Early Indigenous Literatures

Wheatley Title Page Annotation 2

Wheatley is granted authorship in the paratext, specifically by the wording “by Phillis Wheatley.” The preposition may seem unimportant, but it is critical because it shows Wheatley’s authorship over her own text. Joseph Rezek urges us to think more about the construction of an archive, “of its restrictions and silences and also the vital traces of black lives that survive.”[1] Wheatley’s authorship is a survival tactic, as her name remains connected to her poetry collection in the archive and assists her in being remembered in our contemporary moment.
 
[1] Joseph Rezek, “Early Black Evangelical Writing and the Limits of Print,” in African American Literature in Transition, 1750-1800, (2022), 18.

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