Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Phillis Wheatley
Katja
ENGL 48A
Journal #5, Phillis Wheatley
Oct. 18, 2006
"I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate was snatch'd from Afric's fancied happy seat" (812)
Wheatley, in her 1773 poem honoring the Earl of Darthmouth, refers back to her own fate of being kidnapped as a child and sold as a slave in the colonies, a fate far removed from that of the Earl himself. Her memories of Africa, and she must have had some at the age of eight, are given a romantic touch that make them seem from a more distant time than they really are. The quote has an interesting disharmony between the words cruel fate and fancied happy.
What is evident is that Wheatley and the Earl of Darthmouth share the dilemma of homelessness. Wheatley's situation was complicated by her living in a colonial household inhabited by people almost as new to the Americas as she was. Her feelings of her native home were doubtlessly thought inappropriate and surely she was taught to think of Africa as wrong or even sinful.
Part of a bi-continental family myself, I wonder where home was for Phillis Wheatley. The Wheatley's, in a sense her adoptive parents, must have thought of England as home, which brings to mind the Earl of Darthmouth. He also hailed from England and may not have considered the colonies his home, as seen in his failure to support the ideas behind the American revolution. Perhaps her addressing him came from a place of recognition of a true and deep human predicament; a sense of not belonging.
As seen in Wheatley's words above, Africa was an exotic place to her, a place filled with mystique, a forbidden place. Her removal from Africa may have been fairly recent in time but unlike the Earl, Wheatley did not have a living cultural link to her past, thus the sense of time elapsed in the quote above. The feeling of distance is one created by obliteration of cultural ideals, traditions, language, human relationships and indigenous identity. The Earl, however, fulfilling his responsibilities as dictated by the English monarch, had every reason to go on living English-style in order to ensure the anglification of the burgeoning colonial lifestyle and culture.
In truth, both Wheatley and the Earl were outsiders skirting the perimeter of a society neither of them would ever be allowed to join. Wheatley, too African to ameliorate her situation, and the Earl, too noble to be truly American, form part of the generation that bridges the gap between the Old World and the New.
ENGL 48A
Journal #5, Phillis Wheatley
Oct. 18, 2006
"I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate was snatch'd from Afric's fancied happy seat" (812)
Wheatley, in her 1773 poem honoring the Earl of Darthmouth, refers back to her own fate of being kidnapped as a child and sold as a slave in the colonies, a fate far removed from that of the Earl himself. Her memories of Africa, and she must have had some at the age of eight, are given a romantic touch that make them seem from a more distant time than they really are. The quote has an interesting disharmony between the words cruel fate and fancied happy.
What is evident is that Wheatley and the Earl of Darthmouth share the dilemma of homelessness. Wheatley's situation was complicated by her living in a colonial household inhabited by people almost as new to the Americas as she was. Her feelings of her native home were doubtlessly thought inappropriate and surely she was taught to think of Africa as wrong or even sinful.
Part of a bi-continental family myself, I wonder where home was for Phillis Wheatley. The Wheatley's, in a sense her adoptive parents, must have thought of England as home, which brings to mind the Earl of Darthmouth. He also hailed from England and may not have considered the colonies his home, as seen in his failure to support the ideas behind the American revolution. Perhaps her addressing him came from a place of recognition of a true and deep human predicament; a sense of not belonging.
As seen in Wheatley's words above, Africa was an exotic place to her, a place filled with mystique, a forbidden place. Her removal from Africa may have been fairly recent in time but unlike the Earl, Wheatley did not have a living cultural link to her past, thus the sense of time elapsed in the quote above. The feeling of distance is one created by obliteration of cultural ideals, traditions, language, human relationships and indigenous identity. The Earl, however, fulfilling his responsibilities as dictated by the English monarch, had every reason to go on living English-style in order to ensure the anglification of the burgeoning colonial lifestyle and culture.
In truth, both Wheatley and the Earl were outsiders skirting the perimeter of a society neither of them would ever be allowed to join. Wheatley, too African to ameliorate her situation, and the Earl, too noble to be truly American, form part of the generation that bridges the gap between the Old World and the New.
# posted by Katja @ 9:14 PM 
