Slavery And Irony In Phillis Wheatley's Poetry

The authors I have chosen are meaningful with their words, intelligent with their sentences, and powerful with their speech.
This author is particularly interesting because she was taught what she knew by her owners wife and two children. Phillis Wheatley, born May 8, 1753 in Senegal, West Africa, was brought into slavery at eight years old. She was in bad shape when she was purchased, and so she was used for a servant for John Wheatley’s wife, Mrs. Susanna Wheatley. Susanna took Phillis in, almost as her own child, and she and her two children started teaching Phillis how to read. This triggered an interest in Phillis. She soon became very involved with literacy. Phillis loved learning by reading. She learned a lot of history, more so in other countries, all by reading. She studied many subjects and became very intelligent. As she became older, she started writing more. At the age thirteen, she published her first poem into a local newspaper. Amazingly enough, she was the first african american and first US slave to ever publish a book of poems. Phillis sent a poem to George Washington, before he had become president, about how he was …show more content…
Phillis’ poems were usually about Christianity and slavery. “...Poems on various subjects, religious and moral…”-Bio.com. Washington was a short story author that was usually writing fictional stories with nonfictional characters. “...The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.”-Bio.com. Both authors had an interesting way of writing. Phillis was taught everything she knew from slave owners and that family, which she became a part of their family. So her writing was much different considering her life. Washington was privately taught, so he had all subject teachers and learned a lot. So his writing would be more of the form of his imagination, and it surely was. And with his writing skills, he got a lot of them from one of his older