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.

In the essay that follows, O 'Neale objects to the identification of Wheatley's use of religious images and ideas with her conformity to Anglo-American culture. Instead, she argues that Wheatley "redeploys" these conventional tropes to define an abolitionist moral stance.

In the following excerpt, Grimsted claims that Wheatley's poetry, rather than avoiding the controversial issues of slavery and independence, obliquely displays a critical sensitivity and attention to racial and political injustice.

In the following essay, Gates contends that the debate over the "rights of man" that ensued after the publication of Poems on Various Subjects inaugurated practices of literature criticism that still govern readings of African-American literature in the twentieth century.

In the essay that follows, Burke challenges the idea that Wheatley's success as a poet reflects her escape from the oppressive situation of slavery.

In the following essay, Shields studies Wheatley's adoption of classical tropes and attributes to her poetry a subtle critique of the social injustice of her time.

In the essay that follows, Erkkila emphasizes the revolutionary power of Wheatley's use of republican and religious figurations of enslavement and redemption.

In the essay that follows, Flanzbaum identifies in Wheatley criticism a problematic mixture of apology for the supposed mediocrity of her poetry's literary merits, and an unreflective astonishment that she was able to produce poetry at all. Flanzbaum's own commentary examines the emancipatory bargain that allowed Wheatley to write and publish her work.

In the following essay, Nott argues that Wheatley deliberately transformed herself into a poet worthy of public attention, in order to secure the power that adheres to such attention.

In the following essay, Scheick examines scriptural references in Wheatley's poetry, and claims that she employs these elements in an "appropriated ministerial voice" in order to emphasize the immorality of slavery.

In the following essay, Richmond discusses allusions in two early poems to the political and social conditions of pre-revolutionary America.