Phillis Wheatley (ca. 1753-1784), the first African American woman poet, was a celebrated literary figure in Boston during the Revolutionary era. In 1761, a frail child of seven or eight years, Phillis Wheatley came to America by slaveship from Senegal...

Phillis Wheatley's status as a slave has hampered a thorough consideration of her work. While many modern readers-accustomed to placing emphasis upon writers' personal reactions to their subjects—agree that there has been a revolution in poetic...

Phillis Wheatley's status as a slave has hampered a thorough consideration of her work. While many modern readers--accustomed to placing emphasis upon writers' personal reactions to their subjects--agree that there has been a revolution in poetic taste...

Wheatley is the first black woman known to have published a book in the United States. Her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) was used as an example of the power of education by proponents of egalitarian and abolitionist aims, who...

Born c. 1753West AfricaDied December 5, 1784Boston, Massachusetts Slave, poet "In every human breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom." Phillis Wheatley, who spent her childhood as a slave, has been called the...

Phillis Wheatley (1753 – December 5, 1784) was the first published African American poet whose writings helped create the genre of African American literature.[1] She was born in Gambia, Africa, and a slave at age seven. She was purchased by the...

In the following essay, Kendrick contests the common biographical and critical assessment that Wheatley was fully assimilated into white culture. He proposes that Wheatley's written works display a distinctive authorial voice that remained aware of her marginal status as a slave.

In the following essay, Richards characterizes Wheatley's poetry as an attempt to acquire and wield authorial status within American society.

In the essay that follows, Watson examines the neoclassical blend of conventional diction and imagery in Wheatley's poetry. She argues that the innovative use of these elements becomes a "weapon of racial memory," despite the critical considerations of her work as imitative of or subordinate to Western literary traditions.

A renowned poet of the eighteenth century, Phyllis Wheatley originated the African-American literary tradition. She was the first African-American writer to have a creative work published. Her poems combined religion and neo-classicism, condemned slavery, and celebrated the rewards and liberty of life after death.