The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Encounters with the Founding Fathers [Hardcover]

Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2003

The slave Phillis Wheatley literally wrote her way to freedom when, in 1773, she became the first person of African descent to publish a book of poems in the English language. The toast of London, lauded by Europeans as diverse as Voltaire and Gibbon, Wheatley was for a time the most famous black woman in the West. Though Benjamin Franklin received her and George Washington thanked her for poems she dedicated to him, Thomas Jefferson refused to acknowledge her gifts. "Religion, indeed, has produced a Phillis Wheatley," he wrote, "but it could not produce a poet." In other words, slaves have misery in their lives, and they have souls, but they lack the intellectual and aesthetic endowments required to create literature.In this book based on his 2002 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities at the Library of Congress, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., explores the pivotal roles that Wheatley and Jefferson have played in shaping the black literary tradition. He brings to life the characters and debates that fermented around Wheatley in her day and illustrates the peculiar history that resulted in Thomas Jefferson's being lauded as a father of the black freedom struggle and Phillis Wheatley's vilification as something of an Uncle Tom. It is a story told with all the lyricism and critical skill that have placed Gates at the forefront of American letters.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Gates brings scholarly insight and a love of black literature to this examination of how Wheatley, the first published African American poet, has survived the judgment of past and contemporary critics. After her poems appeared in 1773, distinguished American citizens (mostly white male slaveholders) set out to determine if Wheatley, or for that matter any black person, was capable of the higher thoughts and emotions required to create poetry. Underlying the debate was the humanity of blacks, the justification for their enslavement, and the moral culpability of the slaveholders. While Benjamin Franklin and George Washington accepted Wheatley's talent, Thomas Jefferson remained skeptical, shifting the focus from the authenticity of her authorship to the quality of her work. Generations later, black nationalists would also focus on the ideological quality of Wheatley's work, vilifying her as an apologist for slavery. But in this slim, lively volume, Gates extols Wheatley's enduring literary significance and Jefferson's contribution to spurring a tradition of black literature that was first aimed at proving equality and came to signify a black aesthetic. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Humanities, chair of the Afro-American Studies Department, and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Basic Civitas Books (April 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465027296
• ISBN-13: 978-0465027293
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #420,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice little tribute to Phillis Wheatley, July 7, 2003

By 

matthewslaughter "matthewslaughter" (Arlington, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Encounters with the Founding Fathers (Hardcover)

Mostly a summary of the literary career of Phillis Wheatley, a teenaged slave, born in Africa and later bought by John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston for less than ten pounds, who would unknowingly kickstart the African American literary tradition with her "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral," published in 1773. Described by Gates as "the Oprah Winfrey of her time," Wheatley defied the conventional racist wisdom of the time by proving that people of African descent could write poetry and produce European notions of Art. Gates does a good job of tracing the trajectory of her work throughout the years following her sad demise (her poetry would grant her manumission, but she would die free, poor and alone at the age of thirty). Gates' main critique in the book is of the unfair criticism he feels critics of the Black Power Movement gave her, by questioning her "authenticity" and accusing her of being "too white." He ties this in to Thomas Jefferson's criticisms of Wheatley some two-hundred years earlier, who dismissed her poetry as bad enough to prove that Africans indeed were inferior to Anglos in the arena of "reason." Citing a recent poll suggesting that "acting white" was aligned with "speaking standard English, getting straight A's, or even visiting the Smithsonian," Gates uses a bizarre logic to make his ultimate point: "In reviving the ideology of 'authenticity'--especially in a Hip Hop world where too many of our children think it's easier to become Michael Jordan than Vernon Jordan--we have ourselves reforged the manacles of an earlier, admittedly racist era" (p. 84-5). Whether one views Jefferson's or even Amiri Baraka's criticisms of Wheatley's poetry as remotely similar, Gates' little book does a tidy little job of setting up for the reader the historical processes and miracles that allowed for Wheatley to publish the poems (--good or bad--it's up to you to decide!) that initiated the African American literary tradition.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing Reminder from Gates, August 8, 2004

By 

Lisa J. Jennings - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Encounters with the Founding Fathers (Hardcover)

Gates' book places the writing life of Phillis Wheatley into a context that should prompt readers to reexamine popular condemnations (past and present) of her credibility and literary merit. This text is a refreshing reminder that we readers have a responsibility "to learn to read Wheatley anew, unblinkered by the anxieties of her time and ours. That's the only way to let Phillis Wheatley take a stand. The challenge isn't to read white, or read black; it is to read. If Wheatley stood for anything, it was the creed that culture was, could be, the equal possession of all humanity. It was a lesson she was swift to teach, and that we have been slow to learn" (89-90). This book is a quick read and would be an ideal text for instructors.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting read, August 8, 2003

By 

Wendy-Marie Chabot "The Bad Gwen" (Central CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Encounters with the Founding Fathers (Hardcover)

In 1773 a young woman burst onto the literary scene. And what made this particular author a sensation? The young woman in question was Phillis Wheatley, an African slave writing poetry in English. Her slender books of poems was a literary first, causing critics to mutter.

Brought before an panel of eighteen learned gentleman of the time, Phillis Wheatley proved that persons of African descent could think, read and write works of literature. For a few brief years, Phillis was a author known to both the colonies and Europe, think Oprah, think Alice Walker, think Maya Angelou of her day. Sadly, with Revolution at hand, her literary career stumbled with Phillis and her only surviving child dying much too young.

But that was not the end of Phillis Wheatley. Her surviving works have endured and been subjected to levels of awe and loathing in the centuries since her death. In some camps, Phillis Wheatley is a mother of the slave narrative, in others a sell-out, an Aunt Thomasina making her then masters happy.

Author Henry Louis Gates, Jr does a wonderful job of looking at the literary life of a much loved and much reviled author. The only jarring point? The covers of this fine volume are much too close together, THE TRIALS OF PHILLIS WHEATLEY was a quick read and I found myself sad to have the book end.