In a time period heavily guided by the contrast of thought and reason to emotion and feeling, Phillis Wheatley, author of Thoughts on the Works of Providence that was published in the late eighteenth century, employs a genre of sentimentality that would be model for writers to come. From the late seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century, the Enlightenment Period guided life, specifically written works, with reason and sensibility in Europe. However, the mid-eighteenth century was a revival of strong emotional worship marked as the Great Awakening in the colonies. Wheatley strongly employs characteristics of the Great Awakening in her poetry, as well as aspects of gender and race, to convey the eternal love and purpose of God. In
…show more content…
In the very first lines of her poem, Wheatley said "Arise, my soul, on wings enraptur'd, rise / To praise the monarch of the skies, / Whose goodness and beneficence appear / As round its centre moves the rolling year," from Marie Griffith, ed. American Religions: A Documentary History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.) 124. Starting her poem with a command quickly establishes her intentions to demand admiration and adoration for her God, although disguised with her use of "my" soul rather than "your" soul. The phrase, "on wings enraptur'd rise" ties in this illusion to angelic figures that are seen throughout the poem and also in the last line of this stanza, telling herself to rise in the morning with joy as an angel would. The next lines establish whom she rises for every morning, her God, generous and good ruler of the Earth and galaxy that she exists in. Lastly, the generosity is seen explicitly in the sun that which life on Earth revolves around, and God so graciously provides for us. Wheatley includes these descriptors of "enraptur'd" "monarch" and "goodness and beneficence" to provoke emotional idealism for her God in order to create this feeling of eternal gratitude for providing the sun and all life that exists from it. The remaining lines in the first stanza use visual imagery, such as "the morning glows with rosy charms" (Griffith, 124), to describe the sunrise across various surfaces of the Earth, and how that guide's her soul to follow such majestic God. Wheatley uses these first lines, therefore, to introduce whom she rises for day and night while utilizing emotional language to provoke sentiment in her
In the very first lines of her poem, Wheatley said "Arise, my soul, on wings enraptur'd, rise / To praise the monarch of the skies, / Whose goodness and beneficence appear / As round its centre moves the rolling year," from Marie Griffith, ed. American Religions: A Documentary History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.) 124. Starting her poem with a command quickly establishes her intentions to demand admiration and adoration for her God, although disguised with her use of "my" soul rather than "your" soul. The phrase, "on wings enraptur'd rise" ties in this illusion to angelic figures that are seen throughout the poem and also in the last line of this stanza, telling herself to rise in the morning with joy as an angel would. The next lines establish whom she rises for every morning, her God, generous and good ruler of the Earth and galaxy that she exists in. Lastly, the generosity is seen explicitly in the sun that which life on Earth revolves around, and God so graciously provides for us. Wheatley includes these descriptors of "enraptur'd" "monarch" and "goodness and beneficence" to provoke emotional idealism for her God in order to create this feeling of eternal gratitude for providing the sun and all life that exists from it. The remaining lines in the first stanza use visual imagery, such as "the morning glows with rosy charms" (Griffith, 124), to describe the sunrise across various surfaces of the Earth, and how that guide's her soul to follow such majestic God. Wheatley uses these first lines, therefore, to introduce whom she rises for day and night while utilizing emotional language to provoke sentiment in her