Stenke, Katarina ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4006-3826 (2023) “Suspend the sigh, dear Sir”: subverting gender in Phillis Wheatley Peters’ elegies. In: English Literature Seminar Series, Keele University, 9th October, 2023, School of Humanities and English Literature, Keele University. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

This paper will explore the gender politics of voice and address in the elegies of Gambian-born poet Phillis Wheatley Peters (c. 1753-1784). The first African-born woman to publish a poetry collection in English, Phillis Wheatley Peters is a major figure in Early-American and eighteenth-century British literary history, and her eloquent yet politic protests against the injustices of chattel slavery are key texts in the African-American canon. As such, the elegies she addressed to prominent figures within her Boston community and beyond have received ample attention from modern critics, with compelling excavations of their rhetorics, occasions, and contexts. However, scholarship on Wheatley Peters has yet to connect her elegiac strategies to the subversions of gendered voice and address which often transform her condolences into critiques. After briefly defining ‘voice’ and ‘address’ within the context of Wheatley Peters’ oeuvre, this talk will introduce and discuss the most interesting of her gender-subversive, critical elegies.

Item Type:	Conference or Conference Paper (Lecture)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Phillis Wheatley Peters, elegy, eighteenth-century poetry, politics of voice, subverting identity formations, gender, race
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics P Language and Literature > PL Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania P Language and Literature > PS American literature
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences > School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Last Modified:	01 Jun 2026 16:34
URI:	https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/53638

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