18 pages • 36 minutes read
To S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works
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Literary Devices
Form and Meter
Wheatley uses a rigid structure in this lyric poem, though she does not use a traditional poetic form. Wheatley's writing has a musical quality due to its meter and rhyme, which aligns with her Neoclassical tendencies and her admiration of poets like John Milton.
The first 12 lines are an example of ekphrasis, or a deeply emotional response to a piece of art. Her praise and glorification of S.M. in both emotional and intellectual terms suggest that the poem is an ode, though the poem lacks the strict structural breaks of the form. Finally, the turn toward death marks the end of the poem as an elegy lamenting the death of creative expression.
Like much Neoclassical poetry, Wheatley uses heroic couplets—rhyming couplets written in iambic pentameter (five sets of stressed and unstressed syllables) that end on a stressed syllable. By using this form, Wheatley elevates her subject to the status of a hero, while emphasizing her deep admiration for his artistic skills.
While the form of this poem mirrors the conventions used by poets she studied, like Alexander Pope and John Dryden, Wheatley deviates from strict form by including near or slant rhymes, subtle disruptions of the expected Plus, gain access to 8,650+ more expert-written Study Guides. Including features:
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Related Titles
By Phillis Wheatley
