Epic Regained: Phillis Wheatley’s Admonitory Poetics in the ‘Little Columbiad’

Abstract

Although many scholars have discussed Phillis Wheatley’s subversive appropriation of the classics, they have been reluctant to locate a similar strain of subtle repudiation in her Revolutionary War poems. The present article reexamines these verses — ‘To His Excellency General Washington’ (1775), ‘On the Capture of General Lee’ (1776), and ‘On the Death of General Wooster’ (1778) — in light of the tradition of (neo)classical heroic poetry. I read them as a formally innovative epic, dispersed across three apparently ‘patriotic lyrics’ (Levernier (1993: 175)) and dubbed the ‘Little Columbiad’ for their personification of America. Wheatley signals that the triptych should be read as far more than a trio of occasional poems. She not only evokes elements of the epic tradition but also obfuscates the Lucanic heart of her piece within a Virgilian body. This deft juxtaposition of disparate epic registers and forms allows the poet to reprove revolutionary generals, comment upon the war, and decry a movement committed both to liberty and to slavery’s perpetuation. In playing the part of epic admonisher, Wheatley likewise spotlights the genre’s tendency to expose and dissect the flaws of leaders in even its most laudatory iterations. The ‘Little Columbiad’ therefore gives us an important opportunity to reevaluate its author’s pivotal position in the history of North American heroic poetry and epic reception, as well as to nuance regnant paradigms of the genre itself.

Recent scholarship on classical literature and the eighteenth century

“…In a further example of overlap with the remit of A People's History, consistent across the work on Wheatley is the contention (again building on Shields's earlier insights) that her poetry used classical texts to critique her own society (Anderson, 2011;Spigner, 2021;Toscano, 2021), even if that critique was framed as praise (Hairston, 2013).…”