Athesis submetted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of degre "Licence en langue et Littérature anglaises"

RESUME

This work set out to examine the contribution of Phillis Wheatley in the emancipation of Black Americans. It intends to place her at the geginning of the Antislavery movement, as well as the Feminist movement. It equally intends to show the status the deserves in the memories of African Americans and their friends.

The first chapter attempts to show Wheatley's reaction against racism, the ideology that sustainded slavery, the system that ill-treated her race. She uses different ways to expose her bitterness towards racism. Though she does it cleverly in most cases, she sometimes lets her anger manifest itself through some poems and her conduct before her masters. The second chapter attempts to show Wheatley's position towards the status of women in colonial America. She hides behind the conventional use of classicism of the period in order to empower a woman. Thelast chapter shows Wheatley's place in the works of African American writers. It equally asserts that she is the launcher of two literary movements ; namely the African American literary movement, and the African American women's literary movement.

This work is buill on the premise that white people changed the way they considered Blacks in general, and black women in particular thanks to Phillis Wheatley's work. Written against the background of New Historicism and Feminist theories, it settles on the conclusion that her poetry and her action of writing certify Phillis Wheatley as the early advocate of black people's rights in America during slavery.