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The Age of Reason/Revolutionary Period Assignment
Jasmine Green
Department of English, Liberty University
Dr. Sarah Horne
April 30, 2023
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Phillis Wheatley and Anne Bradstreet are two of the most influential female authors of
the 17th century. Both authors lived in a period where women did not have a strong voice and
slaves rarely received an education, let alone had the opportunity to speak by composing and
publishing poetry. Wheatley and Bradstreet made their voices heard through their poetry, by
shedding light on the perspectives of women and slaves in their literature. In this essay, we will
compare and contrast the works of Wheatley and Bradstreet, and analyze how they shed light on
the perspectives of women and slaves in their poetry.
Phillis Wheatley was born in Africa and later sold into slavery at a young age to the
Wheatley family in Boston. Despite most of her life being a slave she still managed to be
educated by the family that bought her, so, at the young age of 12, she started writing poetry and
eventually got those poems published. Despite spending much of her life enslaved, Phillis
Wheatley was the first African American and second woman to publish a book of poems.
“Phillis began publishing her poems around the age of twelve, and soon afterward her fame
spread across the Atlantic. With Susanna’s support, Phillis began posting advertisements for
subscribers for her first book of poems”(MonkEL, 2014). Wheatley’s works were seen and
complimented by important people like George Washington, she was also the first African
American woman to ever be published in the United States.
Wheatley’s poetry was heavily influenced by her experiences as a slave and how she
came to learn about Christianity. In her poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America,”
Wheatley reflects on her experience of being taken from her homeland and sold into slavery. She
writes:
“‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
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That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.”
This poem represents how Phillis Wheatley felt about the transition from Africa to
America and how she felt gratitude towards God and that it was God’s way of teaching her about
Christianity. She also acknowledges the injustice of slavery and she did not have the knowledge of
redemption before she was brought to America.
Anne Bradstreet was born in England and immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony
with her family later. She was the first woman to be published in the American colonies, and her
works were praised by her peers. “Anne Bradstreet was the first woman to be recognized as an
accomplished New World Poet. Her volume of poetry The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America
received considerable favorable attention when it was first published in London in 1650” (Poetry
Foundation, 2019). Bradstreet’s works often focused on her faith, family, and the struggles of
living in a Puritan society.
Bradstreet’s poetry often focused on her faith and her struggles as a woman in a Puritan
society. In her poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” Bradstreet expresses her love for her
husband and her faith in God. She writes:
“If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee;
If ever a wife was happy with a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.”
In this poem, Bradstreet expresses her love for her husband and her faith in God. She also
recognizes the struggles of being a woman in Puritan society and her own happiness in her
marriage. While Bradstreet loved her husband she often felt that she was unimportant just
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because she was a woman so she started writing her feelings in the form of poetry and later had
those works published. She was the first woman ever to get her works published in the United
States.
Both Wheatley and Bradstreet were influential female authors of the 17th century.
Bradstreet and Wheatley use poetry to describe how their societies saw women and slaves. Anne
Bradstreet's and Phillis Wheatley's poems both share the themes of death and religion in their
poems. Both poets incorporated religion into their writing by portraying God as the women's sole
refuge and source of solace from the domineering society. Despite their different circumsta
both Bradstreet and Wheatley were taught to read and write and both had a huge interest in
poetry. Both Phillis Wheatley and Anne Bradstreet were important figures when it came to
making themselves known and overcoming the odds of being women and in Wheatley's case also
a former slave and they made something of themselves and changed the lives of women in the
United States proving that they can become authors just as well as men can.
Wheatley incorporates race using a sophisticated, Christianity perspective and her works
often focused on her experiences as a slave, and her poem “On Being Brought from Africa to
America” expresses her gratitude to God for bringing her to America and giving her the
opportunity to learn about Christianity. “Poems on Various Subjects revealed that Wheatley’s
favorite poetic form was the couplet, both iambic pentameter and heroic. More than one-third of
her canon is composed of elegies, poems on the deaths of noted persons, friends, or even
strangers whose loved ones employed the poet” (Poetry Foundation, 2018). A lot of her poems
are about death, She also addresses the injustice of slavery and how she did not know anything
about redemption before she was brought to America. Bradstreet’s works often focused on her
faith and her struggles as a woman in a Puritan society. In her poem “To My Dear and Loving
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Husband,” Bradstreet expresses her love for her husband and her faith in God. while they both
have some similarities they both wrote poems about different aspects of their lives and
essentially led different lives altogether. “Perhaps the most important aspect of Anne Bradstreet's
poetic evolution is her increasing confidence in the validity of her personal experience as a
source and subject of poetry”(Poetry Foundation, 2019). Bradstreet explores these themes by
tying them to nature and her personal struggles with simplicity and a religious lens.
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References
Bradstreet, Anne. (2019). Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43706/to-my-dear-and-loving-husband
MonkEL. (2014, March 27). Phillis Wheatley: Her Life, Poetry, and Legacy. Npg.si.edu.
https://npg.si.edu/blog/phillis-wheatley-her-life-poetry-and-legacy#:~:text=In
%201773%2C%20Phillis%20Wheatley%20accomplished
Poetry Foundation. (2019). Anne Bradstreet. Poetry Foundation.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/anne-bradstreet
Poetry Foundation. (2018). Phillis Wheatley. Poetry Foundation.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/phillis-wheatley
Wheatley, P. (2018). On Being Brought from Africa to America. Poetry Foundation.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45465/on-being-brought-from-africa-to-
america
