Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Phillis Wheatley
Philip Freneau
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
In the autumn of 1773, a slender volume of poetry emerged from a London printing house that would forever alter the landscape of American literature. "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" bore the name of its author on the title page: Phillis Wheatley, Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatley of Boston. This seemingly simple attribution concealed a profound paradox that would define both the poet's life and her…
“The same principle lives in us all.”
Philip Morin Freneau was born on 2 January 1752 in New York City and died on 18 December 1832 near his home in Monmouth County, New Jersey. During his long and restless life, he became a poet, sailor, merchant, editor, polemicist, farmer, husband, father, and partisan journalist. He has often been called the “Poet of the American Revolution,” a useful but incomplete title. Freneau did give memorable literary shape to…
About 6,413 km separate Senegal or Gambia, West Africa from New York City, New York, USA. Shared ground: United States.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Phillis Wheatley: boston, west africa, john wheatley, susanna wheatley, george whitefield, to his excellency general washington, poems on various subjects, neoclassical verse. Philip Freneau: new york city, monmouth county, the rising glory of america, james madison, hugh henry brackenridge, the wild honey suckle, the indian burying ground, the british prison ship.
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Phillis Wheatley: Spirituality, Wonder, Peace. Philip Freneau: Tenderness, Sorrow, Despair.
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