美國英語聽力80篇3 Lesson53
Phillis Wheatley (B)
Philtis Wheattey's first major work was "An Elegiac Poem on the Death of the Celebrated Divine."
It waspublished in 1770.
Phillis wrote the long poem to honor a famous clergyman who had died.
Phillis wrote mostly about religion and morals.
Many of her poems were created at the request of someone to honor a family member who had died.
Her poems are representative of the times.
They expressed common reactions to personal events such as deaths or marriages.
Or they honored public events such as battles.
Phillis had an unusual life fora slave.
Mrs.Wheatley had stopped having Phillis do house cleaning jobs.
She made sure Phillis had time to study and to visit the family friends.
But Phillis was not permitted to make friends with other uneducated slaves.
So she remained separate from both white and black worlds.
While she was considered above the other black slaves, she was never considered an equal of white slave owners.
One time she was invited to dinner in the home of one of Mrs.Wheatley's relations.
The servants said that it was the first time they ever carried food to a woman with skin their color.
But Phillis usually sat at a table separate from the white people at a dinner party.
Phillis Wheatley became famous in Europe as well as in America.
She travelled to London in 1773 and gave poetry readings there.
She was twenty years old.
The writings of the young slave from Africa surprised everyone.
During her visit in London,she was to have been presented to King George the third.
But she received urgent news from America.
Mrs. Wheatley was very sick and had asked that Phillis return to Boston.
Phillis returned home quickly.
That meant she missed the publication in London of her book poems on various subjects, religious and moral.
It contained thirty-eight of her poems.
It was the first published book written by a black person in America.
And it was only the second book written by an American woman.
Newspapers in London highly praised her poems.
Her book sold very well there and later in America.
Phillis Wheatley had one more brief period of being famous.
In 1775, she wrote a poem about George Washington.
He had become commander of the colonial forces in the American Revolution.
The poem was called "His Excellency General Washington."
It called Washington "first in peace and honors."
She sent her poem to him.
Some time later,she was invited to visit George Washington in his headquarters.
It was an unusual visit between a black woman poet and a military commander.
Phillis took care of Susannah during her Iong final sickness.
When Mrs. Wheatley died in March, 1774, Phillis wrote that she had lost a friend and parent.
After Susannah's death, Phillis was freed by the Wheatley family.
But her life became more difficult.
She married John Peters, a free black man.
He failed in many business attempts.
Their three children died at a very young age.
Phillis tried to publish another book of her poems.
But now that she was free, she had lost her appeal as a slave poet.
Phillis Wheatley died poor and alone in 1784.
