https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/a87d67611dbb4a48dcf12179e95927ba.pdf 8f900f644c55edf8186640bf3d748e9d PDF Text Text CHAP.JEER IIJ:; AF/ijICAN I Voice IN ECLIPBE; I MITATION & ~GITATION , 1746-1~65 Sa aves, though we be en ro ll•d / tuk Minds are neverAsold -- from David Ruggles ' Appeal @, 35 ---· As we embark on a :m.D"l"BllmWIDW@immih -.... survey of the cha:m.onological development of Blac~ r y , it is important to remember that any study ot;:fiteraturef conc err);Jf. that which is "written" and "available . " ~~ made ~CXlllt:mmllt:m.x~ ; . r r ~m t:m:iiii'The fact tha-c~ writer hasAmore (1 _.,,. works accessible to the publi c than another writer does not mak e him/her »e g I IS 11 the a1 g r e atest' 1 or e ven 11 gre 2ter . 11 I n 8:luosts every '°jimnt:mwnam" era, quiet and important writers have been pa s sed over --.... !laft" in favor of literature that is more 11 timely, 11 "flamboyant II and "retJ.,,. velant 11 - - to use an overworked contemporary term. ·1iit: za21 ¼-t-e.n.t ~ d follo wing chapt e rs , represent a tions of the And while this book c ertainly I am including brief nanthology0 ven 9eo re'inforc e J. comments on styles , themes , subjects , language and other aspects of poems included, ~ the poetry. The fi £1<7JA it is hoped, will allow, student,lllld general r eader and tea che r :mwnmrrn;;;;;;&Dl:iczr:toa~ immedi ? te access to comparisons, contrasts and tent a tive analyses . There a lso is no over - riging effort to explain the works in a poem- by- poem breakdown. Howev e r , ~hapt er VII will offer an histo rical 11 running' an a lysis of several poems with t e !il~a..'"n.il1.e~t are emphasi s on how the poems can be read silently ~a~n~d~at1iio~u~d~.~ - ;j~;;.. o f the in themes somel\consistencies(and similarities)/that can be found in many of the poems . �UNir-, , L Blacks have been in the Western Hemisphere almost as long as whites. After 1501, most of the Spanish expeditions to the New World included Black explorers. By the time the 20 slaves-to-be were brought on a Dutch vessel to Jamestown in 1619, the presence of Blacks bad been felt for at least 100 years ,,. / Crucial to an understanding of early Black Poetry are the circumstances su~rounding slavery and. the political and bto. C0Lon1c«. L· ((J et vf, <~ ·y religious moods of~England and~America. British America did not follow the Greco-Roman tradition of the well slave. It was quite unlikely, then, that a 11 nfor,ned revolutionary 11 Black poet would emerge from a social and literary landscape so charged with self-riGhteousness and Neoclassicism (or from the Romanticism of the 1800's). Lucy Terry's "Bars Fight" (written in 1746 and published in 1393) could hardly be called 11 protest"; neither could the work of Phillis Wheatley, considered the finest Black talent of the colonial era, caught between contrivances of the Age of Enlightenment and the approaching 46 �on the class cs r.ti nat on" a v to Weldon · ers I y 1 I "' The ~o~~.a~~ical tradition that I reached its height in the poetry oF,nder Pope, had I already begun to die out with the death of Pope himself in I 1744. 1 All over Colonial America, however, white poets were I im tating the stiff-collared conventionality of that period. I I The moral issues considered by most of the poets (Black an white)--universal brotherhood of man, quest for reason and order, the Jeffersonian ideals of freedom, liberty and representative government--were removed from _t e everyday Some of the most liberal men of the . .M"."'8- ..... (Jefferson, Washington, Hume) implicitly justified slavery by suggesting that Blacks 1ere in some ways inferior. Despite Jefferson's pontifications on humanitarianism, he was unable to reconcile the disparity between bis puolic stands anq _qis_ f,e.ilure to maqµmit bi§...o;wn slaves,. ,..~ ;,;,t/,..Bwk. ~ rt ~ -Mll1l411•~, ~~ On the general American scene, the RevolUution J.~'Y I a national literature had begun to emerge. -,1 ehind, ~ J Fascinated with American employment of new technology (Franklin's lightning experiments, printing presses, etc.) and the prospects of unexplored regions of the New World, writers started recording travels and observing the mixture of races and religions. Although relig ous fervor was still high (Cab, inism, Weslyanism and deism had run their courses), pol tical problems dominated. 47 �Between 1790 and 1832 the new American government was being consolidated and the writings of men like William Bradford, John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, Thomas Shephard, Roger Williams, Edward Taylor and Jonathan Edwards were succeeded by the embryonic nationalistic works of Franklin, Jefferson, William Byrd, William Cullen Bryant, Charles Brockden Brown, Washington Irvine, WilliatA Gilmore Simms and James Fenimore Cooper. Irving, Cooper and Bryant were to become the early writers most taught to American school children. Often called the "New England Renaissance,n the early decades of the 19th Century saw increasing tension between New England puritanism ,_ and Southern aristocracy over the question of slavery. ,. .,.. Debates over s l a v e r y ~ continue:lup to the beginning of the Civil War. ~ The early part of the century also saw the birth of many of"'-America 's greatest writers along with/omanticism and rugged individualism. Mystified by the noble savage (Indians and sometimes Blacks) and challenged by the 11 new frontier," Americans began to romanticize their situation and especially ~hat of explorers who became the first original folk heroes. l\J :\.~ ,?riters who dominated the period from 1826-186Sincluded Edgar Allan Poe (poet and short story writer, credited with creating the first detective in American fiction), Nathaniel Hawthorne (considered the first great American novelist--The Scarlet Letter), John Greenleaf 'Whittier, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russel Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Harriet Beecher Stowe (one of the first white American novelists to :feature a Black protagonist in fiction--Uncle Tom's Cabin), Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, 48 �Herman Melville (considered to have written one of the handful of "great rr American novels--Mobv Dick), Walt Whitman (termed the ngreatest" American poet--Leaves of Grass). ~~ S.eme "Of b~•.>fleil'\ a.~e!: a:l"J . .~,,v~» . writers, primarily politic al a ti vis ts or abolitionists,~ .John G. Calhoun, . s} · i liii:ii-- William Dta ta!f Lloyd GarrisoP, Diiww~•~9Y~••••~and Abraham Lincoln. Usi ng their own and Black material, a number of white composers immortalized the era in songs--many of them nationalistic. It was during this period that Francis Scott Kev wr ote ~ y • ,e:, 11 Tbe w Star Spangled Banner. n Stephen Foster bas NJeen accused of merely putting to music t e songs that were sung by slaves. There was~tf~ncouragement, however, for Blacks to learn to read; ~~many slave owners indulged their chattel in writing exerciseias personal pasttimes and bobbies. So many of the early Black/oets, then, grew up in relative security. To be totally free, David Walker observed in bis Appeal (1829) was to be economically insecure, socially ostracized and psychologically oppressed. Consequently, those slaves priviledged to read and write invariably took European literary models. writing . Poets, of course, were not the only ones ~·A4t· P-mi this period ~P, =1, ZS ffflJi Black literary activity was highlighted by exciting slave narratives: accounts of escaped or freed slaves. these ' J, In addition to11.,essayists, like Walker and#\.Douglass, M.-..C:.1;11Pieoe, autobiographical The most pupular of an~fAe first recorded, was The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789). Arna Bontemps includes it in his Great 49 ~ ~~ �Chapt e r I TI ins e rt rr"l p6 ~ constructed ~assa, wh o also~penned some notable verses, a story p attern tha t was to become f ami liar to r e aders of early America: his or her that of t he escaped, freed or run a way slave who report e d~-- hardships Vassa rtumlxm.xm.:frn~.£l:6xm~ and struggles. describes his life in Afric4 u n unti l the time of his I ii I1 ki dnappling. m_r, !iMMie: is:6rirr2· l[fl)IJfmrltmnz:r. With vivid memory and detail, he -....!_lave come to ~ est ablishes t h e ~ bases for wna t wetcali t e "African C0 ntinuum in America.--. It is not~ust mere coincidence that this st a tement from 1$89 almost fits~~~ Ame ~ica of today;. We a re almost a nation of dancers, musicians, and poets. Thus ev e ry great event • • • is celebra ted in public dances which are accompanied with song s and music suited to the occasions. lit e rary Vassa 1 s ••gp.Ja!iag debut into this~g enre was fo l lowed by hundre ds of other narratives, ~ Writing:1760-1~3~, any of them fakes. Do r othy Poet e r, in ~arly Ne gro iscusseJ the problem of ••••tm-~ determining authenticity of the narratives. Mrs. Porter is librarian of t h e Moorland Fo~tion at Howard University--which hczs an oust anding collection !1111 on t he Bl a ck past . . . In her book •~ncluded: constitu t ions an d laws of beneficial societies; s p eeches before mutual aid and educ a t i onal societies; the peport of t h e earliest ro nual convention foe t h e i mprovement of free p eople of color; arguments for and against colonization; print ed lett e rs, se rmons, petitions, ora tions, l e ctures, es s ays, reli g ious and moral treatises, and such cre ative manifestat i ons as poems, prosef n a rra tives, and short essay s. Mrs. ,orter t ~ s sup the i ntellectual a nd lit e rary output of the early Africans. LAfrican, 11 ~,r;.,....-i!'8-~~8'4!1'4' ( wa s u s ed e;enere.us~J by most �(J} insert ffl(p 6 ) 2 spe A/'ft'VM,IVJ,;llil'"d ··,,r~ the era . vJhen "African" was not employed it of "voihoured," 11 Blac1>" ''an l!ithiop:ian C the someti~ (._and heretical ,J Placed againstt,r t f 11 • 3ophomor1c;\accua ations !il..l.~.wi~..;.i;;.""fllt--~,.lio,'-""';,;. Princess .,_" ~ some gf ;, - off,F ;_ ; 1$1 today's Black critics , these early disnlays of pride il8i mouth bqck to school! In addition to the plethora of pamphlets, broadsides, books and news organ that emerged from Black individuals and institutions during the period up to the end of the Civil War, lhhere was also In the early 1 much poli tica ial c · sness raising through oration'°t\,~U I ?• as · at rel chard Allen, Peter Williams , Absalom Ha · 1 Coker, ~;ijz::::;;,r;iij~ ,l~aii;-m;--,iiiir'"~'o:~~isoo"r""'immurfttutal aid II for Africans . onf set the ~ 22 Jfho . t t~ J missionary , atmi abolitionist and self- hel f programs 10:111 ,2 0 later by people like Jarena Lee , .l:!'rederi c k Douglass, R. Martin Delaney) Soj"a1,r,t1tkt""' and Alexander Crummell} :t.--- ~~ ,,_ 1'-,.,~•'J!IM.c-r·• The intellectual, religious and moral work of Blacks in the North wasp ralleled by the development of folk materials(the songs and stories) of Blacks on ;:jouthern plantations . In general few states , North or ~ outh, allowed educ atnonal or vocational opportunities for energies writers Blacks . T~~s the i..-k of early Blac and intellectuals , Mrs. W' ' ~• '\ • Porter~point , out, • setting up of various "African" slaves . Many ~ f @½Te • and the educated Blacks of the North also acted as conduits for the Underground Railroad,- .a 11mJ0i' mc,Hwa :for bhc litiu2tiisu2 • of s l a1re~.,. '-- popu] a:µ., The Rev . Allen,Areligious frusader and founder of the Bethel African (over) �9 3 insert ,fl ( p0) .... raarne C Methodist ~piscopal Church, seems to have been referring Black "sensibility" d es cribed by Vassa when he saids (in 1793) th a t he • a 11 was confident t hat there was no r el i gi ons sect or denominati on tha t wo u ld suit the capa city of t h e colored p eonle as well a s th e Ileth odi s t; ••• bure I am t hr- t r e ading sermons vi l l never prove so beneficial to t h e colored peop le as s p iritua l or extempore nre a ching •••• t,Xor 'mutual II concernsJ ~uch eviden ce exists, then, of Blacks banding toge therlfn e a r l y ~ days of + - ~ o ~ O i iliR :'ihi s tilGWibij I n ressure h orrors of sl a v e ry, t h e psych olo g ic a l .iiiii1•- the 'fhe of Northern "free~' 31S~erep risals in wak e of slave rovolte( such as those led byG~(?. Denmark Vese"W@ ) and Nat Turner~8 31), made for the a most unsettling ~ white Ameri ca' atmos pheDe ( see Walker's Anpeal). ' .rleporting on~ needn to vent ¥2 ·v fea r s 1 9 6tl) noted th a t son Black s, ~inthrop Jordan(White Over Black, ed three t h ing s: loss of identity, lack of self-control and sexual license. In an effort to esca pe t h e '' anmmal within himqelf the white man deba sed the l esro,surely, but at the same time he deba sed himseHt. 11 And a young Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, visiting America in 1 8 31, said racial prejudice wa s "strong er in the states tha t h a ve aboli shed sR.ave ry than in those whe re it still e~s." Ne e dless to say , creative lit e r a ture of the "arty" sort(though much of it was being done at t h e time) wa s not the n umb e r one priority ~ f a cing hell from all sides. Neverth eless~~ literary tradition Ame rica. The example of the narrat ives Bnd p lay �also worked r891B!mimllimi1Di r-m.d other social re form ~ Bis Ant~i lavery narp(l84b ) contained songs and poems pr rams _. :.,..,- , ,~ 1 ~~4',,,. · intellectual or artisan CfY\ c.-aJV"l,'VK-.n the dual~olef crealf or and a c tivist/characterizes the history of ~ Blac "---itlii!/Jtnt me·"i c ~ • ~ ,-mm y critics , Black a nd white, unaware of the stresses and demands on Black artists do not apnroach their ~derstanding_., subjects with the~t ee ann sr~ggiBI~c · Press , ); Political journal1sm~, a1s6 , was a strong vein in the development of Black A~erican writing j.Beginning with John Russwunn( • the second edi to Black c olle ge g raduate and fottfl~CI o~ first Black newspape , Freedaro~s ,&_µrnal,192 ~- 29 ), and evolv ing through Ruggles ' 1.irirror for TJiberty (first Black magazine , 1838) , Douglass ' Monthly(l84J.t-) and North Star ( 13 4 7) , ~o llami 1 ton I s ~ Anglo - A~ercan the tradition of Black journalism and ~ Ma azine ( 1859} , - on the i frican ex- perience w2 s firmly established. much of the journalistic writing{J took pros or cons on the question of imi g ration , colonization or I ~ f f i : m zimn or t he e 1 ev a t 5 on of the Black man s p 1 i gh t in America . During the early and middle years of the 19th Century , white ,,.- ~ travelers t h rough the uouth,)rimrRJP ~®J QQl)Z¥~t3" collecte d and compiled sla ve s ongs --.:>ecul a :l:Js and Spirituals . These songs would later form the nucleus for mu ch of the Black an d white writin eve of the Civil Wa ~ the Dred Scott d e cision themes. Onl the (a blow to slaves and abolitionists) Jilllliilillll:li!llllll!III!• help step up the demPnd s for t h e abolishment of sla v Ary. ~ , Th~ Dattern of the Black 11 "7NJ ,u,,.//4 Brown ' s 'l'he Black Man (/9~>) �CHAPTF.!R III contd "mean mean mean to be free 11 --liobert Hayden foregoing Against the,Abac~ground , the poets of Colonial - Hevolutionary .'.::>lavery America OIL- curious, tearmul, exciting, paradoxi c a l1 ~t,,~, and puzzlingf,31:Z~iae Biblical ijery, c l assical allusions and themes , hatred of slavery al :n~ ui,;h-am'giguous praise for slave ·~~~~e~s· ~of Africa, appeals and condemnations , mas ters , 'PeD~~ all become enmeshed in the intricate linguistic and psychological webbing of this early poet r y . In 1770, the privileged ~ At 17 years of age , Dtii;;;;;•:::i::i;~-,& slave girl Phillis Jheatley became the first Black "exception t:o the rule" in I an~A1erican I noetry . And for decades students of Aflerican poetry --~"'"'-gone about their recitations and research as though nothing or no one of importance ~ hapnened between :Miss \J:h.eatley and Dunhar. It was not until 1893 that Luc'y ~iiai•'1' ~ ·r erry~ s . . __ a l 746~ ~~:::~~ "Bar ' s Fight 11 -- the account of}rii Indian massacre in Deerfield, M a s ~ e to publi ,, light. And :illlll readers had yet . .\q'1S another 27 years to wait before Oscar fogeli~iscovered Jupiter - Hammon • s lillNt "An l!.,vening Thought, Salvation by Christ, •ith Peni tenti al CriesiiiiJi f" ( 1761) ~n the New York Pis tori cal ';:!,ocietyJ Jti~~J.UliV14'N"''1f (5.A ~ ~ ~ pc") ~ . • ..... ~ · mentioned · · · ~1ia t many antholo gies 0.mi t , /1.JO ~/ "bar I s Fight." 'T'h}s is understandably since 1-Tiss .Le y:,\never works . :Jl,; wrote, or at least p,e:=..,n, an literary America 1 s "first Ne r- ro poet," then, is important primarily for being just thQt -- first. Like Hiss 1:J'.heatley, Vassa and other 1Tew J.!,ngland sa.aves, New ""'ngland(Hhode Island) . she was kidn~pned as a child and brought to stui ~dtnessed the Indian raid reported in her 28-line do ggerel flair for storytelling. Hence despite the nee 11 obviously weak literary merit, 11 this first Black writer performed s �0- on e of the earliest service s of the poet -- tha t ofKinger of history -in recordin r a c tual names and places i n her narrative . ~ince she wa s 16- years-o ld and a servant gi r l , writing was surely not her aChieves som~ a gainst the o ral tradition in poet r y-: i t ten my children and you shall hear Uf the mid night ride of Paul Hevere, or A• story Now, childr en, I ' m goi n g to te l l you about r aw- head and bloody8bone s! an There wa s an o l lived in a shoe Qhe had so many c hildren she didn ' t know wha t to do . Compare the f o regoing line s August 1 ~ to twas , the twenty- fifth , ~evente en hundred forty six , T.he Indians did in ambush lay , Some ve r y valient men t o slay , The names of whom I 1 11 not lea ve ouh: Samuel Allen li~e a hero fout , and ~ · ~,. , the c onne c tioru will readily be seen . this poem apparent intentions . both the effects and h iss ·.L erry ' s "Bar ' s .ti' i gh t " Mi s s fo r an .t!Jbenezer Wells of Deerfield, Massachusetts/ ye a r s later e31 m iB ii::lNn...:h:er f12e2d om if! : U/'{p;m Id she mar r ied a free Black man , Abijah Princ e , by whom she had six children . Prince l a ter became the o ,mer of conside ralble land and was one of the founders of .:>underland, Vermont \,Jilliam Robinson( b;alry ,I · Black American Poets )~ l is t s JJfiss 'l'erry wi. th the rtorator" poets and rightly so . Other detai!.s about Miss Terry and the Princes can be obtained from George Sheldon ' s A His t ory of Dee r field, l1assachusetts , 1895 . �~lave poet and intellectual, Jupiter rta mmon(l720?-180 0?), ~ capabilities, into the provides I,tet another look Colonial Ame ~ica. Hammon mind-sets and limitations of Africans in is generally not regarded as an '1 important" BJ ack wri ter --but is a ~- distinguished for being the first• African in America to publishlllJ his verses. This he dicLll:lt!l!ml!II!!• ~n J:!,vening Thoughj"ioiil>composed in December 17605 1778("An Address to Miss Whillis Wheatly")~ 1782( 11 Poem for Children"J and in the mid- 1780 1 s( 11 An ..c.vening 1 s Improvement"). written in 178 ¥1' .'.Iii In his "Address to the lie oe o t a te o ,. tradition with cM>a§ p amphleteers•- like l~~ Htiggles Walker, others of the period. - sought freedom for younoer Blacks I do not wish to be free . 11 11 .hddress 11 , claiming that "for my own part This statement • •• l,.-~M su rfa cJ ; to b e the ultimate in self-debasement and self- denial}f but ifYtf/4.v::tr~ o,, 1~ . _, / 6 I st at!e~ents · · 11e, ~- alker, and othe rs, alb wt,{A >C t ~ ~_...,.,- 0 That H ~ himself was deeply reli gious is reflected in his poetry-- as · · many Black poets , e.g . , rtayden today -- and he obviousl;7" labored under the in f luenc & of Meth odism and the We sleyan JlevA-val(see ~ a r l ~ ~ro ~riting). In the poem to :tJfiss .Heatl ey, J{R_ J.t: it was th r o u ~ miaiiji': nnoo-tt-ee~siX,- that od' s tender mercy" that she n as k idn appe d from Africa and brought to America as a slave. And Hammon seemed, gene rally, to r Pflect with pre vailing white attitude toward the 11 darkll continent : "'o ne and evfil • engulfed in ignorance , barbarism y;/ Qbvio us ly not as well re a d as His s 1 'heat 1 "8!f!lll!!l inte 7 was unable to t ake hi;.fhemes to universa born a sla ve ~. (..;.., and belonge d to t he influential f ".mily of Lloyd's Neck on Long Islan~~was encoura g ed by his masters to write 2nd publish poetry • .®.(ov e r) �There is not a great deal of information ~' l ~vailable on the life of tlammon; h it is difficult to understand Blac k why a n i ntelligent man , who l i ved su ch a long life, mirrored almost c omplete ignoranc e of the horrors of slave r y - -despite ~t - the almost daily newsp a per and v erb al a c counts and discussions o f the "pe culiar institution . " _,-,e,,,~ ,.,,_,,..,,d were primari l y the~ ant · - B - I Hammont s , ..J /tJt,d,/',/.)~ material of hymns o f the period~x'is religious ferver--a t the time o f ~ u in r .c.urope and Colo:fnial America--co upled wi th his t.lfi!J-~Cil borrowings from hymns c onstitute his maj o r p o eti c effort . whi ch Hrs. "An Hvening 'r ho ught J" Porter tells us wa s probably "chanted during the delivery of a serma n , 11 be g ins : Sal vation comes by Christ along The only 0on o f God; Redemption now toevery one , That love his only word . Vear Jesus we would fly to thee , And leave off eve ry Sin , Thy tender lle r c y well agree; Salv ation from our king ; Like Miss ·r erry, Ba:rnmon was not primarily a poet . And hence , unlike C' Phillis Wheatley , one should n o t ,r spend too much time or be too harsh in criti c izing(or compihaining a bout) him. Th e basic stucture of the · .t:Jnglish hymn--which merged with the Spiritual -- as gammon interpre ts it, is an alternat i on of i:ambi c tetrame ne with a rath e r clumsy a b ---- rhyme scheme . Cbmp s r ed to oth r hymns , 0 it is no worse a nd is better than many . •~PllrilDl Vespi te the times , e nd ~ r hpw~ver , one is hardpres sed t o ~ ,1ith HamrJ.on I s I • • over �In Christi§n faith thou hast a share , Worth all the gol dl of ~pain . be fo un Critically inrtobinson ~~~dait~u ;xiax anthologn:J Works of ; critical- biographi cal The i.egro Author{l9Jl)' l By far~ ~ the most gifted an d complex poet until Dunbar , Phillis Wheatley was also priviledged as a young child and allowed access to Bo~ the;\lfbrary of John vvheatley--tio whom she was sold after being brought from Senegal when she was six or seven years old--where she read vorac iously . By the time ftll!P.,;,:.i:c:::.l=l~her teens she had learned to speak and write ,~nglish, and acquired a Ne-w .l!ingland .l!,duc 8tion which put great• eemphasis on the Bible and the classics . Her poetry-,,, like Hamm.on ' s , reflects deep interest in and knowledge of r nligion; but it it al so steeped in classical allusions and conventions of the,) eoclassical writing school . Critical attention to Miss 'iheatli,,y(wh/ lived a short l i ~ i k e D=baj}) has been both r 8ving and unkind. oenjarmin Brawley{The ~e gro ~enius) repE_rts th~t Jeff erson viewed her as beneath the dignity of cri~icism. Yet , genere.usly nraised~ other g reat. Jllersonalities of the day :at!! .,"received her work, G- eorge ~1ashington, so moved by~~ ner1'-crioute21::lllf:il;U9il{ "To His ..t!.xcelJ ency u- eneral tmi~ vashington 11 ) , invited .ao:-~21. the young poet to visit him at his camp at Cambridge, 1,1assachusetts --an invit a tion which she later ~ccepted and was tr eated as royalty. :Miss Hheatley 1 s earliest verses we re penned during the years of her :K'.R e • .,0,~ , . _ 0n the lJeath of the Rev. George ~lhi tefiel dl~ 117()/) 11 reflects a-"illllllll!M"if'l$ie~occupies much of her poetryJ:prc.i:sc fer ,fa> dea.~ �~ (!_5) ther members~-=-_l,U-~~.,_.,..~..,.,..., London who wel'e cum-ernea r b ,u,t railness and poor health, Miss \ heatley was r e ceived -Ib~GJl:t!lilit~ t¥ like a visiting dignitary in London 1 s literary circles ll ' ~ o 1.) The next yearj)11!>)1 and hailed as the "Sable Muse." -..::all.\,Awhi~n London, -she became the first african, and the second woman from america, to publish a book I of poems~ Poems ~ egro ;:jervant to Mr ,J~ oston.,. The ~olume, the only one l.e.y success in both Eng land in and the history of ~n glish poetry in America. Upon her return to Ame vica, Miss Wheatley's misfortunes seemed to come in such li ghtning succession that one won d ers how s h e with stood adversity as long as she did. First, there was the death of Hrs. ••he a tley 'l nd th en, during t h e 1770' s, the deaths of the remaining \lhe a tleys. then ma rried a Joh Peters, wh o 11 proved to be both ambitious e nd irresponsi- ble," f or -rh om she bore t hree thildren--all of whom died in infancy. Addit i ona J ly, the Pet e rs family l i v e in squ al.or a nd o verty, li "ke so many n e w ~ng land Blacks. Co~m enting on the circ umst a nc e s su r r ounding her death, Bark s da le and .n.innamon( Blac k_ 3 ite r s of er ica) ~--~----- ~~ with~accurac observe t he t: Her e a rly de a th provides a comment a ry on t he des p era te ma r ginality of li f e among Po s ton I s free Bl a c k s at th a t time. To Phillis Wheatley, at one time a privileged serva nt who enjoyed an ex- tremely beni gn mast e r-servant relationship, freedom's uncertainwere ove rwhelming. ties end insecuriti e s a nd i nsecurities vroctld µ2 obobJ y iHHJi@& Certainly, had she been initially free in Boston, she would probably never have had the time, the o pportunity, or the peace <bib' mind to write p oetry. For the state of freedom for the Bl a ck man in the 1780's-- e:uen in godly, li b erty-loving_ Boston--was • • • -r •Afo de Ioc,ctr1"1",(,(I_,, indeed prec a rious. _ The preceding explanation, couple :,tlW1 th the obs e rvations of \J alk er, }J.iKrnon �and othe rs, make Hammon' s s t atement about preferring not "to be free." somewhat mo re tolerable /. '/ 'l c ondemned . Some cri ti cs denounce her for not being invmntiv e and origmlh.al enough, clamming that she simply followed the conventions and themes asso ci a ted with neoclassicism:~ Truth , ~alvation, her so-called "pious ercy and Goodness. Some ~~~~•'8!1,J;e resent sentimentality 11 and accuse... her of calling on Chris<t when she should calling for she abolishment of slavery. Still others, II during the c urrent period, have ac cusef her of not being "Black ~ Considered · on the landsc a pe of the times , however, Ivii Wheatl e y comes off as a ss ' ......m- with hardly an~ equal among Bla ck , during a compa rsion or whi ye c ontempora ries. James Weldon Johnson of l"D.Ss '\•Jh e atley 1 s "Imagina tion'' to Anne Bradstreet I s "Contempla tion, 11 said " V.Je do not t h ink tha black woman suffers by comp a rison with the ; whi t e • " (_11 ~ & fj,r,,P,i,!!,-. J.o£t,..d) rinfg her life time Miss Hheatlyy n ublished some 50 p oems , almost haitf 11 of t h em el egie s; five or six no 7 j ti c a l and p a triot n ieces ( General 'J a::,hing ton" and ''Liberty and Peace" ) , andtremain d er nff1~,.,..,..,, J ~tJ ~ r e l i gious and moral subjects --as she s t ~tes in h e r title . Though --... de a ls with the question of sl s very--and she tentative reference to her own -pred:i.cament --he:r· work ma kes only sustainl!l a high level of emotional,~ linguistic , religious a nd ..g,r_eat~force. ~inee herooodel-k cla ssi c al writ e rs, one ~i:a..il.liii,...~ii::::t:•,,J£ese sources JIB,~l'lC:M> poeti c the.0v-h to un cover ~ ~ keys to~techniques and allusions . But one only has to read(alo ud) the followin g pa ss a ge from II ev. li-eorge to feel impact: "Take him , ye wretched, for youronly good , 11 'l 'ak e him , ye starving sinners, for y our f o o d . " Ye thrifty, come to this life-giving s t ream, 1vhitefield 11 • �"Ye pr eachers , take him for your joyful theme ; "Take~ him, my dear Ameri c ans , he said, aBe your complaints on his kind bosom laid; "'£ ake him, ye Afri c ans, he longs for you, mpartiaJ 8 avi or is his title due; "Washed in the fountain of rlede eming b l oo d , "You sha ll be son s and kings , and , riests to Go d. " x Mo re will be said of this poem in 6hapter VI I ; but we shou ld s t a t e that some ~f the ~reviou}'/}oiti c ism o f Miss Wheatley has been Llnc reasin~ temp er ed in light o f#eminis ~;i!t!lftCWJ;~:Wmutml!IWl a n d, espe c ially , effo rts by Black women writ e rs , llOlUi s ch olars and intellectuals to reevalua te her . Much o f her work i done in the hero i c couplet which dominated t he perio d of p o etry,..wr i t i n g . Thes e pent ame1fl e r coupl e t s (i;.Ihi ch would be popula rized in the 20th 1., entury as by hobe r t Prost) c a ll 1 unrhymed iampi c pent amet e r" for end- line rhymes to ap ear in two s , with 1 6 syllab les per line . Ro ger \II/hi tlow (Bla ck Ame r i c an Lit eratu re ) c ompl ains that Fiss Wheatley "falls short in 1,1hat Pope called the 1 correctneas 1 of diction and meter, that 'tle a r - perf e ct choice of word and me as urement and ,,reii;giini; of syitl able . 11 One cou ld ap;ree , i f Fiss 1/heatley ' s sole aim were sin ply to i --ni tate • But t he re is t hat she -- like Black poets always se em to be doing--wa s trying to achie ve a readable poem without losing the essenc e of the couplet . Afte r all , a s ~tephen Hende rson( Un d se r stanji ng the New Black Poetry,:4:) has su c;geste d/ many Bla ck Poets have thnir ear s x and thoug..~t r hythms attuned t h the spitirtual~,:man~s of the .written__. audien c e that l oves "extempore" deli v ery, even when the7l!ines a r e st r ict and tight . ,, Also , in p l acing "Their dolo112r is a diaboli c. dye II in Jlf:::;j:jiilt-~-e-e~~ ( "vn °eing Brought f r om Afri c a to Ameri c a") , de em her c olor ne gati v e bn t that she may not . despi t e he r c l o sin g coupl et : ov e r /tue:p:estl{, that others a possibility �Rememb e r, Christians, Ne groes, bl a ck as Cain, Hay be refined, and join the angelic train . that there is Wheatley was not insensitive, at Iii least to her on pre dice ment as a slave ~tlthout a fundamental and geneoihogi cal identify . In ''To fhe Hight t-i onourable Dartmouth, 11 she .,t;arl of· Should you, my lor ~ i llaim, says , while you peruse my song, Wonder from whenc e my love of Freedom sprung , Whence flow t h e s e wish es for the common good, By feeling he a rts alone best understood, I, young in life, by s eeming cruel fate Has sna tchi!d from ,1.fric I s f ancy' d XHXX li apDy se a t: What pangs excruciating must molest, What sorrows labou in my parentf~s breast? Steel 1 d w2s th a t soul and by no misery mov 1 d 1 Tha t fro m a f a ther seiz ' d his babe belov d: ~uch, such my case. And &an I t hen but p r ay Oth er s may never feel tyrann ic sway? Th:e canital "F 11 in "Freedom," t h e phra se "cruel fate," the sorrow felt for her pe rents an d the reinfo~cement of the agony via repetition ("such, such "t; see r1ar aret ·J alk er(s lines ''rlow Long ! 11 ) , place her <. J::H a c ~ 8 longs ide other'\voic e s t h.s t "'ea rch ed for answe rs to t h e f-M, of i n s anity t h" t enwe bbed them. Slilil::Gill~ pall Hiss ••healtley a lso expe riment s '1i t h ~estated el" rli er t ha t T~ is s imeatle v ' s;p-ma ge h a s sriift e d Perhaps t he c a pstone of thi s shift wa s the Jack son °t a te volle ge roetry 1 .i:' e s tival, held in lTovemb e r of 1973 to commemorate the 200th ~ni v er·sar y of the pub] ica ti on of Miss \IJhea tley I s (_t.1o.Mr) ... t.J) Poems. ~bony maga zi n~ di' a five-pa ge picture es s ay on the festival, -sp.mmnannmiix organized and hosted by Ha r r aret wal k er uoet - novelist (over) �(ff an d aire c tor of Ja cks on i:>tate ' s Institut , Life and Culture of Bl a ck Peopl e. Ac cording to/ ~bony ''eighteen Bla ck women noets converged 11 on the Black coJlege c am.pus to salute Hiss Wheatley , read their own poems and discuss poetry and life . Writer Luc i Ho ~ton noted that recently there has beeh more respect for the "slave girl who , under unspeakable circumstances , was able to write poetry or any literature at all . " c::.. list of,J In addition to Dr . Alexander, the 1poets included iaomi f Long hadgett , Mare;aret c• .ourrou~s , Narion Alexander , J\i:argaret Lsse DPnner , Linda Brown Bragg, Hari .C.:vans , Carole Gregory Clemmons , Lucille Clifton, i:>arah ·webster 1''abzbo, Ni l k"i Giova.nni , Audre Lorde, June Jordan, ·Tloria C . Oden , Sonia Sanchez , Alive alker, Ia Halaika Ayo Wanizara~ oyce vJhi tsi tt Lawrence) and Carolyn I • .ttodgers . Gwendolroc &rooks ' absence was conspicuous . The festival was also the ~ U b j e Ct Of 1 • ( Or-v. J'" n>- ~ 2 ~ JP Si]O ® ill t:®Gi , r itilfi a six- pa r e nicture ~ i t B_:ack 1vorld(1''ebruary , 1974 _ ). ~ Ghile of . comments wa s made by Paule Giddings , a young editor at Boward 'University firess : There is sometligg nrong with a criticql tradition tha t makes • - .-x::Phillis 1:Jheatley an historical footnote •••• Phillis '\rlheatley was b lack and this is the di ffernnce (between her r-md oth0r noets of her day) o.nd also the contradiction : ~he contradi t tion between her blackness which she recognized and never was free to forret by a thousand humili"'tions and 'White mercantile .l:!.ngland , a world th-_ t ,,m s never to be hers , wt 'Whose values she seemed to ., ccept . She was in a sla ve world, but not truly of it •••• It does no good to reproach a child for yielding to attrcctive influences when within herself there is no strong residue of any other infiuence or tradition . ±t i s easy to say she had no racial consciousness • .Lt would be fair to look at the chofu.ces she had and ascertain whether or not she was capable of enduring even more intense isolation . �Ms. Gidding,s has asserted what i:wpe a rs to to be a balanced answertt to the protest a tions of Redding , Brown, Brawley('no r a cial v a lue 11 J and oth e rs . It remains to be seen as to whe the r m:mxrflmlzm:mnn current and futu r e generations of Black and white mm.:triumJ stud ents will kepp I'iss 1,f ue a tley a 11 st a tute in t h e park" or bring her to the table of this first Black woman of letters 11 a nd 11 examine her blood and heart . Crtica treatment~already has been ex tensive ; Julian Mason ' s The Poems of Ph i llis W.h eatley(l9 66)~ critical introducti on! Robert Barksdale'> and Kinnamon I s C. Kuncio ' s 11 Some Unpublislj.ed Poems of Phillis \vheatley 11 (New n England ~uart rly, XJlll5IX XLIII, June , 1970t, 287 - 297)~ ~amr Loga i~s ' 0 IS Th e Ne gro Author(l 931 )~ BrawleyA,.The Ne p:ro · U' rte dding ' s To hake A .Poet Black , Shirley U-raham 1 s mhe ~tory o f Phillis Wheatley(l949) •end ilillllli.i-lU Jerry Ward ' s 0nd Charles rtowell ' s article in t h e Summor , 19 74, issue of .B'reedomwaps. �( 1 1+5-lROl) of the most in- W~ have already mentioned Gust a vus teresting of the e ri.rly writ ers, in Il!lltB!JblU1 another context. Porn the seventh and youngest son of a chieftan(in ~ssaka, not was tern Vassa(African name: Olaudah ~quiano) was fir t plantatio 1 i ~e r 1a), sold to a Virginia ---- His journeys.~ ater took him on s e v er al Atlantic voyR g es War. Vassa held technical jobs on ships as a result of his adeptness at the ~nglish language and his x He became a t ireless worker for the ab o lition of qlavery matics. and worked, briefly, n·1111•11al:mJ1Jftm•~ in behalf of efforts to colonize poor bl~cks of ~ngland in Sierre Leoni. Vassa is chiefly known for his Nar~ative(l789) which was a best - seller among abolitionists in ~gland and Am:erica. Slave narratives, we have observed, we re a part of a branch of Black writin~ which gave rise to auto the more sophisticate iographies(that stretch from Douglass throu~ Cleaver) which in turn laid some of the foundattion Baldwin and wq s not the first writer of a slBve Briton narrative, as is popularly thought~. ~ - - ~ Hannnon(no in LondK_Q relation to Jupiter) publim~A ~ar ative of the Uncommon ~ufferin s for American fiction. Vassa and ~ eliverance Qf r·t John Marrant published(also in London) Wonderful Dealings with J. J.'!arrant, A e Black.Q1~). Vassa, who we turn to briefly ior his efforts in poetry, included "Miscel~eous Verses" in his Narrative. His verse is interesting be c a use it helps to e s tablish the portra i t of a comple and many - sided ill provides man} it also · · further insight into the workings of the African mind making cont a ct wi t h RlllllillilUJ. white culture and especially Christiani ty-J/. 1ihile in his prose and speech - m8king Vassa was firm in his attacks on slavery, he proves in the end to be a believer in some ultima te for~~of "d e liverance . " - In the last line of the last stanza of his "Jerses" he reminds us that T P Y' �'Salvation is by Christ alone!" which is , of cou"Y'se,reminiscent of irammon 1 s onening line : Salvation comes by Christ alone Hever theless Vassa I s language is less saturated in Biblical terms than ~--rammon ' s . And the former , as verse writer, has a better control on the language . fn the ·'Verses" he i mnl>ic testrameter meter with an n annlies a driving a ab b rhyme s cheme ~ Those who beheld my downcas b mien Could not gues s at my wo es unseen : They by apnearance could not know The troubles I have waded through . Lust , anger , blasphemy , and pride , \Ji th legions of such ills beside , Troubled my thoughts 1.vhile doubts and fears C~ouded and darken 1 d most my yea~s. In the first stan z a quoted Vassa presages t duality and mental years to come• pressures that mo re sk illed writers would describe in ..i·,._c::1111aaui~n:aa Imp l ying hat t of the OPpres~ed Bla c k i s to keep his ~&•• Vassa says e v en those mo see him in his sorrie s t state c annot envision the suj!~erings he has endured. Dunbar thing in a different way in ear the Has k " more II e years later . And Countee Cullen would state it more than aJO years later in yet a diffe r.ant way . This '-a,...gpnarffilt f'8.bility o f Blacks to "keep c oo l" and adapt (see Johns on ' s The Auto biogr aphy of An ~x - Coilioured Man) under the most tryin~ circumstances has been promoted, nurtured and prBised by leaders of the r~ce . Vassa , then, is important as an early writer , not only bec~use of his skill , but for the insight and understanding he bring~ to the social 8nd r eligious pressures , demands and choi s es around him . There is a releasing therany in Vassa 1 s work ~=•~---a c ts as only one of numerou~A c ondui t s for Blac k an guish and outrage when the onti ons were slaver or d ea;uL.. �~~assa • s Narrative is most a cc essible in Bontemps I Great Slave 1'ifarrative s ( 1969 ). In 19f.. 7 Paul J..l dwards publi shed an edition of the Narrative including a c omprehensive introduc tion . ~ war ds also did a t wo -vo l ume Afri ca fa c simile Wnma~ reprint of the first edition ( l969) . Se e a lsoo~~• • ~ tiemembered : Narratives by \.uest h.fr.i cans. ;Crom the Bra of the S1°:ve Trad , edited by Phillip D. Curtin{ 1967 ). Loggins assesses the Na :l:7:uati ve ~ e z and Robinson provide s a h .m dy bi g rauhic a l-cri ti c a l i ntroduction . '1 rion L . ::it r ey t s Hore on Vassa can be found inK9triving to Hake I t My Home : Ame r i can from AfricaJ1964 )x and in Whitlow ' s Black American Li te rature . In the duc te d a gr a duate and po s t - gr aduate seminar on Slave 1~arr a tives at Iowa ~t ate University wh ere h e dire cts the Cent e r for Afro - Ame r i can Cu1 +-uv e . �The early and middle years of the 19th c entur y witnessed the matur a t ion of Black autobiography, politicBl activities . George - oses µortQ_i/)e.s 34 years old when ~JilJaim LJ_oyd G-ar,,,ison fovnded •~e Liberato 1'1, t he rriost influential..ailllll!!IBl and by we re mo re t h an famous of the abolitionist newspaners . And · 830 there" MaitltllliiK At11eri c a . Blacks in the Uni t ed utates had been stirred by bo t h here and in nlaces like Haiti , the Carribean Trinidad,,a!nl_.... l@ .Dspecia1ly inspiring during thiP ueriod waci the evo l t s chooner of slaves aboard the Spani-s~h---JJJ--li!li 1 Amistad. Led by Joseph Cinnue , a Nendi - speaking prince , the fif t y slaves , killed the c aptain, set the the ship t o Afri c a . An rehended, the Africans were escorted :iltI by t o ~ew Haven where the the would1!.x-f>resi dent John uincy Adams defended the Afri cans ' right to return to their homeland and in ~~ .~ eithe r the international sailed to Sierre Leone . A]M;S;;,.1;..;i.....~"""'•'!e"-r!!!'t,~l'ft'!!l!+--ifiiiiMiilile'lf::;:,, the connection between Liberation Front , apparently headquarte r ed in northern lia.lifornia during 1973 - 71-1-, and the Cinque of In light o the growing c0nsciousness among Bla c ks , fut was to be expected that A George Hoses Tiorton(l797 - lb83) would apneor to inveigh against tyranny and slavery . B ~ a slave near Chapel Hill to employ protest themes 1 0 arolina , Horton is considered to be the fir sq Black ~ , North volume of verse, ranged over the whole area of general and personal was first ovmed by a planter named L1 0rton who later rented him in the service of a janitor to the University of North G8 rolina . r .ry- c ve.nsat · s �m::iahla:mxim:rl!Em:km Horton exploited the academic environment by re a ding the .l:!:nglish c alled classics and composing poems . I Often the first professional Black wri t er, Horton hired his poetic s k ill out to students who paid him rath e r handsomely for composing II persona 1 ,t poems . fT.1 r · George IA . Horton , in 1845. 1-l s secon d b oo k o f poems , - Poe t i. c a l ~ k ors the Col~red Bard of North v arolina , was ...n~8@!8'8.Qao orton I s hopes tha t he would gain enough money from the sale of his books to se c ure his fre e dom were n ev er re a lized; and he was not freed until Union soldiers arrived in 1865 when his l a st volume , Na k ed Geniu s, was publ i_ shed . PhiJlis \~heatl that l:J) P orton I s themes are not d evoted , T.:r amvri.on and V,, ssa, for writing such line s a s those pe !Cl r in " On nearing of the int e ntion of a Gentleman to 11 'reedom" Purchase trhe .1:'oet I s : 1hen on life ' s o c ean first I spr e ad my sail , I t hen i~plor e d a mild auspicious gale; And f rom the slip ~ery strand I t o o k my fli p)lt, And sought the ne a ceful he a v n of deli ght . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . F ard wc s t h e r a c e to r e ach the distant goal , The needle oft was shaken from the nole; In such di s tress 1-ino c ould forbear to weep? Toss 1 d by t h e h eadlong billows o f the deen! i:.rorton goes on toe say tha t n.c.ternal Pro v idence '' sa• ed him when he was on the "dus k y v e rge of deep de s pair" a nd when '1 the last beam o f hope • P S almos t g one . " Yet orton writes bitterly of slavery as well as lightly of love a nd h umon ously of life J:. in general . Influenc es on his poetry are B'ff r on, Weslyyan Hymnal stanzas , .a and othe _v sour s es I from boo ks tha t he ~ e ad . In the poem from wh·, ch the stanzas above were tak en he pursues a rather monotonou s 1am · b"ic t e t ramet e r meter . But o er �in a poem like the way that Philli s Wheatley do es in her h ymn - inspired works . '.l'he effe c t is almo st Ballad- like : Hb.en first my bosom glowed with hope , I gazed as from a mountain top ~ s ome delightful plain; But oh! how transien t was the s c ene -- ltx fled as though it had no t been And all my hopes were v ain • • fit. .... . . . . . .. . . . . . Is it because my skin is bla c k , Tb.au thou shou l d 1 st b e s o du l l a n d s l a c k , And s c orn to set me f re e? Then let me hasten to the grav e , The only refuge for the slav e , Who mourns,i f or libert y . Al s o effectiv e and sustaininr in powerf i B " The S1ave· s ' ' eve when features t hre e - line stanzas with a fina l word refrain : " Fo r ever~" which is followed c olon or exc lamation mark . of his love poems and in ~ .' 11 · ' ""'""""LI',. , one mork , .tiorton I' 11:he Lover ' s 11 'arewell" is able ~ that INilM!l!m!!!m~broad !nderstanding of what i t means to say ~oodbye : I leave my parents here beh:i.nd, And alJ my friends --to lo v e resigned-' Tis grief to go , but death t o stay : Farewell - -I 1 m gone with love arway I In this and other pieve s Horton makes good use of dashes --whi ch allow him to develop suspense :and render his st2tements more dramati c. Because of its various uses , the dash has arri v ed as an important ingredient of modern and c one tmporary .01ack poetry . Contrary to many o f his learned contemporaries and predecessors , rlorton app¥ntly cons ciously thought o f, and worked toward , his freedom . rhis fa ct is re ~lected �-both in his life's work and his }iroetry{ .t<'or a purais a ls and sel n ctions of Horton's work s see Robinson's an t h olo gy, Collie ~ ,,,,,,.;J 1 0Cobb's Man of Letters--Ll- eorg e Hos e s i-f orton( 1886), r-!3ark sdale~nd An American 1..mnnamo~, Whitlo1.•r's study, Brawley's Ne g ro Genius, Lo ggins' wo r k, -:Redding 's study,:a:rul Richard \1als e r 1 s The Black Poet(l9 67).,.-B. Brown's ass es sment and Jean Wa gn er I s Black Poets of the u- i ted (1973-. own position, coupled with his sanguine delibery of fochk and emphasis, can be seen in 11 the followin g s tanza from 'r he Slave": Be s.ause the brood-sow' s left side pi g s Here blac k , Wh0 ° eable tincture was b y n a ture struck , Were you by justice bound to pullil them back And le ~ve the sandy-colored pigs to suck? t a tes �28 ~orton , of course , trails and pre c edes a long line o f orators and poets , many of -whom ke know very little about today . In fact , c ompa rati v ely speak ing , t here is a wide disnarity between the readily a v ailable insigni fi c ant I of vital data on Black s . wve do know th 0 t / the e a rly dec n des of the 19th century witnessed a developing con s ciousness 8.Y"'Onf Christian and political )1orthern inteful ectuals ~ t319.cl.rn and that mostl'flack wri t e r3;fnd edu c a tors turne d the ir att ention to the educ a ti onal , physical needs of 0 nd e duc a ti onal free and ensl8 ved Blac ks . O~ these and oth0 r matt e rs , Mr s . Port er provides ample proof and di s cussion in l!.iairl Ne i:r ro Writin . Occasional v erse was also some ihat of a tra dition among many le a rned Blacks BEU~ a s JD111ts:m was the pra c ti c e of writing hymns , an oth" r spiritual song s . On e s uch recorded by tlev . Hichard AJlen, deliv ery o f a sermo similar sounds ~ -;;1i;_~is 11 p s a lms Bpiritual ~fong 11 p r obably "hhanted or sun g durin g the . " Hev . Allen emplWYs internal rhyme by r e peating the middle antnd of line s. Varying his meter a n us i ng an irregular end- line r hyme s cheme , -••am he expresse s the religi o u s fervor the consumed many Bla c ks of the ~eriod : Our time is a - flying , our moments a - dyin p; , ~~e a re led to improve them and quickly a ppear , r 'o r the bles s ' d h o u r when J e sus in p ower , In g l o ry shall c ome is now dre wing near , 11 • e t hinks the r e wi 11 be shouting , and I 1 m not doubting , But c rying a nd screaming fo r mercy in vain : 'r here f <li're my dear Broth e r , le t I s n ow pray to g ethe r , That your pre c i ous soul may be fill 1 d with flame . Ano ther such examp l e is a "New Year ' s Anthem" wri ttien by r-i chae l Fortune and " sung in t he Afri c an .l:!;piscopal Church of St . Thoma s" on Janu a r y 1 , 1 8 0 8 . si �~rtune • s anthem is t raditional in its mmn:klgD ~ use of materials from liethodist hymns . B:e ;al tells the congregation to "Lift up your souls to God on high 11 "llho , with a tender father I s eye , Looked down on Afri c 1 s helpless race! two Robert Y. Sidney anthems "For the National Jubilee of the Abolition of the /::>lnve i Trade, Jamll.ary 1st , 1809 . 11 "Anthem I 11 begins : 1 DRY your tears , ~re sons of Afri c, God has sho,,m his gracious power; He has stopt the horri d traffic, That your country's bosom tore . 0 ee throush clouds he smiles beni~nant, See your net~o 1 s ~lory rise; Though your foes may from indignant, All their wrath you may despi s e . This stan,.fa is followed by a ''6horus , 11 In i;Jim 11 11 Anthem II 11 sh abbreviate form is Solo " d 11 ":==ae~Aand R ci ta ti ve . 0 11 drops the sole and recitative --keeping only the chorus : Chorus . Rej oice th nt you ·Here b 011m to see, rhis glorious day, your jubilee . 1 Sidney also wrote a h ~ M r s . by r eligious .., leai:l,ers Peter Williams Jr ., and Williams .Hamilton . Both men , c elebrate freedom, call for mutual aid among Blacks and preach the virtues of the Chris t ian God . Williams prai ses the 'eloquenc e /6 f Wilberforce II after whom 1 m: a predominantly Black university was named in Ohio . For detailed information on sources Mrs . <r1rter I s for these and Jru"1!11J! similar writings see .c.arly 1: e3ro Writing: 1760- 1873 . 11 0n The colle c tion includes~ very touching e xamples of ritings ~;i;1;;JYil ar;io., np~ ~fG.f~om" by 12- yeor - old boys from the Ne -r York African Free �30 (18 11 - 1 @9 3) is In readin g into the life and works of Danmel Blacks . i ~m ediately struck by his dedication to Educ atfor, univ ersity pre s ide nt, mis s ionary and poet, Pa yne was born in Charleston, S 0 uth Carolina of free p ~rents p He was orphaned and then t at 10 - ye a rs -oaa, ap n renticed to a c a ppenter an trained in cl a ssica l e ducati on at the local Minor ' s Moralist Society ' s school, he t a u ack students for fee a nd slaves free of charg e s t ni ght. Payne ' s travels took him to v a rious~.........-ct~ pla ces ~ t · s (.1.~e w Urleans , Baltimore , Cana da a nd twice to where he he l p ed exp and the pro g rams of the African En g l a nd ~ eth odist Ch urch. in ~ne"'exmina ry f or se v e r a l ye a rs, in in 1839,,Cll~a:ibml'!l~llU~ • op in 1 8.5 2 . m thel'lll•ilH n olitical a nd e duc r t i0nal urge Lincoihn(on Ap ril 14 , 1 86 2) to s i ~ t he bill to ema nci pa te s l a ves i n the District of C0 lumbia, and spearh e 8 de d the purc h ase of Wilbe rforce Un iversity --JNmil!-wi s e rvin .Cl'. as its 16 y ea rs. Payne ~evoted most of his life to t he c auses of f ree an d ensla v e d Bl a cks and to writin g poetry and r eli gious history . His Pleasures and Other Jv1 iscellaneous Poems was published in Baltimore in 1 8_50. t-Ie also wr ote boo k s on t h e hi s tory a nd mission of t h e A . H. E . Church • .1.Js p ecially value for its so c ial a nd intellectual insight into 19th eentury Bl a ck,s is Payne I s Recollec t ions of ~eventy Years Nashville in 1 888 . As a p oet Payne is erudite and imit a tive. Robinson correctly observes that a m~jor problem with the poetry is 11 the repetition of end stopped lines, and his dict i on, a hybrid of classical and Biblic a l voc a bul 9ries, can prove d i s tracting to many 1 r 0 adPrs.' I· uch of this we can for g ive, however, when He understand �Penry Dmnas 1 remar k that 11 a Black poet is a preacher . 11 Certainly a of and need preacher -- in f~ct or as poet -- knows very well the of for repitition . Yet Payne never fails to convince us his SPriousness • So hurt was law that , ef~e c ti ve in 1835 , wake of the 1834 South Carolina Black literacy(y illegal, Payne • 11 We find his wrote "The Mournful Lut e of the ..t' receptor 1 s l<'areweJ. enbossed concern for students in these lines : Ye lads , whom I hove taught with sacred zeal , For your hard fate I pangs of sorrow feel ; Oh, who shall no 1,r your rising talent s guide , Where v irtues reign and sacred truths preside ? - Payne is a handler of the lancuage , observing that 11 t WCl> r e volving moons shall light the shores 11 after the drea cl. law 11 shut the doors" ~ on educption for South Carolina Blacks . , gulfed in the religious and moral fervor of many nlack ministers of the period, the poet and orator reflects age-old concerns about de c eit and mistrust in such pieces as "'l'he Pleasures . 11 rte complains that Men talk of Love I But few do ever feel The speechless rcptures which its joys reveal:J,. l"len 11 mi stake love , 11 Payne notes , For grovelling lust , that vile , that filthy dame , whose bosom ne 1 er ever fe l t the sacred flame For insight into Payne ' s life and works one e ould go to any one of his nc onsiaerable number" of writings . Among others , they include The Semi the hetros ection o M tho dist ~ iscopal Church (Baltimore , 1866) and The Tiistory of • • Church(NashviJle , 186S) . exande r See also J o sephus R. Coam ' s 193~(Philidelphia) biography : Daniel, Payne) . ~ s t i a n ~duce t,;;;r")@I /i&,:,_,.,,,,,.,; ~ . , ; t , J ~ �32 Unfouuuna t ely too littl e is kn omi f of ~omantic poet John gifts and t a Jents. Boyd, especially since his work£~!~~ J · ma g e s are brilli ant, searin g and g enerally a ccurate even if they are not always connect e d in a way that mak es them re a dily ~cejsible. The only record of Boyd· is made available Esq., Deputy ~ecretary and Registrar of the by C.R. TTesbitt, Ne sbitt must have reco gniz e d the Government of t h e Bahamas. talent and the promise a nd he aided Royd•s noetry through publi c a tion in London i n 183\ . Boyd, it seems, was self-t a ught on New Providence Fis noemx Islan~ where he• remained all his life. 11 Va nity of Life:J. 11 was published in the February 16, 1833, issue o"sofl ,\:::t sc>(! Li bera tor. µ is 1834 volume is of,Jt;k; entitled rnhe Vision/ and other/ Poemsj / in Blank Verse/ by ~ob.n Boyd/ a Practic a lly ' unedited, the manuscript sc r amble," of the p oets of t he period• Boyd ts work owes debts to Milton, t he Bible and classical influ enc e s. Vision/ a Poem in Blank Verse" is i mmedi a t e l y r emini s cent Lost. Boyd skirts a r h yme scheme bu t emn loys a f a irly ~ ePular iambic pvt;;,/ pentameter met e r. All t h ing s consi de red, h is work~c an els tha the criti cism by St e rling Bro,,m th a t Bl a ck poe t s their styl istic awa r e ness. ,,,,Me thou ght the T• 11 la g in Vision 11 op e ns bril l iantly with: oon, pale re g ent of the s1ry, Crest e d, and f i lled with lucid radiance, F1un g h er hri ~ t g le ams a cro s s my lowly couch; And all of he a ven•s f a ir a:b.arry firmament Delightful s h one i ~ hues of g littering li ~ht, ~eflecting , li k e t o fleecy gold, the dewy air. In his "vision" Boyd encounters cha:nac t ers of both the he a vens and the hells. �33 \-l:hen the narrator , "dreamer 11 jo; ined the train 1''ervent hosannas struck the stonishll-d ear, As when in the midhour of c al:nrast night , StilJness pervadeth the awakened wave , Roused by the secret power tha t moves the deep , It heaves its loud surge on the sounding shore ; The"vision 11 is also peopled by 11 grim death end ghastly Sin" who "lay coiled, like snakes in one huge scaly fold, " and consider their 11 inexpiable doomr -; •" Boyd ' s tones re sacred and surreal and he assemles harmlessly complex subord inate clauses that h elp bufu l d 11 an exciting linguistic cre c endo as in 9c ean 11 : When the fiat of the most High , Thy fountains burst , alKl2t copiously Thy secret snrings, with amp~le store , r our{ d forb.h their ·waves from shore to shore Wide as the taters roll , oh, wav e . Boyd ' s work has yet to be appraised in terms c ommisserate with its importance . Robinson makes brief but · significant comments on his poetry . Ann Plato , another romanti c poet , is also one for whom there exists little of the important fa c tual data . This second Black merican female to publish a book almost skirts the racial theme completely . Her Lsse.x and .__..=.........,,-....,.~ tlartford in 7 PL~J. ;L Includin°/ Prose Bio ra hies w s published in tt--v'-- VJt'}.at little is lrnown of her comes by way of,__..~iiiifi:1148~- introduction to her bo,k w1J.ich ,,,as written by .ttev . J . 1·J. C. Pennington, pastor of the vo lo red Congrega tion2l Church in Hartford , of whi ch she was a member • .l.!Jxcept for her "'110 the .t<'irst of August , '' wr itten in celebration of the 1833 abolition of sl very in the British\ est Indi , �34 there are only al l usions to slav ery . · essays on reli ion , modera tion, condu c t and other conventional themes . These same themes are p r etty ~u ch par8ale l ed by the Of which deal f with home life , deaths of a c q iqntances end "rteflections , \-Jri tten on Visiting the Grav e of moral issues . a Venerated friend" begins : Deep in this grave her bones remain , ~he 5 sleeping on , bereft of pain; mhe langua e a nd t h e subje c t matter are sto c k but "Fo re;et Me No t" , each et>anza of which ends with the title , is well handled ~.nd has flashes of the p r ea chment on se l f-control that Vassa alluded to in his verses : ('"', ~~hen bird does wait th y absenc e long, Hor tend unto its morning song ; \JhiJe thou art searching stoi c page , Ur listening to an anc ient sage , \ h ose sniri t c urbs 1 af mourn fu l rage , Forget He Not . anparent in 11 hP .r~a ti ve s of America II where she asks : ".1.'ell me a story , f o ther , ple . . se , 11 And then I say u pon his knees . Again , as in aa!lll!i!I~ her c onte~poraries , we find the influences of 1mglish wri ters of a preceding e;Anerat:iion o r s o, the debt to Bi blical learning and . i<Q!l~N-. in rte chester , of ocrers 1 1 i mitation • • orator- p o et ~lymas Payson after t 0aching public sch ools ew York, took up pRstoring in 1 ewar k , 1 ~ew Jersey . One as a te e.hher was Jerimiah H. Loguen who become an iMportsnt social - reliaious le 8 Her "nd a Bishop of th e A•• u ° Churc h • ,:::, .&.1•.lll• �35 F gitiv P slav P o guen 1 s bio P'ranhy(s e e Nep-ro Ca r a van) a -oe,, red in 1859 , i n ~yrc cuse , un de r the title , "rn01.m, ri ' u.en., s we re man·? of' the orator - p oets , for a ve and a s a ~reem@ . his n oems ora lly, Ro ~0rs ' t h emes are unashamedly abolition no l i tic ql h~rnocris • \J erk ing poli t i cally on b ehal f of Blac k s , Ro ge r s a nnarently de s i gned ( e and Re eal of r iss .rark , 1855 ) Newa r k , 185 6 ) tot e ad aloud fro m n l a tform. Li ke , J a me s :W . ~1hi tfi eld, wh o c ame l a t e r , Rogers gave up h op e n Ameri c a ' s ever gi vi n g Blac k s a fair deal an d s aile d for Africa whe r e lie died after contacting a fever a f ew day s afte .,,, h e a r r ived t he re . ~..r is incisive n o-hole s - b a r ea.d a nn ro a ch to t h e polit i c a l c1ims.te a n d condit i ons of t h e t ime is seen in * 110 n the Fugitive ~lave Wt Law" : Law! 1 /hat is Law? The wi s e an d s a ge , vf t , Of e v ery c lime ,,,_nd eve r y a ge , In this most cordially unite , That 1 tis a rule for doing ri ght . An <:' the r inging c r y of t h e ,elo cutionist c an be heard later in the p oem when , in discus sing t h e fu giti v e bill , he as lcs 'Uld answe rs : Tha t Bi11 a l 11w? t h e South says so , But !-Torth Er n fr eeman answe r, No! Anti ci patin ~ the fiery a nd ~oJh i tfield( and 20th c entury "angry voi ce s 11 ) Ro gers continue s : ~Q8 t bill is l a w, gough f a c e s say ; But bl2. ck men e v "' ry ,rh e re cry "Na y : We I J. l n ev e r yi e l d to its control Jh i l e life shal l animate one soul At times biting and o ver - be arf inglyg h a rsh as a p oet , Ro ~ers resounds in 11 ·rh e t{epea l of the r-1iss ouri Compromise Gonside red 11 with these words : �36 "I want the land," wa s Freedom'l•s cry; And ::;l a v ery answered, 11 So Do I! By all tha t's sacred, I declare I ' l l h a ve my ju s t ~nd l a wful share . The Northern che e k s h ould glow with shame To think t o rob me iJi th built - in drama e na of my c lain . uts, Ro g ers a sses s ed t he s tate of t h e n a tion "Lawti• durin g h is ti me . In a line l i ~ t h e que stion i n order to beg 11 What is Law?" he i purno sely ~ring the emotional and rbetoric8l u ower from the words a nd to evo ke resnonses f rom ,.- s udience s . nefe ren c es to ttO~ers c:an be found in Hobi nson t s Math emf' tician, noP t, edu c " t a rl e s L. p are n t s . 11 e a r7' orf a nd ni ty work er , s on( 1818 - J 69c ) wa s born i n New Yo rk City of Tiai tian -r e qfl6ened t he Ne Y --.-.- as a 1nembe r of t h e a l l - Black ~hool where he late r retutmea S e e k ing t h e ministry , Heason was) attendance at the for ~ a cial r e asons, Theolo g ic a l Semina ry of th e Prot es t a nt ~pisconal Church • .r:..ventually, h owev e r , h o b ecame eli g ible for a p rofessor s hi p i n Math ematics and Bell~" Lett res I.""'( 1849) at the 11Tew Yo r ~ Central Co ] Je g e i n i ,c Grawville, INJ.u;.: G' A~ a..Jl- b8'Wi,. C~ , v ~ !vW r'l ~ , ( ~1'. • Courtl a ndt County. ~ -..:r ~ held v a rious e duc e tiona~ jobs including a principal s hip of the I ri sti tute for C.:olore d You th in Philidlelphia and g r ame1ar sch ool No. 80 in New York City mile H. Cordelia a y was a t e ache r t h ere. Reason was an intellectual end a sch ol a r but Has vocational c a reers~ h ere i n America . Again, not nrimarily a poet, Reason is competent as a n oet in 11 The Spirit Voicett wli ich opens with: Come! rouse ye brohltlers, rouse! a peal now bre a k s From lowe <' t islPnd to our gf' llant ·lakes: �37 ' Tis summoning you, who im bonds have lain, To st~nd up manful on the battle plain, and urges Blacks"'-i.l.lougl.l: J.i:\s fl'.'J rnlme) to fiP)lt for fr eedom and ounortunity. The poem(who(cornplete title is "The Spirit Voice or , Liberty c~.11 to the Disfranch ised 11 ) is indebted to the rh yrr.q n /couplet so famous during the era and whi ch had been used ri th great t skill by Phillis v-Jheatley It aupears in William ::ii"TlITlons 1 that of Me __ n_o_f_M_a_r_k_( 6leveland, 1887). ~ onier m.xrb.:kmxm orator - poets , Reason ' s ,.rork is designed to be read aloud in order to stir and move peoPle to a c tion . Therefore he exhort~, reinforces, demands , warns , admonishes and issues veiled thre 2 ts . ui s "s pirit voi ce 11 ( see the,/-ifrican Spirit Force) longs for the time when fr eedom ' s mellow li,,.ht Shall break, anJ usher in the endless day, That from Orleans to Pass 1 ma qu oddy Ray , Desnots no more may e a rthly ho:rrwr,e claim, lJo sl ves exist,to soiJ 6 o1umbja_1 s n ame • '-._!)~tic ~ The noem was written in 1841 and sh ows Beason ' s1ao1 itte~e~ched out an g~vc this fami1iar cry: 0 .t<'reedom l .,.."reed.om I Oh, ho v oft 'rhy lo v inr- children C"ll on '::'hee I In wailing s loud 0nd breathing: s shaft, Fow b e s e ech:ii-1g God , 'Chey f a ce to s ee . f "not unlike" the Spirituals this burst is! Certainly the student of thies p e riod of Bl 8. ck noetry will want to keep his rhyt hmic lyres attnued to the B1blical and innovati v e codences of those "BJack and unkno-im bards ." a s essments of d e ason see Robinson erlin. ~~~~~.....;;_:_.,;...;_~~-------~~Ul.l!6 /) a ~ �Anticipating ~he Afll10-American poie;nanc y and humor in tbi sK line by Langston Hughes American never Fas Ame ric James •· • to me ( 1hi tfield {l823 - 187t3) voiced mlllilial!l!llllll some of the most ~ otest pm.rnrful and angry yet heard in Black American poetry 1 ·,f ,. when he ~ published America and Uther Poems in Buffalo in 18.:,3 . Barber, worker for Black colonization, poet and pioneer journalist , ·lb.i t f ield had earlier authored various types of writing- s : Poems 1 1846 ; 11 -i:.row Long? 11 (published in Julia Griffith ' s Aut ograph ~ for in RochPster , 1853 )~ Fourth of July 11 11 Self- He] ir1.nce , Delusive t..ope , and Ode for the (in 'fh_e Liberator , November 18 , 1853) ; "Lines -- ~ As.dressed to ar . and Ilfrs . J . T . r1olly , on the Death of Their Two Infant Daughters 11 ( in Frederick Dou lass ' Pa er , February 29 , 1856 )•) and Emancipation Oration(San Francis co , 1867) . \/hi tfield is known chiefly for America:, whic was received so favorably that he ros able to leave his barber shou Pnd ~ote full time to making speeches for the abolitio~ c.?use, nor>lrin.- for colonization nroc·rams and generel black development . ~ ne had personal contact with both Douglass and novelist T·.artin Delaney who called the 1854 National .Dmigration Convention of Colored Men 1-!b.ich \ihi tfield attended . Douglass apuarently 3?esuected and admired Whit!B'ield . But the two men differed on the question of colonfuzatio n and par ticipated in a li v ely debate . Pursuing hisAposition with vigor , 'Whitfield established ·the Afri c an - American Hespository) in 1858 , as a pro - colonization T . t.. • - propaganda or~an . .-..... B:8.:(llpshire1 Whitfield spent «;imnm:m most of his life barbered @as.in Buffalo where~conductPd most of his colonization efforts . T!e xetPr , 1~ew appar ently died on his waw to look into the possibilities of colonizing Blac k Americans in Central Ainerica . Delaney had changed his mind ~nd the emigration scheme 1as never realized. �39 l l Li k e mo st of . b,ear he orato r- poets , \lhi tfield is writing to be _.,,.,."-"-_ · tened to and read aloud. Consequently much of ~~ ~4~~) orces his ideology a · ew.J o f Ameri c a . Swee t lan d of liberty r, • be comes for \fh.itfield/ ~ • Thou boasted land of liberty ,-and To thee I sing becomes It is to thee I raise my song, Thou l"nd of blood, .<end c rime , and vr ong. Like .Ko g;e rs, 1.lhi t f i e l dl did not beli eve Avneri c a was c apable of redemption; a n ~i s pre dec essor, he died on a jour ney to ' find something better . The idea o f "gi b ing " up on Ameri c a would anne" ~ themati c 'llly in t he poetry of lat Pr writers like Fenton Johnson , Lee , · Bar' ka and some of the 1.Fus lim noet s . It would also be i'11pli c i t in the expatriation of writers and artist s such as Paul Robeson, · 1 ~ri ht , 3ald-tln, Criester Eirnes and 1Ca therine Dunham. In a dri vinp; iambic pen tameter meter ( ~· vhich bas a ll the openin~s for snontaneous interjections and ex"rm0r:ic1:)' the 'nitAd .::it,,tes nletives , l/hi~-~d cCC ..t:.:i aazi&n of killing the Blaclr f'ons 1;ho fought for her 2nd of p-eneral hypocrisy . ~:rere one c rn see .1hi tfield antici na tin~ them, of in 11 1ords in the ;;;; c rrent slog;an , Fhich Fayden makes use T ourning illing p0onle to Time 11 : save;.,z;;~;:ei;,, ? • , ~ --- bon 11. more gen°ral, " i tfield c ontinues a similBr in -&- --=== re•rerent 11 1he rviisanthro p i s t ft but tones down to a / s2lute ~ "To Cinque 11 : All hai l! tho ugh truly nob l e chief , 'oWhofiroo iin e d to live a c oi-rn r ino; slave ; I �~hy name shall st8nd on history 1 e le~f, Amid the mio-hty and the brave: 1Jhi tfield praises the revolutionary Cinque 'Who I in freedom I s might 11 Shall beard the robber in his den; and ••• fire anew each freeman 1 s hecrt . Since i·Jhi tfieldl I s primary his uoetry, • •• • nolitical to get a/ 11me s sage 11 ovPr, ••lll.1. goal is as art, leaves som r" · Robinson uoints out that Whitfield 11 .., things to be W,lJ;:Jt:..f':!:""f/J-;""') is genuinely angry"~ and th~ the bitterness and force in his work in not to be mistaken for -Q'Ll_inruistic ~(lections of roilra.nticJvosmetic ./Hhi tfield.1 s poetry can be ~ Nerrro Caravan(l@41 discusses antholo~ e ana j 1'1hitfield 1 s uoetry "nd impact as does Loggins , Bro1.m /Ji. The most popular Black 19th century poet before Dunb"'r was .t<'rances E. W. Harper(lc:32.5 - 1911), ae!EL the first .Black ATTJ.erican to fee in Baltimore a publish a short story ( 11 The Two Offers , " 18.59) . Born \Jatkins , she was educated in Pennsylvania and Ohio , and spent most of her adul t life in the c a use of anti slavery and other types of social re form . She 1-1orked in turn for the abolition T'lovem0nt , the . ti Dndergttound railroad, the :• . M. '"" • Cburch and the ~Jomon I s lemperance league . According to Dunn(The Black Press) she contributed in 1860. by her narrioee to ~enton fter h. But is early death in 186L! she resumed her --- in Cincinnati , J ecturing in a lJ but twojSouthcrn /tf'tes 2.nd proTTJ.oting lEiiit Black self- he~p nrograms . Her fame rested primarily on her Poems on 1~iscellaneous :::lubjects published in 18.54 in Phi lideluhia . Iii& /le- very nopular volume~;;iiijiii,,;:, it went through ti enty editions by le74( ~illiam ~tiJ 1 1 s Underground Raiihroad, 1872). �~ p . tfo Lastly, we must note th 0 t o ppr-= ~ .J • on; -·-..!!!!!!! , -i , . 1'hi tficld ...._._._:,_ tc ~ mchL'.!: ~, » ~ n 'YO&q~-: . 0rv~ , r-e o erne9, ,-,i,,;. J ch1--o.nicler of world t r ulenc direct and~·er.iphntic ~~ poets he_pp non tyr -:- assaults that ny the "IIow Loni;:? 11 : I see -i-:r,e • ftug~ed Russian Be r" Upon the right of every State Its own affairs to regulate; To help each despot bmhind the chain Upon the people ' s rights again, And crush beneath his ponderous paw All cons ti t1. tions rights f:' nd law. :1.0 (£... sn /\ rbin t\'...,., [,l bal less, of t e �'. \ 41 U ~ Her literary 2ctivity · was stepped u .., ·Mo ses A Stor and inc l u ded -:! after the Civill~.raajr~iiilm:1~ of the Nile 18m1 1a11■•••••• ich vent through three editions by 1870} a volume entitled Poems c ame out by a seco ?'2 o_ fJIAJ~ /g9'.,hJil ffin · ~Aove l ) Iola LeR 'l.gree that 'rs • .Harpe r' s poetry is comes through iiir- with uo -rerful flam e s of ima ery and statement. 0 her models are 1 rs. rlemm s , 'whittier ence from the balled. 1m reading her noetry in public, -rhat I Johnso n ij;;,;;;;;.;;;~~ S"'nse of soundn for '1rs . narper was able to apneal to ( God ' s 'Tlrombones) C'llled a "highly developed fdQ.9,~ , ~~~.i3/11J, ~V644t>-) in f-ro - Kobinson tells us erican~ Sf.te aonarently lmew her limitations , that her nopularity ••• was not due to the conventional notion of poetic excellenc e , I rs . H2 rDer 1vas fully a mre of her limi t £> tions in that kind of poetry , it was due more to the sentimental , emotion- freighted ponularity what she had given the lines with her disarmingly dramat:i.c voice Pnd gestures nd sirr,hs and tears . Up tmtil the Civil \far , Mrs . h~rshness, 1arneri~ fovorite themes were slarery, its . 7 ...A.t, . ace nd the hyuocris~es of Americ'l. . She 1 :e c~retul to r:;atAt ranhj c c:et2ils-c·~,....._.,. 1-rhe re they wi J et the greatest resu t/ especially 0 rhen the noems are r ad aloud • .An examnle of th:i. s is fovnd in '1'l'he SlovEl !'Jother" : Be is not h0r·s, for cruel hands ~ay rudely tear an~bt The only urea of household love h~t binds her breaking heArt. A siT"Jilar play on · he e,.,,_otions is seen in noems li k e "Sonv.s for the Peonle, 11 "Double "~u ry Me in a Free Land, te.ndard"(with its sti r rings of feminism) and 11 �Ari ll•l'he 01ave liuction• " woman is not sol~ly responsible for her "fall,' 1 she su rreE'ts in "A Double Standardll edding that Anc1 wha t i B wrong in a woman ' s life In man ' s cannot be rivit . Bighly readable and less academic in her use of poetic techniques and vocabulr->ries , Mrs . H9rper is neverthele8S qui, te indebted to the is Bible for much of h~magery and Il;Or~ nB ssae;e. And she mIDBmsooil~ J? m 2zw.,rr a i a b le to b . ~d r lig:i ous forms in a noem I~ like ''Truth'' .Jhere she opens Hi th a debt to the Sniri tuals : A rock, for ages, stern and hfue;h, Stood frovming 1 gainst the earth and sky, And never bowed his haughty crest hen angry storms around him prest . 1,10rn, springing from the arms of night, tlad often b 0 thed his brow with light, Anc ~i ssed the shado 1s from hfus face With te11.der love nnd i:i;entle grace . ~ e i veral religious sono;s~crr·ested here; but she also loves t;:feturn to the themeJk <;;,rn as she does in "A Double Standard" 11 l1he ~lave l o~her . 11 In...-,:'v ashti II she tells of the heroine 1rm.o dared to disobey her dictator- husband . S<l!!l~!!lilll~-4The of wol"lanhood is expressed in the lP~tanzas : She heard again the 11..ing I s corJI11and, nd left her high estate; :::itrons in her e"'rnest womanhood, She calmly met her fate, And left the palace of the ~ ing ~roud of her snotless name -(9v e r) strength and determination �A woman who coul d ben d to g rief But would not bow to shame . Ce r tainly a compreh en s ive b -ig r a nh ic a l - critic a l study o f :Mrs . rtarp 0 r fl"'the Bark s da l e an d 1 innan on anthology 0 , r e c ent n~nume r·o us o t h r / anth olo r-ies . r-,..,. r rs . Aiar er I s vork s ar E' cri tic D}lY e xamined aP by Lo ggins, \ a gne r , vJhi tlow , Braw1ey ,<;' .oroi:.,m~ 1· of t h e 1 9 th_ ~ entury- 1974 ) ~ -. t ::Sherman:1111)( Jnv1. b le Po e ts : Bl a ck Ame ricans ,-t) f;p Li k e other writers , educat:kors Bnd activists of his day , Georg e B . Vashon lid22 - 18 78 ) cont ributed to the influential Anglo - African :Ma gazine ·which was published int e rmittently betwe n 1 85 9 until the end of t h e Civil \~ ar . Vashon h a d a good so lid education-- in classi c s and h ~ story-- a f Ob e rlin Colle g e wh ere h e · r e ceived his A. B. in 18¼ , 11 a nd M. A. in 1849 . Vash on, known chiefly for his Vincent Oglil which , _ __ rown tells us , "is t h e first n a r r Btive poem o f any length by a Ne i;r:: poet , " lilll!fil!Bii:J:illi••••~lllfJl!l1~mrl'-l::rmm ~istinguished h imself a s a teacher , la1 -ryer , lecturer and writer . He nra cticed law in Syra cuse, t aught school in Pittsbur g];i. , served on t h e fac u lties of Coll e ge Faustin in For- au- Princ e, P aiti, l~ ew York Central 0 oll e g e ( where he was a co l league of Reason and Allen) an d i:roward Unive -r si t y in D . -::: . wh e re he was a law professo r. l uch of Vashon 1 s poetry reflects debts to his~education and t h e influenc e of Scott and Byron . All a re seen in "Vincent Oge , " inspired by the coura g eous (but foolish) &][ CW efforts of Vincent Or e, a µ atian mul a tto who was "entrusted with the messag e of enfran chisement to the people of mixed blood on t he isl 0nd . " The zi!lliGt:. order h a d come down from the C0nvention in France , of which Haiti w1:1 s a colony . Int e rnf al disruption in ~rance(due to t he rl vo l uti on , 178 9 0 1799 ) had ech oed to its coloni e s in the Garrbb ean wh ere Og e led a �a short-lived armed uprisin~ that cost him his life when he ,,ras refused asylum in Spanish Santo D0 mine;o and remanded to the .J:trench authorities in Haiti . As :81~~iii,1P11;,• • ·?~'!'l punimIYJent and a warning to others, liiD: thP. 1i'~ench had Or:e tortured on the wheel 8Ild sevPred his body into four p2rts PP Ch of •rhi ch r· s hung up in the fo r leading cities of the ialand . Oge 1 s followers were either put to deathJ or imprisoned and thPir properties confic,ca.ted. Vashon ras as moved by Og:e l s example as was 1 fuitfield In the lengthy poem, "Vincent Ocr. ~, " Vashon i by Cinaue ' • o tralizes Oge in ~admixtu re of classi c al and Bib1ical language, using a pleasant iambi c tetrameter meter and an over dose of dissonance in his ab ab/ a a bb . The rhyme scheme which features an alternating style is somewhat remins c ent of vJhi tfield who breaks his rhyme nine scheme(see "Arn.erica 11 ) a f ter each group of ei r ht or/ :k& lines . "Vincent Ogi" and "A Life - Day" were both printed in 1tutographs for .t<'reedom :to r 1853 . For Vashon, the strup-~le is very much a liire , And Oge stands mid this array Of matchless beouty , but his brow Is brightened not by plea.iruret• s play; He stands unmoved--nay , saddened not , As doth the .10,.171 ....'.:.1ld mateless bird lll! i r Og~ , '!Rl " .. ~ ~ a 1rste:i~st11ru~e 1 presses on . __,,,.f ·' Vashon c arefully weaves the graphi c ~ det ~ils of ~ his protagonist ' s execution into the narra ive and) NC-h- t'tieM-1 anti c ipates the more iH3rJinpsdA such as Hohns o n , l c~ay, r..:rughes, Bro,-m and Dodsen : Fro1,ming they stand , and in their cold, St•lent solemnity , lhnfold The strong one ' s triurnuh o ' e r the weak -- �.' The awful gro an -- the anguished shriek -The un c ons c ious mutterings of despAi r-The strained eyeball ' s idiot star e -lhe hopeless c lench -- the quivrringx frame -'rhe martyr ' s death -- the despot ' s fh.ame . The rack -- the tyrant - -vi ctim, -aall Are gathe r ed in that Judgma nt Hall . Draw we a v eil , for it I tis a sight But fiends can gaze on with delight . F'1rnighted with emotmon and terro r like much of the ii He, Dod s on's 11 11 :f. McKay ' s n.che Lynching, , ament ' 11 V rk of l"rs . 11 arper, etueen tho · orld and setting the star·e for and © 11 "Dunbar ' s 11 'l'he "f-!aunted Oak" and ~ relentless narr ative • . 1s ashon 1 s ~ signa ~ "~ ~_,,. /I a ,,,,__.,~ sustaining power in the work of Black poets . Compare , for example , tb,e , his sonne t _, last&'two lines of the stanza above to r.,,-cKay 1 s c ouplet inA"'1 he Lynching ":, And little lads , lynchers that were to be , Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee . ~ Unlike I~c hay , howevPr ., Vashon J:i•h ~N_:1P at the end : Thy comin[ fame , Oge ! is sure; Thy name with th ,. , t of L 1e verture, And all the noble souls that stood With both of y ou , in times of blood , \Ji 11 live to be the tyrant I s fear -- founded on a f a ctual event : the love - affair md eventual marriage b f a young white man and a light - s k inned Black . For selections of Vash on • S works see Autographs for .l.:''reedom anlfi Robinson ' s antholog"V . For criti c al di s c ,13 sion s see the works of Brown and B:rewley . �. • '6 U a As we prepare to move to the next phase I ,_1 in the develo t i s important that we tarry long enp:ugh to pay b rief attention ·w ' • J ' t > ~J'J ~;;l-l'blo?) ,., (JtSJ --Ji'/. to,.Sjg?n½ ft ho Creole p oet s t rmand tanuss , Vic tor Se j our. Jj,frr4LJJ"/.. - 11 Nelson Debros e es and Ni col Riquet . Somewhat of an anomaly in Afro-American literature and poetry , the ._ 6reole poets y are• nB vertheless imnortant if the mmnNmt:m. complete port 2ait of this many- sided 8nd complex tradition is to be understood . There is nothing typically A~eri can in thet poetry--not even in terms of American imitqtors of ~nglish forrns --and they rarely disnlay m.ny r"'cial consciousness or concern for slavery and general injustice . ' ! ~ J ,~,:: 0 - s, 8!½ 1 fluent in • speaking and writing French a-id from that influenc e their work derives a spicy melody and an ,-.., unhibi ted treatmr:mt of romantic love rmd revelry . Much .llll of the work is also intimate !'.Ind sonhisticated in its use of conventions and ma teria1 s ,,--.... ~ gained from l''rench ed 1c tions . ...,;sp neqred as ,; poets • -m,rk""'s ~, ·ep fjpet u71110ksd jr 11 the first D The Creole bl_ih ed anthology in a volume 7 adoition to l' rench , the Creole Doets also -Trote in Sp~nish , Latin and S:reek and 1- rere i:seneraJ ly from~we~lthy ~ land- owner class J. · ew Orleans C-reole newsnapers, r, 1union C0 nfederqte Bnd La 'rri bune, re:vved as a conscriDtea/soldi er in the Civil \ ar, spent some time es nrincipal of She Catholic School for Indigent Ornhans of Color • .ue also encourged literary and othe r artistic exnre.ps · on4 811ong fellow artists and solicited rk for Les Genalles . euf l d> gized his brother,Numa, in the poem ''Un 1''re r e/Au •rombeau de Son l''rere, i,e caJ linr.; that ''unfeeling death has cut you domi. 11 .l:!.,lsewhere Lanusse refers to depth ns "some other hand shutting vour eyelids . "~L Sfjour 1ived most of his life in France and only rPturned to New Orleans for brief visits to his mother . Son of a wealthy family, 7f~y �.insert ' '/fj p . 46 P 7 !114' About D2lcour little is kno1,m except th'1t he was born of e0lth;r parents who sent him to France in the e?rly 1200 1 ::: tJ, re- ceive a n-ood education . Returning to New Orleans ~ afte~hooling, he was unable to c ccept the racial tern.per Dndc..t~1iM .~lii1.Mc.J(.. ~ idency in 1''rance . 1 bile in New Orle ns , J:.owov r, he wrote a numbrr of oems, one of which was "Ver~e '.. ri tten in the L\.lbum of T'adanoiselle . " The poerrJ; 111k touching Jy relives the "ganlted skies" ...,nd r""~i' "gentle flaslj.es 11 which, to the poet , 0 re 11 less lovely" when seen an-ainst the lady ' s eyes Beneath tJ:.eir brown lashes . ~* tf r,lf6 Somewhat nau Lanusse gives the ~ccotmt of a "woman of evil" uho T-mnts to "ren,unce thA devil" but ,JaE asl{es : Before pure irace takes me in hrnd, Shouldn ' t I sho·-r my daughter how to get a man? 11 �r 97 ~ IM 21 of whi ch were st sged fun Franc e and three abilities"' s praised by 1rapoleon III in "New th ma jo r F r ench literary personalities of hi s and he day . mi s scope is wide r than some of the other Cre ole poets . F i s JI' "ta Retour de' Napol l o n 11 ( 11 rhe Heturn of Napoleon") ,,... i a7 is a and a c eleb r a tion all in one . \~hile euchogizing F apol , bejour praises both his and F ran c e ' s t r iumph s and glories . It i s a poem of flowin g , g raphi c exaltation . Opening • I Jz92£111 on the scene of a "sea II th a t "groans unde r the burning sun, 11 /!:.r r ates nd collapse o 0..-0 the g rowth ranee w,..,_a world power; And on and on she swep t , an unl e ashed t emp est gild·; and Fran c e moved on ahead . No more • .All is over . ••• Yet , hai l , O, c a pt ~in! Hail my consul of proud bearing . t l-ta t "death h a s lightning struck the people 1 s i:riant . Little is ~mown a bout the personal life of Debro s se ~ 11 sf wh ich , ac c ording to Robinson , "seems in keeping with his :-rai tian g a ined exp erience , in Voodoo, aspects of which he pra ctised in Hew Urleans . 11 In 1Jebrosses 111 Le Hetour au Village aux re r les 11 ( 11 Heturn to the Village of r e a rls 11 ) , he seems to ant i c ipate what \laring Cuney through the "dishwater" in his T)oem "Images . 11 The C ti see s Creole poet returns to the v~ll age t o find ~ Her spirit dances here and there in these enchanting places ::elf ■i g 1 and to locate -- that flowe r- bosomed g rove a gain, the witness of our secret pas s ion , and too , the cherished brook to which my sou1 4 would on this day c onfide its hau py memory . �tJJ1 • A 6iga.r-maker by trade , Riquet lived~ ' in New Orleans where he nursued 11 wri tj ng light v erses . Hi s f his life a vigrous avocation of Rondeau Redouble ~tl'lla1Ca z / Aux Drane \\ Amis"(,_pouble Rondeau/ Toliandid Friends") leaves no doubt that at serious in his avocation . Riquet smm A rondeau is a trench - originated l y rical noem of 13, or sometimes, 10 lines . Thero are two rhymes t h roughout the poem and the opening phrase is repeated twice as a refrain. The remotely reminiscent of the blues and Spiritual forms of Afro-American poetry. Riquet says that since his "candid friends are c aJ ling for a rondeau! J " he and his "Muse • . • must work a wonder. 11 The duty of the poet is he will "earn the name of poetaster -- from our c8ndid friends . " The Creole Poets are examined and represented by selections in , gton , D. C. , 194-~Robinson ' s antholor-y. See a~d Louisimna (li9vier Uni v e,,..si ty ~~ ~ ~,J,1,,Jj; United States nonulqtion internal soci~l in - ~Jl . protectin~ the soon-to - be-released slaves, the need to _deve loP and stn f ~ ~ educ "tional f8ciJ i ties for Blacks , aJ l d un bha J.o:i?~~J thouv.,h ~':!M~~MJ~~ fi it is cle q_ r that the works of many uoets leap the abbi t.,,,arily - i 'nPosed chinolo gical~ 't5o ilries, t:fie temperments , themes, diotj_o nal nreferences ~:ind limitations discussed o· enerally hold for mo!"t of the poetry of the period. ~ , /;)esni t the surprising successesJ nd~ a shes o :f bri lli anCil>;it intertwined with 0 mediocrity end comedy, the Bl8 c 1{ noet would la bot- long to remove _ image of a face" trrnt, in the words of Corr&thers, on the wild sweet flowers . " 11 Liet~ , like "the �~ ,& / - YX • {/f .2 _ /<{(c ) ) {Nt - 1 1 ~ ~ ~o ~/1, T ')) . 11,,n, -,j/ ~~ /, l ~~~~~~T~ To 0 La;- )\ /)l,1d")(,, ~ - ~, ~r V ; ) ,.,,a;t t () 1u �T I • 49 l.:;.B, eiJ::i <e • ha alt!! u:enre en; 4 here were oth r poets wri tin,.. and Ji== pubJ ishinr durin~ this sa rie 1© riod . ,. any of them nubl i shed their rkP in sing] e editions, ~ o'lies of A . _~re no anger extanfi. "Rr8Wle~, whose knotm rs 11 Ca esat> " who allegedly wrote but f.9r refPrf1 to a n0et 7 poetry is not PVailable . Ot1 er poems rnd th jr coJlect·ons are: 1 Haria .... nd rlarriet ' al½onar, Po~mE._~n Slavery (TI,ondo n, 17t,8 ); James T ontgomery , James U-raham, ~ . Benger , Poem~on the ~litjon of the Sl a v e_E_r.;_d~ ( London , 18oq) ; he •~est ID di a s and Other Poems n wnymous , (1811); John Bull , 'rh~av e and Other Poems(London , 1 824); Hev . Noah c. Cannon, flhe Ro ck of wJisdom ••• rro InteE_estip.-=g:.__:;:H-....L-_ s ( ew Vorir ,? 183 3); · ch Are Ad ed 0 everal nonY111ous , "'rhe Conll"1emorati ve Wreath : In Celebration of the .c..xtinc tion of !Terra .::i lavery in the british Dominions " (London, 1835); Anonymous , SlavAry in the British LJominions ( London , 1835); Anonymous, Ant i - .:>lri v e ry ___ 1elodie s (Hingham , 1'iasf1 a- chusetts , l @Jl, ); li0or@'.e ivhi tfield Clark , compiler, '11 he Liberty I i n strel ( ew VorJr , 18~11); illiamx Wells Brmm , Anti -::S li:ivpry H'1 r p{ 3oston, 1849 ); "A \ est Indian, " Chq_rleston , South 0 :=irolina : .a gati ri c ;poem sbm·□ JJ..i: , of being the seat of libert Br ought to J j gb t (Derry , ( London , 1851) ; Sam- - -- --- - - -- - - ---Darkne s s. Tew Hampshire , ? 18 55) ; George 1!. Clark , The Harp CF Freedom( 1 ew York, 1856) ; and Abel Charles (Neu York , lcr-1!_) . "' oma s , ~h0rosnel of S}qb ery � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EBRWritings_07_28 Title A name given to the resource Draft of Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, Chapter III. African Voice in Ellipse, p. 1-49 Relation A related resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For digital rights and permissions, see <a href="https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml">https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml</a> or contact <a href="mailto:library@siue.edu">library@siue.edu</a> for direct inquiries. In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B. Description An account of the resource Draft of Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, Chapter III. African Voice in Ellipse, p. 1-49 with an insert for p. 38, an insert for p. 46, and an unnumbered page