Jan 2, 2010

To His Excellency General Washington | Style

Phillis Wheatley is roundly considered to follow the neoclassical style of Alexander Pope, an early eighteenth-century poet highly regarded in Wheatley’s era. She borrowed images from the neoclassical style easily, such as “realms of light,” “astonish’d ocean,” and “Autumn’s golden reign.” Wheatley also includes references to Greek mythology in her verse—the goddess of Freedom, muses and celestial choirs, Eolus, the god of wind. Her poem is written in heroic couplet, where rhyming is made within two lines, as in the last words of the second stanza’s lines:...