Africa is a prevalent concept throughout the African-American literary tradition, though not a concept whose representations have been uniform.  When comparing the image of Africa portrayed in slave narratives to the image portrayed in the literature of the Harlem Renaissance, a substantial difference is apparent.  The Africa of Phillis Wheatley is not the same as the Africa of Francis E.W. Harper.  The constantly changing relationship between African-Americans and African continent is illustrated by the very different representations of Africa in African-American literature from one generation to the next.  As connections to the continent strengthen or deteriorate over time, African-American's form and represent concepts in different ways.  It is these ever-changing concepts and resulting representations that cause the image of Africa to appear so dynamic in African-American literature.

Concepts are primarily developed in two distinct ways: either drawn from specific instances of personal experience (personal concepts) or conceived entirely in the mind by interpreting the experience of others (interpretive concepts).  The fundamental difference between the two is that a personal concept is forced to reflect back to a previous time that is specific and tangible, while an interpretive concept is free from any connection to a specific time in the past and therefore more abstract.  The resulting representations tend to share this difference; representations of personal concepts will look back to the past while representations of interpretive concepts explore the imagined present or future.

Phillis Wheatley and Francis E.W. Harper are both African-American poets who include concepts of Africa in their writings.  However, these representations are almost complete opposites of each other.  Wheatley identifies Africa as a land already damned by God and connected to a past of sin.  Harper's representation is of Africa as a site for future redemption: a motherland awaiting salvation instead of an area bathed in unredeemable sin.   Such different representations are the result of two very different concepts.  Wheatley has a personal concept of Africa derived from specific instances (her own personal experience in Africa) that forever link Africa with her past, a past she now views as sinful.  Harper lacks any personal experience in Africa, and thus forms an interpretive concept that can freely be applied to a future open to possibility.   

To understand how each poet forms her respective concept, one must first examine her connection to Africa.   Wheatley was born in Africa and lived there until the age of seven or eight.  Therefore, she is writing from a position in which Africa was a reality of her past, a concrete but thoroughly bygone aspect of her life.  Not only does Harper not share this personal experience of living in Africa, but she is also writing nearly seventy years after Wheatley, when ties to Africa have been further severed.  Instead of having a direct association with Africa by having lived there, she has an indirect association by being African-American.  The difference between Wheatley's direct association with Africa and Harper's indirect association plays a vital role in their respective conceptual representations.  Wheatley is bound to a concrete image, that of the Africa in her past.  Harper lacks such a concrete image, freeing her to portray Africa more abstractly. 

This difference of associations manifests itself in the way each poet positions Africa in time.  In Wheatley's representation, Africa is positioned in the past by being mentioned only in the context of her leaving the continent.  The best example of this is the title and first line to the poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America," which she opens by stating "Twas mercy that brought me from my Pagan land" (Wheatley 219).  This illustrates the method Wheatley uses to represent Africa; she alludes to it only by way of her departure.  In doing so Wheatley places Africa firmly in the past as a starting point that is undesirable to return to. The same is definitely not true of Harper.  In Harper's conception, Africa is future area of redemption.  An example is the representation of African presented in her poem "Ethiopia."

"Yes! Ethiopia yet shall stretch

 Her bleeding hands abroad;

Her cry of agony shall reach

The burning throne of God."

       (Harper lines 494)

 

Harper refers to Africa exclusively in future terms; as a continent whose agony has "yet" to be known but whose cries "shall reach the throne of God." The predominant tone of the poem is a vision of the future, an illustration of events yet to happen but destined to occur. These references to future events contrast sharply with Wheatley's exclusive references to the past. This is due to the fact that Wheatley has a personal history with direct connections to Africa and is able to concretely present Africa as being in her past. Harper lacks these connections and therefore can only represent Africa as an imagined future. The context of time that each poet employs in writing about Africa further illuminates the fundamental difference between Wheatley's personal concept of Africa and Harpers interpretive concept; Wheatley's Africa is in the past, Harper's is in the future.   

Africa using the possessive pronoun "my", as in "my Pagan land." Such a designation again reinforces the idea that Wheatley is writing about a personal concept of Africa; it is "hers" by being her birthplace and part of her personal experience.  Harper does not share this relationship to Africa; her association is an indirect one. She refers to Africa using a female personal pronoun, writing "her hands," "her cry."  By referring to Africa in a humanizing way, Harper's representation takes on a more abstract form.  Instead of linking it to herself, she allows Africa to take on a character of its own.  Once again, this speaks to the difference in relationships to the continent; Harper is not directly from Africa, and thus presents Africa as being completely separate from her.  Wheatley refers to Africa only through her own experience.

The best example of how the different concepts of each poet result in different representations is the way each woman writes about the connection between Africa and God Both women firmly believe in some type of relationship between the two, but disagree on the type.  Wheatley displays the relationship as oppositional, a notion that can be supported by returning to her poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America":

"Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land;

Taught my benighted soul to understand

That there's a God, that there's a savior too:

Once I redemption neither sought nor knew."

(Wheatley lines 219)

  

For Wheatley, Africa is an obstacle to redemption to such an extent that is was only through the "mercy" of God that she was able to escape her "Pagan land" and obtain the redemption she "neither sought nor knew" as an African.  In fact, it was her departure from Africa that taught her to understand that "there's a God, that there's a savior too."  There is also the implication that the only thing holding back Africans ("black as Cain") from being "refin'd" and joining "th' angelic train" is the fact that they remain in a "Pagan land" which lacks refinement and redemption.  Thus the title of the poem takes on a whole new significance, for it was "On Being Brought from Africa to America" that Wheatley found herself redeemed.  For Wheatley, the path to salvation diverges away from Africa, and only through leaving the continent can one gain salvation.

Ethiopia:"

"Redeemed from dust and freed from chains, her sons shall lift their eyes;

From cloud-capt hills and verdant plains

Shall shouts of triumph rise.

 

Upon her dark, despairing brow,

Shall play a smile of peace;

For God shall bend unto her wo,

And bid her sorrow cease."

          (Harper lines 494)

 

 

Harper expounds on a future for Africa that has seen it "redeemed from dust and freed from chains."  The "shouts of triumph" come from Africa's "sons," who didn't have to leave to obtain salvation, but instead received it after Ethiopia's "cries of agony" reached "the burning throne of God."    The image of "a smile of peace" on a "dark, despairing brow" is very much an image of personal redemption that symbolizes the redemption of the entire continent.  Harper's representation is one where God's mercy is not directed at the individual leaving Africa but at Africa herself, due to a sorrow so great that it forces God to "bend unto her wo."  Her idea of Africa receiving the direct benefits of God's mercy sharply contrasts Wheatley's idea that God's mercy aids only those who leave Africa

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The different associations and representations presented by Wheatley and Harper lead back to a fundamental difference in concept.  Wheatley's concept of Africa is based on the specific instances of her personal experience and is therefore linked to a reality that existed in the past and that she links to sin and is moving away from.  Harper's concept is based on a notion conceived in her mind but not necessarily linked to reality due to her lack of personal experience. Therefore she is not moving away from her personal past but instead is looking forward to an imagined future that includes redemption for Africa as a whole.  These divergent concepts reflect the varied levels of connection between Africa and African-Americans that is illustrated throughout African-American literature and is the driving force behind the way Africa is represented.

 

 

Works Cited

Harper, Francis E.W.  "Ethiopia." The Norton Anthology of African-American Literature.  Eds. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay.  Second Edition.  New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2004. 494.

Wheatley, Phillis.  "On Being Brought from Africa to America."  The Norton Anthology of African-American Literature. Eds. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay.  Second Edition.  New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2004.  219