The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence

by David Waldstreicher

A New York Times notable book of 2023 | A finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography

“[An] erudite, enlightening new biography . . . [Waldstreicher’s] interpretations equal Wheatley’s own intentional verse, making it a joy to follow along as he unpacks her words and their arrangement.” —Tiya Miles, The Atlantic

“Thoroughly researched, beautifully rendered and cogently argued . . . The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley is [. . .] historical biography at its best.” —Kerri Greenidge, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

A paradigm-shattering biography of Phillis Wheatley, whose extraordinary poetry set African American literature at the heart of the American Revolution.

Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published in London, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led one of the most extraordinary American lives. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, she was sold to a merchant family in Boston, where she became a noted poet at a young age. Mastering the Bible, Greek and Latin translations, and the works of Pope and Milton, she composed elegies for local elites, celebrated political events, praised warriors, and used her verse to variously lampoon, question, and assert the injustice of her enslaved condition. “Can I then but pray / Others may never feel tyrannic sway?” By doing so, she added her voice to a vibrant, multisided conversation about race, slavery, and discontent with British rule; before and after her emancipation, her verses shook up racial etiquette and used familiar forms to create bold new meanings. She demonstrated a complex but crucial fact of the that the American Revolution both strengthened and limited Black slavery.

In this new biography, the historian David Waldstreicher offers the fullest account to date of Wheatley’s life and works, correcting myths, reconstructing intimate friendships, and deepening our understanding of her verse and the revolutionary era. Throughout The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley, he demonstrates the continued vitality and resonance of a woman who wrote, in a founding gesture of American literature, “Thy Power, O Liberty, makes strong the weak / And (wond’rous instinct) Ethiopians speak.”

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Poetry, Race, Historical, Biography Memoir

569 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 7, 2023

About the author

David Waldstreicher, editor, is Distinguished Professor of History at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and the author of Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification (2009); Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution (2004); and In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820 (1997). As editor, his books include A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams (2013).

Reviews

[Jaksen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A huge book, any way you look at it. Dense, heavy, weighty - but it deserves to be! The story of a seven-year old slave girl sold in Boston, in 1761, to a wealthy family to be raised as a servant to aid/assist the family matriarch as she ages. Yep, in Boston, one of the major slave-trading cities of its time. (Though the population was only around 15,000, it was a major commercial and trading center.)

Tres important - and highly significant. For this time period, extraordinary. Taught to read and write by two of the Wheatley's children, Phillis quickly began writing poems. They were published. In the five newspapers the small city of Boston supported. There they were, alongside advertisements of slaves for sale. Amazing. I had no idea...

For all those critical of critical race theory, THIS is critical. This needs to be taught. That a young, black, enslaved girl could accomplish so much, one who survived the insidious 'Middle Passage' and arrived in Boston wrapped in a piece of rug. The background the writer provides of the culture, the beliefs and biases of a mostly-Protestant population, and who knew the whole basis for enslaving anyone was inherently wrong, was eye-opening. These were pious and devout church-goers who were getting wealthy not only on whale oil and tobacco, but on slaves. The historical perspective in the books is perfect, though the author makes no excuses for the excuses the prominent citizens of Boston made for owning, trading, and selling human beings.

An aside:
When I read a book like this, I try to get into the heads of those involved - what were they thinking, how did they live, what were their needs? In this case, for me, hard to do, even though I see names throughout the book which I know I'm related to. My father's family entered the country through Maine in 1630 and many of us - a huge family indeed - still live in the area. (My maiden name is almost as common as Smith.) At any rate, to think some of my ancestors probably owned slaves? My mother's family also goes back into the 1600's, so it has to be there somewhere. So when a book impacts both my thinking - and where I live, so to speak - it's striking.

Back to the book: meticulously researched, which in this case wasn't easy. The writer had to rely on the poems Phillis left - and they are beautiful, insightful, curious, intriguing - and letters and articles others wrote about her. She wrote elegies, poems about death, and left her mark on early American literature which was considered significant at the time, but then sort of faded until she became a footnote in most American literature anthologies. She certainly deserves better interest and recognition and I hope this book - weighty as it is - is part of that today.

Five stars

[James Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, the book is excellent. There were six newspapers in Boston when only 15,000 people lived there. And they all published poetry. On the other hand, much of their revenue likely depended on running advertisements for slave sales. That may seem tangential, but the context Wheatley comes up in is one where literature is constitutive of life, but that literary superstructure was so entwined with the economic base of slavery as to make it inseparable. The extraordinary example of Wheatley's work at the middle of each tension in revolutionary America is a rare instance of a creative pursuit being able to re-create its creator's lived existence—a "hypersigil" if you're a loser. The only crit I would have is that due to endless criticism of Wheatley over the centuries driven by overt and covert racism, Waldstreicher seems to feel the need to present each action or thought of Wheatley's in its best possible light, which, to me, is something of a mirror image of the process of dehumanization her reputation has endured previously. To be perfect is to not be human. So Wheatley can still feel far away, even after spending 350 pages with her.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an astounding feat of historical research, with the last 100 or so pages made up of appendices and footnotes. The author proves just how much you can understand about a person’s life if you read literally every newspaper, letter, captain’s log, and classic epic that ever got within a few miles of your subject. The historical context is vividly crafted, and the literary analysis of Wheatley’s work is extensive. I truly got a sense of Wheatley’s brilliance, politics, identity, and worldview. And yet there’s still so much we don’t know about her life! The author’s reflections on the end of her life made me teary-eyed.
That being said, this was written by a hardcore historian, and the writing often reflects that. While I was fascinated, this book could sometimes get pretty dry and academic.

[Randy Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

For months I eyed this book at the San Jose Public library. Finally a few weeks ago I checked it out and now have read it. First off, this isn’t a biography. There is too little information about Ms. Wheatley for that. This is more of a social history, and the positioning of a black young slave women in a society in flux.

Taken on the slaver ship ‘The Phillis’ from West Africa to Boston as a slave, Phillis the person, landed in a progressive white slave-owning family. They recognized her genius and although she was considered a family servant, she was treated so well that the slave owners’ children were jealous of the preferential treatment by their parents.

By the time she was twenty, Phillis was published, had a letter from George Washington and was sent on an author’s tour of London. The year was 1773 right before the outbreak of hostilities between Britain and its American colonies. She had to straddle the line between the patriots and the loyalists. Some of this straddling was because of the British promise of freedom to the black slaves who fought on their side. Some of the Americans had sympathy for slaves but mostly were unwilling to upset the current economic order.

After returning to America, Phillis won her freedom. Was it because she had published a book? Or was it because she had been to Britain and it would be unseemly for a published author to remain a slave? Or was it based on internal family dynamics. We will never know.

Her owner died and she had no position in that family so she quickly married a free black man who while cultured with some business acumen, also had to struggle to keep out of debtors prison. Ultimately she had three children and never published another book of poetry or even many poems. Her children died and her husband to provide. Phillis died outside of Boston and was buried in an unmarked grave.

Despite the severe source limitations imposed by the material, the author does a good job giving the reader a sense of Phillis, her intelligence, poise and competence as a poet. I don’t think the author is as good at establishing the literary value of Wheatley work but given her prominence at a key

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

My exposure to Phillis Wheatley and her poetry comes mostly from American literature survey classes. So my knowledge of her life and works is limited. But David Waldstreicher’s biography really captures her life as a young poet and black slave in colonial Boston.
At times the book was too academic for me as my knowledge of ancient Latin and Greek isn’t strong. (Wheatley had great knowledge on these topics.) But Wheatley’s life, poetry, and early rebel activities made great reading.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful job done with scant information on American poet Phillis Wheatley. A thorough examination and analysis of her works while also framing her in a pre- and post-revolutionary Boston. Most interesting was the analysis of white patriots constant whining of being treated as slaves by the English government while ignoring the fact of their own support (or literal) slaveholding.

[Cecile · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am giving the book a rating of four because I respect the author’s efforts and I did enjoy the poetry analysis. I was hoping for more biographical information. A glimpse into what her everyday life might have been like did not come until well over 100 pages. It was also a slow, sometimes tedious, read. However, I am glad for the attention given to this magnificent poet.

[Claudia Majetich]

GoodReads doesn't have a choice of shelves for books not finished, so I put this one in READ. But I didn't get very far. It is a literary biography that I just couldn't get into.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is excellent in giving historic context to the life events and writings of Phyllis Wheatley, as well as giving a history of slavery in colonial Boston.

I found reading the book a bit of a slog. It is not written strictly chronologically, as the author often backtracks without always giving the timeframes for his asides and then not giving the dates when the account returns. I had to do a lot of rereading. Because I found the subject so fascinating, I soldiered on and am glad that I did.

[Drew Ross · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very difficult book to read. The complex history, the characters, the way it’s written, just everything… I loved learn about the incredible story of Phillis Wheatley but I didn’t love this book.

[Mary]

DNF. But I read enough to get the gist of the argument that Wheatley's poetry has often been misinterpreted and that her work played a role in the founding of our country and should be recognized as such.

[Annika · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a phenomenal biography that expanded and totally changed my perception of Phillis Wheatley. Before reading this book, I had what I imagine is the general impression and knowledge of Wheatley: a vague understanding that she was one of the first African American poets, that her poetry was primarily religious in nature, and that her work has traditionally been seen as rather conciliatory on matters of race, whether because she knew her enslavers would read it or because of a kind of "Stockholm syndrome" that made her view Africa and Africans negatively. Waldstreicher convincingly revises this portrait of her, showing a confident, brave, intelligent writer whose poems draw from both the religious and the secular and are brimming with subversive commentary on politics and race. Wheatley comes alive as a full person. She was politically engaged in the events of her time and sought to use battles over empire and colonial rights to attack racism and slavery. She was an artist and lover of literature, a person dealing with with health issues, and a person struggling to reconcile her identities as an African, an American, a Brit, and a Christian.

I found the broader historical currents that Waldstreicher discusses eye-opening as well. I knew that anti-slavery arguments went back decades before abolitionism as a movement really took off, but I didn't realize how salient a political topic it was in the years before the American Revolution or how both Tories and Whigs used issues of race and slavery in their arguments. Again, while I vaguely knew the importance of the Great Awakening and the evangelical movement in eighteenth-century America, I hadn't realized how some sections of it challenged boundaries of race and class and became involved in the nascent anti-slavery movement. I particularly enjoyed the side stories about the role of poetry and neoclassicism in eighteenth-century society. Waldstreicher brilliantly examines why certain classical writers and stories were important to Phillis and how she interpreted them for her times.

I highly recommend seeking out and reading some of Wheatley's poetry as you go through the book. It really enriched the experience for me. As literature rather than history, a lot of Wheatley's poetry is still too evangelical and pious for me, but you can't help but be awed by a teenage, enslaved, female poet who confidently claimed the right to chastise students at Harvard and the religious and political establishment of Boston, even if that chastisement is in a scolding, judgmental, pious tone that we roll our eyes at today. But, there are some poems that genuinely made me feel a sense of connection to Phillis as a real person, not just a figure of historical interest. In particular, I found the poem "To Maecenas" a deeply moving, fascinating, multi-layered piece of art. On its surface, she's trying to win a wealthy patron, but she doesn't just do it by praising him. Instead, she seeks to make a connection, to show him that she understands his love of poetry, that when she reads poetry she feels the same emotional, fiery pull that he does. Rather than stop with this cozy universality, however, she comes back to the cold reality that her station as an enslaved woman means that she can't soar to the heights of artistic fame that he can. The poem gives such a rare glimpse into what it was like to be a brilliant, sensitive, young enslaved person engaging with poetry and classics. It's also such a beautiful reminder of the power of art and storytelling to link people across human history--just as Phillis is moved by and feels a connection to Homer thousands of years before her, we are moved by and feel a connection to her through her work.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why I chose to read this book: This book wrapped up a trilogy of literary biographies I started reading in January (Zora Neale Hurston and Charles Dickens were the first two).

Synopsis/Summary: Arriving in the colonial America via slave ship as a child, the girl who became Phillis Wheatley was a monumental historical and literary figure. In 1773, she became the first enslaved American, the first person of African descent and only the third colonial American woman to have her work published.

The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley places her literary journey into the context of British and early American (New England) history. At a time when sermons and poetry constituted much of popular literature, her poetry encompassed the sacred, the classical and the political. She was famous in both America and in Europe, an accomplished and highly lauded author of the times. And her poetry served as political commentary at a time when few free (not to mention enslaved) Black people were given any kind of platform.

What I liked about book: This book was written by an historian with keen literary perceptions as well. Phillis Wheatley left no diaries; she left behind her poetry and a dozen or so letters. The author takes what little information he has at his disposal and constructs a biography of this brilliant neoclassical poet. He states that he was most fascinated by the questions she asked in her poetry — more so than any answers she provided.

What I disliked about book: Because the author had so little biographical information to work with, there were long stretches of reading that didn’t include anything historically documented about the poet (just theories and maybes). I wish that we knew more about her.

Concepts/Ideas/facts introduced to me: I always knew of Phillis Wheatley. She probably came to my attention once or twice when I was a school girl — just the briefest of bios and perhaps one or two of her verses. So learning about her flair for political (and now historical) commentary made me appreciate her all the more.

Things this book made me understand better/deeper: Blatant patriot hypocrisy. So naturally, if you think about Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence and its “All men are created equal” language, there was clearly a disconnect in America. But it goes way deeper than that. Slavery was one of the most popular metaphors the patriots ("sons of liberty") used when discussing their desire to be free from the British empire. And British loyalists jumped all over the duplicity of complaining about Britain’s “enslavement of the colonies” when they themselves bought and sold human beings on the daily.

Opinions changed: I’ve never been a big fan of poetry in general, but knowing that Phillis Wheatley strongly identified to Greek and Roman classical poets helps me to understand her style, content and purpose — and to better appreciate what she was able to accomplish with her verse.

Memorable quote:
“Sometimes by Simile, a victory’s won.”

Readings referenced(ones that come to mind) : Alexander Pope’s 18th century translations of Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, plus Virgil’s The Aeneid have made their way to my TBR list. Not sure when I’ll get to them. Someday, maybe?

[slauderdale · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so glad I decided to actually read this book. It's a chonk, but it was an incredible education: in pre-Revolutionary War Boston, in the classical erudition of the Wheatley milieu, and in the savvy, plugged-in, graceful Phillis Wheatley, whose accomplishments I could respect but whose actual poetry did little for me or actively put me off. But P.W. was no propagandized naif, she was a freaking genius, and not above the use of sarcasm.

Waldstreicher serves the self-styled "Afric Muse" brilliantly, updating the record, confronting some "myth"-understandings, and even uncovering some previously unattributed poems, which he includes at the end of the book. He makes me want to read more about Phillis Wheatley, and Phillis Wheatley makes me want to read more, period. I feel like I've been put on notice: like I need to get on the horse NOW and read those works of ancient Greek and Roman authors I keep putting off, not just Ovid and Homer, but Terence, and Horace, and Virgil, and their aftercomers - Chapman, Pope... I want to be half as cool and well-read as Phillis Wheatley. I may never be a superfan of her poetry AS poetry purely in its own right, but that's because it was always much more more than that. That's why Waldstreicher's book is so good: it provides the literary, social and political context in which, and to which, Wheatley wrote and moved.

ETA:

Oh, also, also:

Genius explains much about Wheatley, but it didn't itself make her the one African American who generated responses from Dartmouth, Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson. The image of a Wheatley court, so provincial and contained, or of a teenage slave who could only have been a kind of pious savant or caged songbird, distracts us from her real fame, the remarkable appreciation (and irritation) of her contemporaries—the very pattern that of course made her bold enough to write to Lord Dartmouth in 1772, and which continued to raise the stakes of her life and work for the dozen years she had left.

Wheatley's politics—not just her color—expanded her choices and made her a force to be reckoned with on both sides of the Atlantic. She challenged the American revolutionaries, as well as their English counterparts, to respond to her political as well as poetic genius. Had she not mastered their words, their ideas, their song, their political culture as a whole, she could not have sent their calls for liberty and piety back to them, inside out and publicly, with undeniable implications for herself and her fellow slaves.

That was the Wheatleyan moment. More than her patrons or even her audiences, Wheatley herself made it happen. She created the circumstances that led contemporaries to respond.
"The Wheatleyan Moment," David Waldstreicher, Early American Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Fall 2011), pp. 522-551, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23546668

[Cole Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley” by David Waldstreicher is one part biography and one part literary analysis of the first published Black American, Phillis Wheatley. While the book sells itself as a biography of sorts, it often spends its time instead discussing the differences in poetry forms and her literary style, making it just as much a book on literature as it is on its human subject. As a result, I struggled with this book.

I want to commend David for his well done research. The section in the back clearly delineates where he got his sources from and there is a functional index. You would expect this to be more frequent these days.

Combining all the information on Phillis Wheatley requires a synthesis on multiple fronts. David consulted newspapers of the time, personal letters of individuals that may have known her, and the few disparate readings of Phillis own unpublished word. Amazingly, David actually pinpoints multiple anonymous poems that were unknown to likely be attributed to Phillis.

All in all though, this book had some issues that really hindered my enjoyment.

You need some level of education to understand the literary analysis: education I do not have. Elegic, panegyric, iambic, pentameter, couplet, sonnet, and a million other poetry terms are thrown around constantly. Some of these I know, others I still don’t. What the hell is a panegyric poem!?

David’s work looked to be a biography of Phillis, but it really isn’t. It’s a biography half the time and an academic deep dive the other half. I got the sense that this book assumed you had quite a good understanding of Phillis’ work. Which I don’t, which is why I picked up the book in the first place.

The author frequently points to poems not in the text, which is annoying. It’s like reading about a TV show you have never watched, it doesn’t make any sense or is hard to understand. I also think the author throws a lot of names around, doing little to explain who is who. That all being said, the index does help with this issue.

As a result, I just think I wasn’t the target reader for this book. Strangely, I’m not sure who is. You get a lot of basic biographical information, which assumes you know nothing about Phillis, alongside very deep literary analysis that demands some knowledge of poetic literary analysis. Are there really that many people that fit the latter but not the former?

In the end, I struggled to enjoy this book, as evidenced by how long it took me. But, I didn’t think it was poorly written. I think it was just marketed poorly. “An Analysis of Phillis Wheatley’s Life and Poetry” would have been a much stronger title. I’m not sure who really the audience of this book is supposed to be. 2.5/5, would only recommend if you know who Phillis is and want to learn more, or are very interested in the American Poetry canon.

[Book Club of One · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Waldstreicher's The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence is an illuminating book that details the works of a person many people know about. Prior to reading this book, I knew the broad outline, that Wheatley had been a slave who gained famed for her talent with poetry and been the first African American poet to have a published book.

Waldstreicher presents a multi pronged work, it is a history, biography and literary analysis. However, we are limited by the available source records to the words and thoughts of Wheatley, her 'family' and those of whom she interacted. Phillis Wheatley was named for the slave ship that brought her to America, her birth name being lost to time. Much of the rest of her early life is not detailed, Waldstreicher is much more focused on her work and how it was received in pre- and revolutionary era America. We do learn some details of her home life, but much of the focus is on Wheatley's poems, both those that were signed and those that have been attributed to her based on content, time of publication and a shared commonality of word choice.

While much of her life is not explored, the Phillis Wheatley portrayed here is a very talented writer and a politically savvy operator. Who she dedicated her poems and who was sent them are just important as the connections she makes to further her career, despite rampant racially motivated disbelief of her capabilities.

Worth a read for any one seeking information about early American literature, American Poetry or the African American experience of Colonial and Revolutionary America.

I received a free digital version of this book via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have known about Phillis Wheatley for a very long time, but there is always more to learn, even about a person or a subject. When I watched Stamped From The Beginning, I learned that people were so astounded that a black woman (really more of a child) could produce such luminous work that she was essentially put on trial to convince people that it was her own work. She also was put on the spot often in less formal situations--she was asked to produce poetry about a subject or a person in the moment. Just astoundingly weird.
Going back to the beginning: Phillis Wheatley was a young Boston slave who achieved fame in 1773 for her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. She was widely known in her own time, and she hasn’t lacked for biographies in the 239 years since she died at age 31 in 1784, and it’s no wonder: her story – brought to the colonies as a child, bought by the Wheatley family in Boston and taught to read and write, brought to London in 1773 by her master’s son, emancipated there and also published to widespread acclaim, and married to a grocer named John Peters for the odd obscurity of her final decade – is not only fascinating but obviously emblematic, woven through with many of the evils, contradictions, and promise of the Revolutionary era.
This version works through her story, and one interesting tidbit that came out is that Benjamin Franklin was a big fan, but Thomas Jefferson not so much. Jefferson is less and less attractive the more we know about him, and this is yet another chink in his armor because it was not that he didn't like poetry but rather that he undervalued her.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early in my college days I was introduced to the First Lady of American Poetry: Phillis Wheatley and wrote my final paper on what I found about her life. Decades later, finally comes an official biography written by the esteemed David Waldstreicher which I picked up to remind and fill me in on things I never found out. Turns out Wheatley and her life remains a mystery polluted with heresy and assumptions of previous biographers. "Nothing of their everyday lives comes from their mouths or pens," Waldstreicher writes underscoring the reason this slog of a biography is both centered on Wheatley and views her from a cool distance. Here is a pre-Revolutionary War Boston and an extensive analysis of the world Wheatley wrote about as well as brilliant footnotes on her poems, but glaringly absent is Wheatley herself. After the weighty books' journey, the brilliant poetess remains a mystery. At the books end, Waldstreicher talks the reader down from assuming the worst regarding Wheatley's final years and my college-born assumption about her less than spotless husband. The writer reminds us life in the mid 17th century is inscrutable and unknowable by today's standards, as few kept helpfully detailed daily diaries. Having read Wheatley's poems remains a requirement and possibly the only way of knowing who she truly was. Like any genuine slave, her work remains the focus of conversation, appreciation and analysis while she herself silently observes us all from the back of the room.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have known OF Phillis Wheatley for a long time but not much ABOUT her, perhaps because rhyming couplets is about my least favorite kind of poetry. It was the order of the day in the 18th century, though, to be fair. After reading this book, I still don't enjoy rhyming couplets! but I have a much better appreciation of the sophistication beneath the ba-dump-ba-dump rhythms and flowery language.

The great strength of this book is the way Waldstreicher delves into the social context of Wheatley's work in the Boston of her time. She lived there during a period of great social ferment, and everything she wrote was calculated in some way to draw upon her knowledge of and position in that society, whether she was trying to hedge her bets with elegies or highlight her experience as an enslaved African person. Details about various politicians and preachers can get a little exhausting at first, but without this information it's not possible to fully appreciate the nature of her work.

With detailed textual study, Waldstreicher has added a number of anonymously published poems to her oeuvre, including my favorite which was a response to a poet who argued against abolition of slavery. It won't take long before you're nauseated by the repetition of the "we won't be slaves" motif in patriot rhetoric even as the enslaved population of Boston increased. Although Wheatley was emancipated upon her owner/patroness's death, she did not live to see slavery abolished in her state - and slavery was significant there despite how we'd like to think of the north - there was not the huge slave economy that existed in the southern plantation states, but there were several thousand slaves in Boston at the time of the Tea Party.

While I still don't really want to sit down and read pages of rhymed couplets, this book gave me a new respect for the intelligence and savvy of Phillis Wheatley in the context of her life and times.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t recall how this book ended up on my reading list. I’m not much for poetry and I learned I’m not much for late 1700’s poetry, either, but I’m glad I read this book. I liked the juxtapositions of history, current events, praising, eulogizing and poking fun. The mixture of references to the bible, to ancient Greek and Latin writers and to more recent poets like John Milton and Alexander Pope was apparently commonplace then. Via letters and in the local newspapers, it seems like it was almost like late night TV hosts, with people eager to read the latest poems.

It just so happens I’m about half way through Ken Burns' six-part documentary miniseries "The American Revolution." Watching that and reading the book at the same time was great, as they accent each other well. The Seven Years War, then the lead up to the Declaration of Independence, the hostilities, then post-war, all combined with consternation of what to do about slavery, freemen, women, and property-less white men...who is entitled to democratic influence...was pretty much on every mind. It brings to mind the jostling for rights we have going on right now.

[Marta E C R · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very excited to read this book, and it started out pretty well. Unfortunately, before long the story of Phillis Wheatley herself got so bogged down by the historical details of her time, as well as the literary details of her poetry, that my friend and I, who were studying the book together, agreed that we would stop reading after chapter 7.
One improvement which would have helped would have been supplying the entirety of any poem being discussed in the text. This was not done, which made the analysis of the poems very clunky and hard to understand.

UPDATE: On the basis of one review which indicated that the end of this book was good, we decided to go ahead and read the last two chapters (23 and 24) which centered Phillis Wheatley herself in a way the first 7 chapters did not, and which my friend and I enjoyed discussing. This prompted us to go back and read the third-to-the-end chapter as well (22), which was worthwhile but began to exhibit enough signs of the earlier tendency to focus more on history and literary details than on Wheatley that we did finally abandon further attempts to continue this book. Consequently, we did not read chapters 8-21, about 200 pages and more than half the book, so this entire review is based onpages 1-88 and 305-353.
And then I decided to read the appendix called “Anonymous Poems Tentatively Attributed to Phillis Wheatley,” going back into chapter 22 to read the author’s analysis of 3 poems there, which was also worthwhile.
My friend and I went on to read The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America’s First Black Poet and her Encounters with the Founding Fathers by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. We found this book excellent. Unlike the one I’m reviewing, it managed to center Phillis Wheatley even though it was originally given as a Thomas Jefferson lecture. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Phillis Wheatley. I also read a children’s biography of her by Kathryn Lasky which I enjoyed. And now I intend to go on to read her one published poetry book from 1773.

[Carolyn Crocker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very thorough-going account of what is known of the poet's life, and of the times and issues most salient in her life. At first a "genius" novelty, Phillis employs Christian evangelism and classical learning to gain acceptance for her poems, which from the start demonstrate a savvy subtlety that exposes the hypocrisy of pre-revolutionary slave-owning patriots in New England, clamoring for their own liberty. Complicated and revealing.

"Remember, Christians, Negros. black as Cain,
May be refined, and join th' angelic train." p.84

"Wheatley calls attention to how we make race by how we use language." p. 85

"...the humility with which any American aught to approach the intertwined stories of the American Revolution and the enslavement of Africans, the emancipations that happened and those that did not." p. 342

[Sam T · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Audiobook - 13)

As a kid I read those ‘diaries of American hero’s’ and distinctly remember the Phillis Wheatley one. Ever since, I’ve noticed her mention in many of the historical figures writings or histories of that time. I’ve also read some of her poetry as well as on her life

This biography takes a very generous view of Phyllis Wheatley’s life, and uses an intriguing framing using Greek and Latin classics to interpret much of her story and writings. It’s almost too niche for me, and I like all of those topics!! 4 stars because of this

Huge fan of the repository of ‘probably’ Phyllis poems at the end. My version also had the author talking thru his opinion of rebranding historical figures as abolitionist / ascribing modern viewpoints to them in the form of what could be a drunk history podcast

[Emily Sorensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely in depth literary analysis on Wheatley. Not sure you can call it a biography… much of the details of her life were based on broad speculation.

I enjoyed reading the poems recently attributed to her in the appendix, and appreciated the context given to her other poems. My criticism is that often the analysis of her more well known poems was hard to follow without the entire poem in print, I wish I would have had her published poetry book next to me as I was reading to follow along.

My favorite line of the recently attributed poems “Thoughts on Tyranny”:
“Declare abroad, that freedom don’t appear
Under the cloak of monarchy and fear.
Hail! Happy day, while patriotic fire
Glows in the noble breast the noble mind t’inspire.
Flam’d by this spark America will shine,
And lighten distant worlds with rays benign.”

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Waldstreicher reconstructs the life and work of Wheatley through the lens of her time and place. By placing her poetry in context, he illuminates her brilliant mind. Wheatley navigated the life of slave with care, eventually contributing to the discussion of slavery and the American Revolution, publishing a book of poetry, and obtaining her freedom. Waldstreicher does not offer much speculation about her personal life but sticks to documented facts. The last chapter summarizes past portrayals of Wheatley and her work. This through dense biography worth is worth reading, not only to learn about Wheatley but to also gain new perspectives about the American Revolution. One of the appendices contains some previously unpublished poems by Wheatley.

[Tammy Mannarino · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book definitely fits the category of Literary Biography. It's not just the story of Wheatley herself but also an explication of her writing and the influences and environment that shaped her life. It is not a light work. Reading takes concerted effort but there are gems of information found within the pages. I was fascinated with Phillis Wheatley's ability to carefully adapt the messages in her poems and letters for the very different audiences she was dealing with. She navigated politically dangerous waters with great skill. I had been unaware of Thomas Jefferson's posthumous criticism of Wheatley which I think sheds more light on him than on the poet. I would like to read more about this amazing woman.

[Kristin Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phillis Wheatley is a name that has come up so much in my studies, so I loved learning more about her and her interesting life. What a remarkable person! The history was my favorite part of this book. The poetry analysis, however, was way above my head. Perhaps that's because I was always reading it right before bed when tired, but either way, I'm taking his word for all of that. I love the way he ended the book with what Wheatley has meant to Americans since that time, and I thought the retelling of the racial aspects of the Boston Massacre was fascinating. This is definitely a story that needs to be told!

[Taylor Atkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another book that I struggled to get through the first half of. The style of writing is very academic and dives into detailed literary analysis using highly specific terminology for poetry. I found those (many) sections dense and hard to get through. I surprised myself with how much I didn't enjoy that because my major in college was English creative writing. I guess I was expecting a history book, and I got a lit analysis instead (for the first half, anyway). If I had known about the lit analysis bit ahead of time and could expect it, then I suspect it wouldn't have been irritating. I think another source of my irritation is that I was looking for a light read and the academic jargon made that not possible.

The second half is much more focused on current and world events for Phillis Wheatley, and I valued the way the author sheds light on how her story (beginning, middle, and end) connected to US and British history.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read about Phillis Wheatley in a college class and this jumped out at me. The history was interesting but I feel like it was less about Phillis Wheatley in places than the history happening around her. To be fair, there's not much other writing to really discuss her and her life directly, with education/slavery laws as they were at the time but it was more putting Wheatley in historical context than about her herself. Still a great read, just an adjustment of expectation.

#arc
#netgalley
#theodesseyofphilliswheatley

[Janice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story of Phillis Wheatley. Really gives what she would have had to go through at the time. There doesn’t seem to be much to give us about her other than what her poetry touches on. But then, it would have to be very filtered because of the time and who she was.

Wished there was diaries from the Wheatleys so we could see how she came to be as an artist. To go from being a slave brought over at around 8 and then an acclaimed poetess in her teens would have been fascinating.

Was interesting to read about the times that shaped her.