Which of the following groups in 1772 would most likely have sympathized with the sentiments of the poem above?

journal article

Phillis Wheatley, Samuel Hopkins, and the Rise of Disinterested Benevolence

Early American Literature

Vol. 54, No. 2 (2019)

, pp. 413-444 (32 pages)

Published By: University of North Carolina Press

//www.jstor.org/stable/26741179

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Abstract

This article reevaluates Phillis Wheatley as a theological thinker whose evangelical conception of disinterestedness informed her evolving position on slavery. By reading Wheatley's poetry and letters alongside her correspondent Samuel Hopkins's sermons and antislavery treatises, I argue that Wheatley's shift toward writing against slavery after 1770 reflects a similar change in her theology: that she, like Hopkins, stopped discussing slavery as an "advantageous sin" as she formulated an evangelical ethical theory of disinterestedness that anticipated Hopkins's philosophy of "disinterested benevolence." In contrast to the civic republican conception of disinterestedness, which argues that persons can only promote the general public's interests after they have set aside private passions, evangelical disinterestedness requires persons to radically abandon their individual will through conversion and work on God's behalf to alleviate others'—and particularly marginalized figures'—suffering. Departing from the scholarship that argues that she was apathetic about her own enslaved condition, this article posits that because evangelical disinterestedness allowed Wheatley to present herself as a devout subject who cared for others' needs more than her own, she was able to base her post-1770 critique of slavery entirely on accounts of other African persons' suffering.

Journal Information

The journal of the Modern Language Association's American Literature Division I, Early American Literature publishes the finest work of scholars examining American literature from its inception through the early national period, about 1830. Founded in 1965, EAL invites work treating Native American traditional expressions, colonial Ibero-American literature from North America, colonial American Francophone writings, Dutch colonial, and German American colonial literature as well as writings in English from British America and the US. Published three times a year, each issue typically includes four or five articles, the same number of book reviews, and a review essay. Occasionally editions of previously unpublished works appear.

Publisher Information

The University of North Carolina Press is the oldest university press in the South and one of the oldest in the country. Founded in 1922, the Press is the creation of that same distinguished group of educators and civic leaders who were instrumental in transforming the University of North Carolina from a struggling college with a few associated professional schools into a major university. The purpose of the Press, as stated in its charter, is "to promote generally, by publishing deserving works, the advancement of the arts and sciences and the development of literature." The Press achieved this goal early on, and the excellence of its publishing program has been recognized for more than eight decades by scholars throughout the world. UNC Press is also the proud publisher for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg, Virginia.  More information can be found about the Omohundro Institute and its books at the Institute's website.  For a full listing of Institute books on Books@JSTOR, click here. UNC Press publishes journals in a variety of fields including Early American Literature, education, southern studies, and more.  Many of our journal issues are also available as ebooks.  UNC Press publishes over 100 new books annually, in a variety of disciplines, in a variety of formats, both print and electronic. To learn more about our books and journals programs, please visit us at our website.

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