Wheatley was named by and after her Boston enslaver, a distinction readers should never ignore despite her being the first African American woman to publish a book in the colonial US. Her work,
evocative of learning, love, loss, dignity, memory, was informed, sophisticated and charged, however subtly, by her social, political, philosophical and psychological milieu. Shields (English
and classicism in American culture, Illinois State), who edited Wheatley's collected works, wisely takes an interdisciplinary approach in this critique, explaining why Wheatley was considered
"intellectually impoverished" for nearly 200 years, only to be recognized and considered canonical in the last 25. Annotation 穢2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
