Although we have learned a good deal in recent years about Phillis Wheatley's life and literary career, we have rarely attempted to dis cuss her poetry as poetry. 1 As America's first important black poet, Phillis Wheatley has been treated less as an artist and more as a curi osity. For instance, right at the outset, American responses to her poems remained tied to racial debate. When her first and only book of poetry—Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral—appeared in 1773, Abolitionists rushed to herald her artistic efforts as a symbol of deserved equality for the Negro; whereas pro-slavery critics poohpoohed her poems as objects beneath their contempt. 2 This non-aesthetic approach to Phillis Wheatley continues in our own time. Her art is still a locus for political controversy, but the terms of the argu ment have shifted. In the 1970s, some feel that Phillis Wheatley has evinced a genuine concern for her race in her poetry; whereas others believe that the slave poet had a low opinion of her fellow bonds men. 3

Whenever her poetry has been discussed as poetry, a" Romantic" bias has determined her critical reputation. Even in the twentieth century, criticism of her poetry has been shaped by prejudices inher ited from the Romantic period. To listen to her modern critics," neoclassicism" was the bete noire of her brief poetic career. Saunders Red ding talks of the" chill... of Pope's neo-classicism upon her," and MA Richmond complains that" neo-classicism" was responsible for