A Slave Grateful for Slavery? (CRR)

Phillis Wheatley is such an interesting and controversial character in American literature and history. Her life was most certainly tragic, but her poetry reveals something else entirely. In class, we are reading "On Being Brought from Africa to America." This poem makes me think about so may different controversial topics: religion, slavery, race, self-expression, and authenticity. As a person, Wheatley went through so much: being taken from her family, the boat ride from Africa to America, learning the English language, learning to read and write in three(!) languages, traveling to England, being freed from slavery, and eventually dying in poverty. Her biography makes her life seem terribly difficult and heartbreaking. I want to cry for her and the difficulties of her life. 

And yet, the poetry she produces does not complain about her place in the world at all. In fact, she seems comfortable with her position in life as you read her poetry. This sparks so many questions in my mind: Did she really think that slavery was a 'mercy?' When she wrote that, did she mean it was a mercy for her in particular? Maybe she wasn't trying to say that slavery was a 'mercy,' but only that it turned out well for her? How would her poetry have been different if she were a slave on a plantation? Could she even have become a poet if she were a slave on a plantation? Was she writing her poetry to sell it? Maybe her poetry was not authentic at all, but was written to find white readers to purchase her books? How did her legacy affect the African American poetry that came after her?

I don't know the answer to any of these questions. I'm hoping that some new ideas and perspectives will come out in class over the next few days and weeks. Phillis Wheatley is definitely an enigma, one that I find compelling and thought provoking. Hopefully, our class discussions, debates, and essays will prove just how interesting and controversial Phillis Wheatley is.