American Poetry of the Early Republic

.Highly valued; considered essential to improve ones education and taste.

.Moreover, well suited to the situation of American publishing (Vietto), poetry being less
costly and risky to print than book-length works.
.Influenced for the most part by the then dominant Neoclassical English poetry: emphasis on
morality and sentimentality, use of a poetic diction different from everyday language.
Philip Freneau (17861815)
Poet, journalist and editor born into a wealthy family in New York City. Attended at Princeton,
studied for the ministry but then gave up. Supported the Revolution; joined the New Jersey
Militia in 1778; taken prisoner by the British in 1780.
.Seen as a pre-Romantic poet, a precursor of Romantic poetry, by some scholars, his poetry is
rather within the prevailing Neoclassical tradition of much of his lifetime.
.Themes and styles: personal lyric poems (e.g. his nature poems), political, social and moral
poems (e.g. Freneaus antislavery poems and partisan poems).
Literary reputation: most memorable poet of his period, yet today critical neglect of his poetry,
especially in the last few decades.
Phillis Wheatley (1753?1784)
Born in African and taken into slavery as a child in 1761. Bought by the Wheatley family in a
Boston slave trade. Received the same education as the children of the family. Freed after the
death of Mr. and Mrs. Wheatley. In 1778 she married John Peters, who eventually
abandoned her. Died in poverty.
Her Poems on Various Subjects appeared in England in 1773. Like other contemporary African
American poets, helped and supported by white friends and patrons. First book of poetry by
an African American. Very much aware of herself as a rarity.
Sometimes seen as a forerunner of the Romantic movement in poetry, yet her poetry more
indebted to a Neoclassicist influence: her poems often convey a moral purpose and use poetic
diction.
.Many of her poems written for and about prominent white figures.
.Racial awareness. Wheatleys poems reflect the contemporary debates over slavery. Deals with
the rights, experiences and potential of the black community. More racially aware in her prose
than in her poetry. Her most open condemnation of the evils of slavery: her well-known letter to
the Native American minister Samson Occom, published in several New England newspapers.

Bibliography
Augustyn, Adam. American Literature from 1600 through 1850s. New York: Britannica
Educational Publishing, 2011.
Dickson, Bruce. The Origins of African American Literature, 1680-1865. Charlottesville:
University Press of Virginia, 2001.
Gray, Richard. A History of American Literature. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004
Lauter, Paul ed. A Companion to American Literature and Culture. Malden MA: WileyBlackwell, 2010.
Meyers, Karen. Colonialism and the Revolutionary Road. New York: Facts on File, 2006
Vietto, Angela. Early American Literature, 1776-1820. New York: Facts on File, 2010.