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Author ORCID Identifier

N/A

AccessType

Open Access Dissertation

Document Type

dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Program

Afro-American Studies

Year Degree Awarded

2015

Month Degree Awarded

September

First Advisor

Steven C. Tracy

Second Advisor

Manisha Sinha

Third Advisor

James Smethurst

Fourth Advisor

Randall Knoper

Subject Categories

African American Studies | English Language and Literature

Abstract

“On Being Brought from Africa to America” was written in 1768, seven years after a

seven or eight-year-old Phillis Wheatley arrived to British North America. Phillis

Wheatley was about fifteen-years-old when she wrote the most reviled poem in

Black literature. Charged with thinking white and writing white, “On Being Brought

from Africa to America” would condemn Phillis Wheatley as an imitator of the white

gaze. Although accused of straightening her tongue, Phillis Wheatley did not imitate

the white gaze in “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” She mimicked it. To

imitate means to do something the same way. To mimic means to resemble.

Resemblance lives in the liminal space between sameness and difference. This

study sought to investigate what that in-between space of resemblance afforded

Wheatley in terms of movement and self-actualization as an enslaved Black poet. As

an inaugural text in dissemblance, “On Being Brought from Africa to America”

showcased how mimicry, not imitation, could be used to undo the very Anglo-

European literary practices and discourses that sought to keep Black writers at bay.

This dissertation seeks to investigate how Phillis Wheatley used mimicry in “On

Being Brought from Africa to America” as a subversive vehicle to say without saying.

Using resemblance to hide difference, Wheatley, through mimicry, turned a sign of

conquest and domination (English as representative of European imperialism) into a

sign of resistance.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/7491886.0

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