This panoramic study combines a survey of the life of child prodigy and renowned African American poet Phillis Wheatley, her work and experiences, and uniquely, a careful rendering and reassessment of the opinions of her contemporaries and the ideas and motivations of present-day scholars regarding her verse and historical significance. Arthur Scherr, an expert on the transatlantic Enlightenment and such major figures of American political culture as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe, adds a vital new perspective to our understanding of Phillis Wheatley. Also investigated is the relationship between Wheatley and the statesman whom scholars generally depict as Wheatley's greatest adversary: Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and tarnished American icon. The book analyzes the meaning and significance of Jefferson's three-sentence critique of Wheatley's poetry in Notes on the State of Virginia (1787), published in London three years after her death.
Auflage
Sprache
Verlagsort
Newcastle upon Tyne
Großbritannien
Zielgruppe
Editions-Typ
Produkt-Hinweis
Maße
Höhe: 212 mm
Breite: 148 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-5275-4595-3 (9781527545953)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
An assistant professor of history at the City University of New York, Arthur Scherr is a maverick scholar who has challenged much of the current "established wisdom" in the history and historiography of the early United States. Each of his five heavily-researched books, "I Married Me a Wife": Male Attitudes toward Women in the American Museum, 1787-1782 (1999); Thomas Jefferson's Haitian Policy: Myths and Realities (2011); Thomas Jefferson's Image of New England: Nationalism versus Sectionalism in the Young Republic (2016); John Adams, Slavery, and Race: Ideas, Politics, and Diplomacy in an Age of Crisis (2018); and Rightful Liberty: Slavery, Morality, and Thomas Jefferson's World (2021), has questioned and often refuted the underlying assumptions of many aspects of present-day historical scholarship, revealing that historians' desire for collegiality and acceptance by the academic community often overrides devotion to factual accuracy and historical verisimilitude among scholars.
