ENGL 281 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Phillis Wheatley, Gaius Maecenas, Fathom
Document Summary
Brought over in 1761 at the age of 7/8. Editor note illustrates her with pity and a sense of her hopelessness and remarkable ability to learn to read and write. Wheatley asks for a patron"s permission for artistic inspiration. Plays along with the meaning of the word patron: a person that can grant someone financial support, but also patron, someone that withholds freedom. -here she demonstrates how despite the chance she got to explore such literary freedom, she is still confined to a world in which slavery wil not allow her to grow into what she would like. At the beginning of the text, there is an intro in which. People actually testified to seeing phillis, a black. The law as well as "doctors of divinity," had to. Testify in favor of this in order for her to first. Publish her poems, because her state as a black. Doing something such as write with such expertise.
