Phillis Wheatley at 250: The 1773 Book, a First Portrait and a UW-Madison Collaboration That Follows Her Poems Through Two and a Half Centuries

Fine Books Magazine on a display marking 250 years of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, with all the gaps the page leaves

Phillis Wheatley at 250: The 1773 Book, a First Portrait and a UW-Madison Collaboration That Follows Her Poems Through Two and a Half Centuries

Fine Books Magazine on a display marking 250 years of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, with all the gaps the page leaves

By Stephanie Curry, eighteenth-century literature and American politics diarist

Wednesday, Library Basement, Lamp

Dear diary, Fine Books Magazine reports an exhibition marking the 250th anniversary of Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, a collaboration between the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture and UW-Madison Libraries Special Collections. The page I read gives no venue, exhibit dates or publication date, so I cannot tell you when or whether it is open. Please check before travelling.

Admission is free and the public is welcome, it says.

The Book

The page says the book was published in London in September 1773, making Wheatley the first African American writer to publish a poetry book, and only the third colonial American woman of any race to publish a book. Its frontispiece shows her seated at a writing desk with a pen, paper and a book, and the page calls it the first individual portrait of an African American woman.

These are the page’s claims, and they are the standard claims, but I cite the page and not my memory.

The Exhibition

It traces how her poetry, image and name have been reprinted and reused over 250 years by educators, activists, artists and readers. Highlights include the 1773 first edition with its engraved portrait, other Wheatley publications from her lifetime and the early 1800s, children’s books about her life, and poetry by Black feminists inspired by her work.

I like the shape of it: not only the book, but its afterlife.

What the Page Leaves Out

The page includes no direct quotes. It does not describe Wheatley’s life, her enslavement, or the reception of the book in the eighteenth century, and I am not going to improvise on those from memory in a diary entry. The proper sources are the exhibition, scholarly biographies and the book itself, which is widely available.

I would rather say less and be right than say more and be a bad footnote.

Why a Literature Diarist Cares

Colonial American literature is often taught as a procession of famous men, and Wheatley’s book interrupts it. Whatever one thinks of any given poem, the fact of the book changes the shape of the story. I make this claim as an interpretation, not as a quotation.

A reader should go to the poems themselves, not to this entry.

The American Politics Question

Anniversaries of American books arrive in a year when the country is arguing about how to tell its own story. I note that, and I decline to say which telling is right. Exhibitions like this one lay out the objects and let visitors decide, which is what a library should do.

I hope that is a fair summary of the case for libraries.

The Other View

Some scholars debate how to read Wheatley’s poems, and the page gives none of that debate. Nor does it say how the exhibition handles it. I leave it to the exhibition and the scholarship, and I name no one.

A diary is a bad place to settle a scholarly argument.

Night

The basement is cool. The lamp is warm. The frontispiece is in my mind.

Goodnight, diary. Read the poems.

A Note on What I Did Not See

I did not see the exhibition and I have no catalogue. All I have is a single page. If you know the show, or Wheatley’s work, and I have misdescribed anything, I would be glad to be corrected in the comments of the diary.

Why Print History Matters

A book that is reprinted for 250 years is a book whose reception can be traced. The page says the exhibition follows reprints by educators, activists, artists and readers, and that is the interesting part: the second life of a text is evidence of what each generation wanted from it. I find that more useful than a single verdict on any poem.

It also means that a catalogue of reprints is a history of America told sideways.

A Plain Caution

I know this exhibition only from a short news page. Do not cite me for facts about Wheatley’s life or work. Use the exhibition, the Library’s own catalogue and the scholarly editions, and use this diary for the mood only.

Errata

In the coffeehouse, somebody always has the paper. Ours had the Cebu condo slump in it: empty showrooms in Manila News, paperwork for British pensioners in the London Prat (at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and long showings in Bohiney. More where that came from: prat.uk and bohiney.com.

Diarist note: Stephanie Curry is a house diarist character created for this network. She is not any real person of the same or a similar name, and any resemblance is coincidental. Her opinions are a character’s, and where a claim comes from a partisan-leaning outlet or a campaign, the diary says so. Nothing here is voting advice.

Note: Philippine authorities are examining unproven allegations about Thomas Markle Sr., who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, as GMA News and the Guardian have reported. No charges have been filed. Child protection is a serious matter; the jokes here are about a property market and the paperwork.

For the lighter side of the news, try The Daily Squib, and the rest of the lot at NewsThump, NewsBiscuit and The Daily Squib.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/