Phillis Wheatley Literary Response

Steve Epting
AP English
Phillis Wheatley Literary Response
This excerpt is about the poet Phillis Wheatley. She was an educated slave that had an advantage to travel the world, unlike other slaves. Wheatley was born in Africa and was brought to Boston in 1761. She had an advantage of education even though few white women were given an education. She was taught how to read and write and how to read Latin writers. Wheatley’s mother described her as a “frail and remarkably intelligent child.” She wrote poetry and she was inspired to write poetry from different poets such as Milton, Pope, and Gray. She traveled to London with her son to get started on her first book.
This passage is basically a biography telling the life of Phillis Wheatley. It is stating logical facts about her life so this passage is appealing to logos. The word choice was not complex at all. Everything was clear and I could understand it. Wheatley was very fortunate and she lived a life that many slaves only dreamed of. Throughout the text, the writer really doesn’t go into depth about anything. The author didn’t go into depth about her time being a slave, her family, or the time period when she was in London starting her book. They just told key points in her life, without detail.
Some of Phillis Wheatley’s poems were about slavery, and how badly they were treated. Her poems appeal to pathos because they are filled with great emotion such as tyranny, love, and pain. She set traditions for the black race because she was the first black to become a poet and she was also the first black woman to become a poet. This woman gained respect from white academic scholars such as Benjamin Franklin. She’s giving other people hope, even though this was done a long time ago.