18 pages • 36 minutes read
Phillis WheatleyTo S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1773A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Muse
Throughout the second stanza, Wheatley uses the motif of the muse to explore Neoclassical ideals and Christian themes. Wheatley’s speaker asks that “the muse inspire each future song” (Line 20). The address to the muse for inspiration is a typical feature of poetry in classical antiquity and was revived by Neoclassical authors. In this way, Wheatley aligns herself with this movement’s beliefs about art, the artist, and fame. Creativity has ancient origins.
Yet the speaker complicates her use of this classical figure that personifies inspiration when she wishes to see “my muse with heav’nly transport glow” (Line 28). The speaker’s inspiration comes from her Christian faith, rather than from a pagan divinity. Once she has been assured of ascent into heaven, neither the artist nor the painter will need access to the classical muse, since all creative drive will now come from a heavenly source.
Eyes and Sight
In the poem, eye imagery is used to embody the speaker’s shift in focus and beliefs. Initially, Morehead’s painting overwhelms the speaker with its skills and beauty: It’s a “new creation rushing on [her] sight” (Line 6) that gives her “soul delight” (Line 5). As a result, the speaker implores the subject to “[o]n deathless glories fix thine ardent view” (Line 8)—he must pursue his creative reputation with all ambition. Sight connects the speaker and her subject just as the subject’s art has made a connection with her. Their earthly concerns are limited by the human body to physical sight.
In her turn towards the spiritual, however, the speaker asks that the artist “raise thy wishful eyes” (Line 14) to “view the landscapes in the realms above” (Line 26). In doing so, the artist will reject “Aurora’s eyes” (Line 30), which represent the ancient and Neoclassical point of view on religion and art.
The ambivalence the speaker feels about this change in sight is best embodied by the closing lines. The speaker is mournful that death “seals the fair creation from [their] sight” (Line 34), suggesting that, while the speaker would reside in a better place, she will still miss the earthly ability to see and create art.
Light and Darkness
Wheatley uses imagery of light and darkness to stand for life and its end. She associates darkness with death: At life’s end, the “solemn gloom of night” (Line 33) will separate the speaker from the earth, while the “shades of time” will be “chas’d away” (Line 23) during the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Conversely, the speaker strongly correlates light with the Christian afterlife. For her, heaven is a place “crown’d with endless day” (Line 16) because it is radiantly sunlit as “darkness ends in everlasting day” (Line 24). Inspiration that comes from this origin is also lit up, as the faith-sent muse will “heav’nly transport glow” (Line 28).
In her use of light in this poem to correlate with goodness and heaven, Wheatley may also be punning on the words sun and son, referring to Jesus, who in Christian tradition is the Son of God. Thus, turning to the light is both literal and metaphorical. Images of light, therefore, function as a symbol of enlightenment and salvation from sin, heralding a place where the speaker and her subject would attain artistic and spiritual freedom—an image that has deep resonance for two formerly enslaved people.
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By Phillis Wheatley
