, rather than affirmation. It seems,

in this case, to assume laxity in the students whom she is speaking to. By being extraordinarily

direct, and by assuming that her audience is less dedicated to Christian principle than she is,


11/22

Fieled 11

Wheatley is able to catch male authority off-guard. This is not to downplay the ambiguities

included in Wheatleys constructs; but in this case, they happen to be implicit, rather than

explicit. Wheatley seems to be implicating these students for being remiss, where their

Christian piety is concerned. Is she also indirectly implicating them for tolerating slavery

and social injustice? Were the writer of the poem not black, female, and a slave, the question

would not arise. Complexity arises in these circumstances because Wheatley goes out of her

way, in the poem, to identify herself as a black slave. Her own avowed condition begs the

question of the many levels which are unstated here. As in On being brought, Wheatley

employs a unique combination of forthrightness and indirection, of implicit and explicit, that

allows her rhetorical room to maneuver and assert.

The problem, for those doing hermeneutic analysis, is that it is extremely difficult to say

what exactly isimplicit in a poem such as this. To assume that Wheatley is discussing slavery

is to deny her the complexity and the ambiguity that she has earned; to assume that Wheatley is

nottalking about slavery is to disregard the very circumstances of Wheatleys life. To get to the

crux of the matter, it would be necessary, not only to study the poem, but to study reactions to

the poem, which I do not have room to do here. I will simply state my opinion: it seems to me

that Wheatleys aggressive Christianity was a rhetorical strategy employed to open a specific

social doorthat of male authority. I believe that she wanted this door to be opened, so that she

would be able both to make a place for herself in recognized society and to combat the social

customs which had heretofore denied her this place. I do not believe that Wheatley was merely

a selfless conduit for egalitarian expressionsher overt aggression signifies a desire which

could be construed as selfishness but, given the circumstances of her life, could be more


12/22

Fieled 12

accurately described as simple desire for autonomy. She wanted to be recognized as a unique

individual, a full person. Her push-pull relationship with male authority had much to do with

her recognition that only male authority could grant her autonomy. This could be the reason that

she felt more compelled to address university students then to address the domestics who

would have constituted her natural, rightful audience.

Mary Balkun sees in this poem a connection between Wheatleys technique and the

jeremiad, the hell-fire sermon. As such, Wheatley becomes, in a rather unlikely fashion, the

inheritor of Puritan rhetoric. As such, Balkun sees Wheatley as using scare tactics. This would,

of course, be analogous to the shock of reading a poem composed by a black, female slave.

Balkun has this to say about Wheatleys warning to the students not to neglect their earthly

salvation, or to take for granted their privileged status:

Her implication is that they will not be among the privileged forever,

whether on earth or in heaven. Wheatley plays on her audiences fears

of eternal damnation and suffering, as well as their awareness of the

transience of all earthly things. (Balkun, 126)

Balkuns argument is extensive, and I do not mean to take a short passage out of context. There

is, however, one thing here which I feel needs to be dealt with. That is the issue of the extent to

which Wheatley would have been capable of play(ing) on her audiences fears. For a writer

(or preacher) to play on an audiences fears, the audience would first have to accept his or her

authority. It is part of Wheatleys strategy to expect that granting of authority; however, her own

overt admission to African descent would seem to place this in doubt. If authority is not granted,

fears do not arise, and the construct as a whole is not taken seriously. Wheatley, as a writer,

faced limited options; she had to use the only hook available: Christian piety. I do feel that the

assumption which Balkun makes (that Wheatley was capable of manipulating her audiences


13/22

Fieled 13

reactions) is slightly nave. Wheatley hopesthat she will play on the fears of her audience; but

it would seem that she was too much of a pragmatist not to understand that this would not always

necessarily be the case. It might not even have been the case for the majority of her audience,

who would have been more interested in the novelty aspect of Wheatleys poems than anything

else. There was no novelty aspect to a Jonathan Edwards; his authority was perceived as (almost)

total. Wheatleys brazenness may have been fearful to some, but it would seem reasonable to

figure that to many others it was simply a curiosity, or a novelty.

On the other hand, Phillip Richards very astutely points out that the ethos of marginality

becomes the very context in which the poet-persona sends (her) message to the world

(Richards, 3). Displaying her African origins and slave status overtly guaranteed two things: that

many would not take her seriously, but also that the novelty of her presence would ensure that

she would at least be noticed. What remains uncertain is the degree to which she achieved both

of her aims: to be heard and to be taken seriously. An ethos of marginality is an ethos which can

create either sympathy or mistrust, interest or condescension; Wheatley has taken up this ethos in

the hopes that she can maximize the impact that she has. Yet it is important to note that the

balance that I have alluded to is in evidence when Richards formulation is applied to Wheatley:

she evinces an ethos of marginality even as her avowed Christianity places her at the center of

public discourse. Richards correctly points out Wheatleys literary resourcefulness (Richards,

2), but on an important level Wheatleys resourcefulness does not have to do with literature. It

has more to do with how Wheatley appreciated her social position; it is in what is behind

her poems, rather than what is in them. Richards sees in Wheatleys poems the capacityto

discover the realities of power (Richards, 5). It is my argument that Wheatley already knew the


14/22

Fieled 14

realities of power, before she had even put pen to paper. Her poems demonstrate a hybridized

response to realities which had already been registered, and worked through. Power, to

Wheatley, was male authority; Christianity was her most important weapon in fighting it; the

novelty of her situation is what would make her voice heard. I do not want to argue for a

completely calculating Wheatley, who knew what the responses to her work would be in

advance; I would just like to make the claim that her ethos was not merely one of marginality,

and that her resourcefulness had deeper roots that a mere engagement with literature. I agree

with Astrid Franke, who sees in Wheatleys work that composite of old and new elements,

both challenging and reassuring (Franke, 229), and that this process of manifesting a

hybridized sensibility was more social and psychological than literary. Paula Bennett, also,

sees in Wheatley evidence of a sensibility that was essentially pre-developed: Wheatley

found in religion the artistic freedom and subject-hood she needed to write (Bennett, 66).

Writing was not merely writing for Wheatley; it was a knowing engagement with male

authority. As such, any misstep (especially from a female, and a black slave) would topple

the entire structure; Wheatley, I would assert, was very patient in her approach, and she

did not handle writing lightly. She waited until she had the tools she needed, and then she

set to work in using them to the best of her abilities.

Yet, for all that Wheatley was fastidious in her manner of self-presentation (primarily

because she needed to be), there was a level of transparency which manifested at key moments.

This is seen most clearly (and famously) in her poem dedicated to the Earl of Dartmouth. This is

the second stanza, in its entirety:

Should you, my lord, while you peruse mysong,


15/22

Fieled 15

Wonder from whence my love ofFreedomsprung,Whence flow these wishes for the common good,

By feeling hearts alone best understood,

I, young in life, by seeming cruel fateWas snatchd fromAfrics fancyd happy seat:What pangs excruciating must molest,

What sorrows labour in my parents breast?

Steeld was that soul and by no misery movdThat from a father seizd his babe belovd:

Such, such my case. And can I then but

pray

Others may never feel tyrannic sway? (Wheatley, 19-31)

This is perhaps the most famous break in the self that Wheatley presented in her poems. It is,

indeed, stunning; Wheatley seems to be saying that her constructed self, that was happy to be

taken from Africa and thus to find Jesus, is a lie; that, in fact, Wheatley was devastated by the

circumstances which forced her into slavery. There is much interpretive ground at stake in this

contradiction; if Wheatley is, in fact, misrepresenting herself, as this stanza seems to suggest,

then the argument for a colder, more calculating Wheatley would seem to be solid. Yet, if we

do posit a colder, calculating Wheatley, then this breach, in and of itself, shows that this, too,

is a construct, which served to hide Wheatleys real feelings and intentions. There is also real

irony in the fact that these lines come up in a poem dedicated specifically to a male authority

figure. It is also useful to note that these lines are, hands down, the most direct and the most

seemingly personal lines in WheatleysPoems.

One key line in this stanza seems to enumerate, in its own implications, the entire conflict

(and to encompass the thesis of this paper at the same time): line 23, by feeling hearts alone best

understood. This formulation suggests that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Wheatley was

actually addressing her poems to a female audience as well: feeling hearts, of course, would

seem to imply femininity. The fact that the poem was dedicated to the Earl of Dartmouth shows


16/22

Fieled 16

how complicated Wheatleys predicament was. It is worth discussing that Wheatley does not

suggest that women willread her poems, or mustread her poems; just that, perhaps (if we take

feeling heartsto signify femaleness), they will best be able to understandher poems. I take

this to mean that Wheatley believes that the contradictions, subtleties, ambiguities, and rhetorical

strategies which she uses in her poems will be most visibleto her female readers. However, the

revelation of ambiguity is entrapped in its own ambiguity; Wheatley does not say that feeling

hearts means women, and in fact, in the context of the poem, she is talking (in the epistolary

manner of the time) to a man. One gloss you can put on these lines is that they express

exhaustion, and impatience with the rhetorical games which circumstances have compelled

Wheatley to play; in this context, she simply cannot keep the charade going any longer. I

would opine that, in looking at Wheatleys book as a whole, this stanza reflects feelings that

were genuinely mixed. That is, Wheatley genuinely valued the experience of Christian piety

(which would not have entered her life had she not been forced into slavery); she also

experienced genuine sadness at having been forced to live a life in fetters and poverty. Both

sides of this binary tension are real, and expressed transparently; we can see in Wheatley

the kind of Negative Capability that would let both of them exist, separately but

simultaneously. It is also unavoidable that, whatever we take feeling hearts to mean (and

whether or not we want to take it as a reference to the feminine), WheatleysPoemsis

populated far more densely with males than with females. I believe that my argument stands;

whether she felt that women would better understand her, her pragmatism necessitated an

intense engagement with male authority, who would be best able, if not to understand her,

at the very least to respond to her and listen to her rhetorical arguments.


17/22


18/22

Fieled 18

is gentle irony, enough so that it could easily be mistaken for mere tact and diplomacy. It

would be difficult to get to the bottom of this mystery (Wheatleys own intentionality in

employing the rhetorical methods she employs), but I feel that it is simple to see how Bennetts

assertion, that irony is the basis of self-projection inPoems, is incomplete and somewhat

misleading. If irony were a writerly choice, it would be a different issue; here, circumstances

necessitated it, and it served to cloak an earnest purpose, which is made plain at certain moments

(like this section of Dartmouth), so that rather than acting as a kind of textual basis, it becomes

more like a kind of textual crutch. Bennett seems to want to simplify things; but this, I believe,

would be doing a disservice to Wheatleys complexity and the resourcefulness which critics like

Phillip Richards see in her. This complexity and resourcefulness solidified her rhetoric.

Bennett is correct, however, to assert this about Wheatleys engagement with male

authority: As long as she was in their power and was caught within the terms of their

contradictions, her position could not be less than paradoxical (Bennett, 69). Wheatleys

engagement with male authority was, undoubtedly, limited by her subjugation to that same

authority. Carla Willard sees in Dartmouth a very direct critical edge (Willard, 235) and

notes that here Wheatley shuns her wonted irony. Willard has the interesting idea that Wheatley

developed what she calls a pervasive voice (Willard, 238), which adopted revolutionary

ideology in a fulsome manner. Willard sees this voice as deliberately non-ironic. Between

Bennett and Willard, it is easy to see that critics have had a difficult time coming to grips

with Wheatley. I would tend to agree more with Willard than with Bennett: a pervasive

voice, as Willard defines it, would be necessary to engage male authority, and to open the

keys to social recognition. Irony seems to me like a fall-back position for Wheatley; what


19/22

Fieled 19

she really seems to want is the ears of those higher up than her, those who hold the keys to

social and political power. Willard notes that Wheatley uses a praise strategy (Willard, 238),

but that seems to me to be exactly what it is a strategy. Not every poet is in the position of

wanting something specific from his or her audience (except love and respect); Wheatley,

however, wants not only love and respect but emancipation and social justice. She praises

so that she may coax; therein lies the irony; but her intentions have little irony in them. At

bottom, Wheatley was a quintessential agenda poet; in other words, a poet for whom

aesthetic excellence and imaginative acuity were both merely means to an end. Her agenda was

political and commanding; her tools and resources were limited. This situation in and of itself

creates another level of irony; but the rock-bottom bed of idealism, desire for justice, and

willingness to seek out and engage male authority never wavers.

What I believe is missing from Wheatley criticism is this sense of solidity, of a unified

and unifying purpose in Wheatley, and of how this relates to her unusual ambition and rhetorical

skill. Critics get lost in the sense of layering that is visible in Wheatleys poems, and lose sight of

the elements they all share in common: a desire to change, transform, and enlighten the male

authority figures who have made textual maneuvering such a tricky job for her. It is important to

note that not every piece inPoemshas this agenda; poems like the hymns to Morning and

Evening revel in their own textuality, to the extent that it would be impossible to deny Wheatley

the right to call herself an artist. However, the agenda that I have enumerated predominates in

the book, and makes it clear that Wheatley is using the tools at her disposal for a higher, social

purpose. It would seem that, where Wheatley is concerned, her success or failure as a social

activist would depend on the responses, not necessarily of those who would be able to respond


20/22

Fieled 20

emotionally to her book, but of those who would respond intellectually, and with effective

action. Action, as manifested in social change, is what Wheatley wants most; male authority

figures are who can make this happen. Wheatley subordinates all her desires for transparency

to this goal; to make male authority listen. She was doomed to incomplete success in her time,

but we, looking back, can marvel at how deftly her attempts posit themselves.


21/22

Works Cited

Balkun, Mary McAleer. Phillis Wheatleys Construction of Otherness and the Rhetoric

0f Performed Ideology.African American Review, 2002; 36 (1): 121-135.

Bennett, Paula. Phillis Wheatleys Vocation and the Paradox of the Afric Muse.PMLA, 1998 Jan; 113 (1): 64-76.

Flanzbaum, HIlene. Unprecedented Liberties: Re-Reading Phillis Wheatley.MELUS,1993 Fall; 18 (3): 71-81.

Franke, Astrid. Phillis Wheatley, Melancholy Muse.New England Quarterly, 2004

Jun.; 77 (2): 224-251.

Levernier, James. Phillis Wheatley and the New England Clergy.Early American

Literature, 1991; 26 (1): 21-38.

Levernier, James. Style as Protest in the Poetry of Phillis Wheatley. Style, 1993

Summer; 27 (2): 172-193.

Richards, Phillip. Phillis Wheatley, Americanization, the Sublime, and the Romance

of America. Style, 1993 Summer; 27 (2): 194-221.

Watson, Marsha. A Classic Case: Phillis Wheatley and Her Poetry.EarlyAmerican

Literature, 1996; 31 (2): 103-132.

Wheatley, Phillis. Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1988.

Willard, Carla. Wheatleys Turns of Praise: Heroic Entrapment and the Paradox ofRevolution. American Literature, 1995 June; 67 (2): 233-256.


22/22

wheatley males

Documents