Questions

1. What question does the speaker ask in the opening six lines? Try phrasing them as a statement. How does doing so change the tone?

   Question

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   Questions: - What question does the speaker ask in the opening six lines? Try phrasing them as a statement. How does doing so change the tone?
2. What does the speaker mean by “deathless glories” (l. 8)? What phrase that follows in the next few lines reemphasizes the idea?

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   Questions: - What does the speaker mean by “deathless glories” (l. 8)? What phrase that follows in the next few lines reemphasizes the idea?
3. In the first stanza, what are the two types of happiness the speaker urges Scipio Moorhead to aspire to?

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   Questions: - In the first stanza, what are the two types of happiness the speaker urges Scipio Moorhead to aspire to?
4. How is imagination depicted in this poem? What images and descriptions does Phillis Wheatley use to convey its power?

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   Questions: - How is imagination depicted in this poem? What images and descriptions does Phillis Wheatley use to convey its power?
5. Who is the “gentle muse” (l. 33) the speaker addresses?

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   Questions: - Who is the “gentle muse” (l. 33) the speaker addresses?
6. The second stanza is filled with images of light and dark, sun and shade. How do these images contribute to the ideas Wheatley expresses? What subtext might she be suggesting to her audience, the painter, through these images?

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   Questions: - The second stanza is filled with images of light and dark, sun and shade. How do these images contribute to the ideas Wheatley expresses? What subtext might she be suggesting to her audience, the painter, through these images?
7. Wheatley’s readers would be familiar with her classical references. Not just ornamentation, however, these add to the authority Wheatley claims for her speaker. Specifically, what purpose(s) do these allusions serve?

   Question

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   Questions: - Wheatley’s readers would be familiar with her classical references. Not just ornamentation, however, these add to the authority Wheatley claims for her speaker. Specifically, what purpose(s) do these allusions serve?
8. How does the rhetorical situation of speaker to audience—that is, slave to slave, artist to artist—affect the tone of the poem? Does the intimacy of this relationship bring readers of the poem closer to or distance them from the emotional power of the poem?

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Questions: - How does the rhetorical situation of speaker to audience—that is, slave to slave, artist to artist—affect the tone of the poem? Does the intimacy of this relationship bring readers of the poem closer to or distance them from the emotional power of the poem?