Nation, Race and Identity in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, by Phillis Wheatley
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17851/2317-2096.28.3.83-102Keywords:
Wheatley, vindication, Enlightenment, Protestantism, ChristianityAbstract
This article examines a few poems by the African-American writer Phillis Wheatley, published in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, against the backdrop of the debates on the humanity of black people that took place in the eighteenth century. The main argument is that, although subtle in her remarks due to her fragile social position, Wheatley makes use of her poetic voice to challenge racist interpretations of the biblical text, as well as pseudoscientific theories which categorized black individuals as intellectually and culturally inferior compared to Euro-Americans. This paper demonstrates that Wheatley positions herself firmly against such charges, thereby becoming the precursor of black vindication movements that would gain prominence later in slave narratives, sermons, folk songs, and pro-abolition essays. The considerations on race, religion, nation and citizenship that guide the analysis benefit from theorizations by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. and Joanna Brooks.
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