Creative Bias and Artistic Individuality in the Poetry of Phillis

Wheatley

William ArbogastFlagler College

St. Augustine, Florida

Phillis WheatleyOn Being Brought From Africa to America

“Negros black as Cain/ May be refined and join the angelic train” (7-8)

“To The Public…” As it has been repeatedly suggested to

the publisher, by persons who have seen the Manuscript, that numbers would be ready to suspect they were not really the writings of Phillis, he has procured the following Attestation from the most respectable characters in Boston, that none might have the least ground for disputing their original (XI)

Phillis WheatleyTo S.M., A Young African Painter

“A new creation rushing on my sight!” (6)

“That splendid city, crowned with endless day, / Whose twice six gates on radiant hinges ring” (16-17).

Phillis WheatleyTo S.M., A Young African Painter

“But when these shades of time are chased away,” (23)

“There shall thy tongue in heavenly murmurs flow, /And there my muse with heavenly transport glow” (17-18)

Phillis WheatleyTo S.M., A Young African Painter

“Cease, gentle muse! the solemn gloom of night/ Now seals the fair creation from my sight” (35-36)

“the solemn gloom of night / Now seals the fair creation from my sight” (35-36)

Phillis WheatleyTo S.M., A Young African Painter

“Still may the painter’s and the poets fire, / To aid thy pencil and thy verse conspire!” (9-10)

“Conduct[s] thy footsteps to immortal fame” (12)

Constructing an Economic Paradigm: Benjamin Franklin’s

Rise to Public Fame

James HastingsFlagler College

St. Augustine, Florida