Study of an Individual Author
Topic: Phillis Wheatley Peters and Her World
Class Information
Instructor: Nicolazzo, Sal
CRN: 32068
Time: TR 4:10-5:30
Location: 110 Hunt
GE Areas: Writing Experience
Description
Phillis Wheatley`s 1773 publication of her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral is one of the most significant events in American literary history: the first book of poetry published by an African American poet, this book made Wheatley a celebrity across the English-speaking world. Published while she was still enslaved, the book not only circulated widely on both sides of the Atlantic, but also lent rhetorical power to the growing abolitionist movement, as well as contributed to the social and political pressure that most likely led to Wheatley`s own freedom. But Phillis Wheatley was far more than this one literary-historical event, and this course invites you to immerse yourselves in the poetry and legacy of a remarkable writer, while at the same time learning how to build your skills in literary and historical research in order to learn more about Wheatley`s life, work, and world.
In addition to delving deeply into the complexity and richness of her poetry, we will also learn about the world she inhabited and fought to change: we will discuss Wheatley`s place in a larger tradition of Black authorship and publication throughout early America and the Atlantic world, her responses to and transformations of English poetic tradition, her political engagement in both the struggle for the abolition of slavery and the events of the American Revolution, and the centuries-long legacy of her poetry as a crucial point of origin and inspiration for what the poet June Jordan called ``the difficult miracle of Black poetry in America.`` We will also situate her biography in a broader understanding of the world and communities she inhabited. From her childhood in Africa to her survival of the Middle Passage, her enslavement in Boston, her success in finding powerful patrons to support her literary career, her deep friendships with other members of Boston`s Black community, her later life as a free woman, her marriage to John Peters, and the literary career in which she persisted throughout her life, Phillis Wheatley (Peters)`s biography opens a window into the complexities and contradictions of a revolutionary era. By reading her poetry alongside the work of historians, literary scholars, and contemporary poets who continue to be inspired by her, we will spend the quarter immersing ourselves in her world while also asking how a closer engagement with her life, works, and legacy might change our own.
Texts
Complete Writings (ed. Vincent Carretta), Phillis Wheatley