31 pages • 1 hour read
Phillis WheatleyTo His Excellency General Washington
Phillis WheatleyFiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1773A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Reading Comprehension Answers
1. C. The association of olive and (especially) laurel wreaths with victory dates back to Ancient Greece, where they were awarded to Olympic champions.
2. B. “Gallic” means “French,” and the only answer that pitted American and French forces against one another at the time Wheatley describes (the mid-18th century) was the French and Indian War.
3. D. Wheatley depicts the American cause as both embodying freedom and divinely sanctioned; the colonies are “[t]he land of freedom’s heaven-defended race” (Line 32).
4. America (or what were then the American colonies): “Columbia” (after Christopher Columbus) is a personification of the aspiring nation.
5. Strong winds and stormy seas. Eolus was the Greek god of the wind; the poem depicts him disturbing the skies with “tempest and a night of storms” while the “[a]stonish’d ocean feels the wild uproar” (Lines 16, 17).
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By Phillis Wheatley
