San Antonio College Library

Traces the life of an American Negro poet from her sale as a child slave in Boston to her untimely death.

The first African American to publish a book on any subject, poet Phillis Wheatley (1753?-1784) has long been denigrated by literary critics who refused to believe that a black woman could produce such dense, intellectual work. In recent decades, however, Wheatley's work has come under new scrutiny as the literature of the eighteenth century and the impact of African American literature have been reconceived. Fourteen prominent Wheatley scholars consider...

In this volume, John C. Shields demonstrates that much of the negative response to Phillis Wheatley's writings has been based on false assumptions and myths about her and her work. Much of this criticism began more than a century ago and has been passed on without dissent by generations of readers. Here, Shields sets a course for Wheatley scholars that will redefine the direction of future writing about her. Shields provides new readings for a great...

In the shadow of the American Revolution, a young, African American woman named Phillis Wheatley published a book of poetry, Poems on various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). When Wheatley's book appeared, her words would challenge Western prejudices about African and female intellectual capabilities. Her words would astound many and irritate others, but one thing was clear: this young woman was extraordinary. Based on fifteen years of archival...

In this study of American cultural production from the colonial era to the present, Russell Reising takes up the loose ends of popular American narratives to craft a new theory of narrative closure. In the range of works examined here Reising finds endings that violate all existing theories of closure, and narratives that expose the often unarticulated issues that inspired these texts. Pursuing the implications of these failed moments of closure,...

Gates (African-American studies, humanities, Harvard U.) discusses the achievements of Wheatley (1753-84), America's first black poet; Jefferson's harsh critique of her ability in the context of slavery; and her less than stellar reputation among African- Americans. Based on a 2002 Library of Congress lecture.

Until fairly recently, critical studies and anthologies of African American literature generally began with the 1830s and 1840s. Yet there was an active and lively transatlantic black literary tradition as early as the 1760s. Genius in Bondage situates this literature in its own historical terms, rather than treating it as a sort of prologue to later African American writings. The contributors address the shifting meanings of race and gender during...