Phyllis Wheatley’s “On Imagination”
PARAPHRASE:
Rhetorical situation: the poet, striking a humble pose, addresses the imagination, which is personified in various ways.
Stanza 1: Imagination—you reveal the ideal form and beauty of the world. You lend order to the world, and everyone reveres its power. Rarified voices merge with my own voice and attempt to tell of your power–a power that lends my poem whatever power it has. My own imaginative powers wander from place to place until captivated by something rare and beautiful.
Stanza 2: Who is equal to the task of singing about the imagination’s power? How can one describe the imagination? it’s only possible by connecting oneself to this rare and transcendent power, leaving mere existence behind. From this transcendent remove, one’s mind is truly free, and one can grasp not only the world itself, but worlds yet unknown.
Stanza 3: The imagination can persist and break through the bleak, barren, frozen, and dry, giving new life and warmth to a desolate world.
Stanza 4: That’s how powerful you are, imagination. How you guide the mind is purposeful rather than capricious. You works are perfect. You don’t incite, but rather control, baser passions, causing deep joy in those who affect.
Stanza 5: You are so powerful that you make me want to replicate and truly embody your power, but I must leave aside this possibility as a baser reality overtakes my efforts. I have to stop singing—I am not equal to the task.
OBSERVE:
1) The poem is written in heroic couplets, reminiscent of neoclassical poetry
2) The imagination’s power is often described in regal metaphors—“queen,” “scepter o’er the realms,” “subject.”
3) Metaphors of bondage recur throughout: “silken fetters,” “unbounded,” “at thy command,” captivity,” “fetters” “orders”
4) Many references to Greek myth arise—Sylvanus, Tithon, Aurora
5) The poet seems to distinguish between “imagination” and “fancy”
6) Something seems to keep the poet from fully claiming access to the imagination
CONTEXTUALIZE:
1) Wheatley was born in Africa, and came to America as a slave.
2) Wheatley’s poetic powers were subject to strict scrutiny before she was published.
3) The form of the poem is reminiscent of neoclassical verse.
4) Romantic poets, who technically came after Wheatley were obsessed with the imagination, valuing over mere fancy.
5) Early American literature at this time is often described as being both postcolonial and provincial, both of England and of its own context.
6) Wheatley was very much aware of, and supportive of, the revolution and American independence.
ARGUE:
1) It’s interesting that regal metaphors recur throughout because it casts the imagination’s power in terms of nation-states or kingdoms, and suggests a more earthly model of control and containment that might have a more significant political significance here. While the metaphors involving regal power all seem positive, there seems to be something inaccessible about that power.
2) Because we know that Wheatley is a slave, it seems important to notice metaphors involving bondage and a master-slave dynamic. These parts of the poem suggest that Wheatley was subtly commenting on her on subject-position as a slave when she describes her lack of access, in the poem’s broader trope, to the imagination. Wheatley skillfully disguises this more potent response to her unequal subject position in terms of the kind of poetic humility that so often attends poet’s as they bow before the great powers of the imagination.
3) Given Wheatley’s investment in imagination, we might view her as a proto-romantic very much him touch with the literary conversations of the day they evolved from a focus on the mechanical forces of fancy to the etherial powers of the imagination. It’s also interesting to note how the imagination straining against bondage mirrors American revolutionary hopes, which might make us recall once more the regal metaphors.
4) While many of the references to Greek myth seems to serve the purpose of simply playing a certain kind of poetic game (it’s a kind of poetic currency) one stands out as particularly important: when she mentions Aurora rising from Tithon’s bed, she brings up a subtly coded subtext involving racial identity as Aurora, Roman goddess of the dawn and light, rises from the “bed” of Tithonus, who has etheopian roots.
ARGUE:
Wheatley’s “On Imagination” seems, at first, a merely deft blend of neoclassical form and Romantic inclination. Like the men who certified and signed off on her authenticity, her readers are compelled to read admiringly the signs of poetic competence, whether that involves her skillful use of heroic couplets, her ready mythological references, her finely layered but never discordant images and metaphors, or the way she dons the mask of humility. But beneath Wheatley’s merely accomplished verse lies a deeply insinuating and critical argument about her access—not as a humble poet, but as a female slave—to the rarified reaches of the imagination, which here is an emblem of white privilege and culture. We see this come through most clearly in her metaphors that hint at a master-slave dynamic: her references, for example, to bondage, command, captivity, and being subjected. Her bondage, and her people’s bondage, is literal, and that lends a deep sadness but also a critical force to this remarkable poetic performance.