On Imagination

Phillis Wheatley’s “On Imagination” is a celebration of the energy of the imagination. The poet reflects on the power of the fancy that, in moments of inexplicable inspiration, frees the poet’s intellect and heart to conjure gorgeous artifacts. Published in 1773, the poem—given its chiseled lines, lofty diction, allusions to mythology, and the subtle music of its rhymes—reflects the elegance of British Neoclassical poetry, most notably the works of John Milton and Alexander Pope.

That reading is challenged, however, given the realities of the poet herself. “On Imagination” is the work of an African American brought to the US in chains, a woman who taught herself poetry and who lived all but the last six years of her short life enslaved to a prominent family in Boston. Considering this, the poem, with its perception of the power of the imagination to take the poet into a gorgeous mindscape far from the sorrows of the real-time world, becomes less a celebration of poetic inspiration and more a psychological study of how the mind adjusts to being held captive, treated like a commodity, and forced to live in a harsh, foreign world. After all, freedom means one thing to a poet but quite another to someone enslaved.

Content Warning: This guide discusses enslavement and mentions miscarriage and death of an infant.

Poet Biography

In 1761, enslavers conducting raids along the West African coast (modern-day Senegal and Gambia) kidnapped a young girl and most of her family. The child was transported across the Atlantic to the port of Boston, where a wealthy family purchased her. The family’s doctor, using bone and teeth density, estimated the child to be seven.

As was the custom, the girl was given the family’s surname, Wheatley, and was given the first name Phillis, the name of the ship on which she arrived. The Wheatleys grew fond of the quiet, reserved girl and taught her how to read and write, gave her lessons in Latin and Greek, and allowed her the use of their considerable family library. The precocious girl delighted in reading the classics from antiquity as well as the Bible and the magisterial poetry of John Milton. She published her first poem at 13, an epic narrative about three men nearly drowning in the open ocean.

Wheatley dreamed of publishing her verse, but no Boston publisher showed interest. Ironically, given the increasing colonial agitation for independence, Wheatley found a publisher and much financial support in London. Her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral appeared in 1773, the first book published by an African American. Some accused Wheatley of having a ghostwriter and said that someone of her standing could never have written such poetry. Wheatley was even brought to court in Boston and forced to swear that she alone wrote the poems. She never found a publisher for a second collection.

With the death of Mrs. Wheatley in 1774, Wheatley was given her freedom by the family. Despite being something of a celebrity, Wheatley struggled to make ends meet. In 1778, she married, but with the Civil War demanding harsh rationings and limited job opportunities because of her race, life was difficult. Wheatley suffered three miscarriages and, despite poor health, also took a backbreaking job as a scullery in a Boston boarding house. In December 1784, at age 31, Wheatley died the during the premature birth of a child; her baby died soon after. It is believed that they were buried together in an unmarked grave in Copp’s Hill cemetery in northern Boston.

Poem text

Thy various works, imperial queen, we see,  

How bright their forms! how deck’d with pomp by thee!  

Thy wond’rous acts in beauteous order stand,

And all attest how potent is thine hand.

From Helicon’s refulgent heights attend,

Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend:  

To tell her glories with a faithful tongue,  

Ye blooming graces, triumph in my song.

Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies,

Till some lov’d object strikes her wand’ring eyes,

Whose silken fetters all the senses bind,

And soft captivity involves the mind.

Imagination! who can sing thy force?

Or who describe the swiftness of thy course

Soaring through air to find the bright abode,

Th’ empyreal palace of the thund’ring God,  

We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,

And leave the rolling universe behind:

From star to star the mental optics rove,  

Measure the skies, and range the realms above.

There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,

Or with new worlds amaze th’ unbounded soul.

Though Winter frowns to Fancy’s raptur’d eyes

The fields may flourish, and gay scenes arise;

The frozen deeps may break their iron bands,

And bid their waters murmur o’er the sands.

Fair Flora may resume her fragrant reign,  

And with her flow’ry riches deck the plain;  

Sylvanus may diffuse his honours round,  

And all the forest may with leaves be crown’d:

Show’rs may descend, and dews their gems disclose,

And nectar sparkle on the blooming rose.

Such is thy pow’r, nor are thine orders vain,

O thou the leader of the mental train:  

In full perfection all thy works are wrought

And thine the sceptre o’er the realms of thought.

Before thy throne the subject-passions bow,  

Of subject-passions sov’reign ruler thou;  

At thy command joy rushes on the heart,

And through the glowing veins the spirits dart.

Fancy might now her silken pinions try

To rise from earth, and sweep th’ expanse on high:

From Tithon’s bed now might Aurora rise,  

Her cheeks all glowing with celestial dies,  

While a pure stream of light o’erflows the skies.

The monarch of the day I might behold,  

And all the mountains tipt with radiant gold,  

But I reluctant leave the pleasing views,  

Which Fancy dresses to delight the Muse;

Winter austere forbids me to aspire,  

And northern tempests damp the rising fire;

They chill the tides of Fancy’s flowing sea,  

Cease then, my song, cease the unequal lay.

Wheatley, Phillis. “On Imagination.” 1773. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The opening three stanzas act as the poem’s invocation, a convention of poetry in which the speaker addresses the inspiration for the poem. The speaker calls on imagination itself, the majesty and power of which are suggested by the poet addressing the imagination as the “imperial queen” (Line 1). In keeping with the image of the imagination as a mighty queen, the poem celebrates the “wond’rous acts” (Line 3) of creativity inspired by her “hand” (Line 4) that produce such gorgeous, “bright […] forms” (Line 2)—not just poems but sculpture, paintings, and music.

In the second stanza, the speaker humbly dares now to ascend to “Helicon’s refulgent heights” (Line 5), a reference to the mountain held sacred by the ancient Greeks as the center of artistic inspiration. This “[attempt]” (Line 6), this poem, seeks to reflect the glory of the imagination. In turn, the poem will reveal, or “tell” (Line 7), the glories of the imagination. Its “blooming graces” (Line 8) will “triumph” (Line 8) in the poem.

In attempting to describe this interaction between the mind and the imagination, the speaker in Stanza 3 describes how her “fancy” darts about the real-time world “here” and “there” (Line 9) until it finds an object that engages it and strikes its “wand’ring eyes” (Line 10). At that moment, the speaker is compelled to write, that “soft captivity” producing a poem.

With the imagination welcomed, Stanza 4 commences the poem’s actual argument. The speaker has found her subject, the imagination. She feels helpless to describe the sheer power of the “Fancy” (Line 9): “Who can sing thy force?” (Line 13). For the speaker, the imagination is freedom. Drawing on the mythology of antiquity, the speaker describes the imagination as a flight on powerful wings (“pinions” [Line 17]) upward to heaven itself (“th’ empyreal palace of the thund’ring God” [Line 16]). The imagination is faster than the wind and capable of compelling the poet far beyond the pull of the earthly, into the stars themselves. Through the imagination, the speaker grasps the cosmos itself: “There in one view we grasp the mighty whole / Or with new world amaze the’ unbounded soul” (Lines 21-22).

Stanza 5 portrays the transformative power of the imagination and its ability to reconstruct reality itself into pleasing forms that entice and engage. Taking the season of winter, the speaker suggests how the imagination can offer a mindscape far from the frozen real-time world. In the mindscape created by the energy of freed imagination, in the deadest days of winter, “fields may flourish, and gay scenes arise” (Line 24). The “iron bands” (Line 25) of winter are shattered. Flowers bloom “with fragrant reign” (Line 27). Trees, represented by the Greek god of the woods Sylvanus, return to green. Gentle showers bring forth the nectar to the “blooming rose” (Line 32).

Stanza 6 celebrates that transformative power. The imagination, the speaker argues, is the “leader of the mental train” (Line 34). The imagination is stronger than the intellect, widely regarded as the faculty that most directs behavior. The imagination’s “sceptre” rules “o’er the realms of thought” (Line 36). Growing exuberant, the speaker addresses the imagination directly. At “thy command,” the speaker exclaims, “joy rushes on the heart” (Line 39).

However, the imagination and its created world—for all its the beauty and vitality—cannot endure. The poem uses the mythological figures of the god Tithonus and his lover Aurora departing after a night of lovemaking. As the dawn, “the pure stream of light” that “o’erflows the skies” (Line 45), ends the magic of the night, so the speaker reluctantly accepts the inevitability of the return to the winter world of reality. “Thy northern tempests,” the speaker says to winter, “damp the rising fire” (Line 51) that is the imagination. Humbly, the speaker ends the poem bidding farewell to the song (the poem we are reading) and to that exhilarating freedom of creativity. The speaker must now return to the world. Poetry is an “unequal lay [or song]” (Line 53); in the end, a poem cannot compete with the stubborn thereness of the real world.