1. How do Wheatley's poems differ from Bradstreet's? What conventions of English neo-classicism do you find in her poems: ritual invocation of the muse; allusions to the Greek gods; heroic couplets; personification; periphrasis; "stock diction."?
2. What attitudes toward race and racism does Wheatley express in "On Being Brought from Africa to America"?
3. Why are these attitudes and ideas less directly expressed than they are in her letter to Samson Occom?
4. Why do you think neither of these expressions is as strong as that of Freneau's "To Sir Toby"? |