Character guide

Unknown Narrator

major

Also known as mine, your

This voice opens the collection by addressing Maecenas directly, confessing that the same ardors that fired Virgil and Terence burn in her soul but die fault'ring on her tongue. She is at once humble before the great poets and audacious in claiming a laurel from their patron's head. That tension between self-doubt and soaring ambition shapes every hymn, elegy, and address that follows.

Niobe

supporting

Also known as Thy

Niobe stands in the collection as the mythic figure of a parent undone by loss, her grief so total it becomes stone. The poems return to her when consolation must reckon with sorrow that refuses easy comfort, as in elegies where parents are told not to deplore a child's death. Her presence gives the volume's religious consolation something hard to push against.

Mneme

supporting

Also known as Hers, thy, thee, Thy, hers

Mneme appears as the sacred spring where contemplation finds its source and where heavenly music makes the arches ring. She is both the faculty that preserves what is loved and the muse who lends the poet her voice when grief threatens to overwhelm devotion. In elegies and hymns alike, she is the quiet force that turns raw loss into ordered song.

Goliath of Gath

supporting

Also known as Gath, Goliath, Myself

Goliath of Gath is the towering threat whose boasts and curses fill the battlefield until David's sling silences him. His defeat is not merely military but moral: fury quenched by death, the load of armour stripped and displayed as proof of divine favour. He matters because his fall establishes the pattern the collection returns to — the small, the young, the unlikely chosen to topple the proud.

David

supporting

Also known as Young David

David enters the poem as an unknown youth, so great in prowess though in years so young that Saul must ask whose son he is. He answers humbly — the son of Jesse, of a small tribe and small city — yet he carries Goliath's head and receives the royal bride. His rise from obscurity to the king's table mirrors the collection's recurring hope that the lowly may be raised.

Phillis Wheatley

major

Also known as Phillis

Wheatley is the enslaved Boston poet whose master's letter testifies that she read the most difficult parts of Scripture within sixteen months of arrival and taught herself to write. She inscribes her book to a countess, addresses Maecenas, and asks the Muses why partial grace gave fame to one alone of Afric's sable race. Her double position — humble servant and audacious claimant of the laurel — is the engine of the whole volume.

Susanna

minor

Also known as thy, Thou

A virtuous woman falsely accused, from the biblical apocrypha.

Britannia

supporting

Also known as thy, Thy

Britannia is the personified island the poet sails toward, a motherland whose fame and beauty are invoked with longing and reverence. Yet the same voice warns against her 'fatal train' of temptation, asking heaven to shield the soul from her 'enchanting strain.' That double pull — devotion and danger — shapes the poems of departure and return, where leaving New-England's fields for her shore becomes both a joy and a spiritual test.

Alphenor

minor

One of Niobe's sons slain by Apollo in the mythological poem.

George Whitefield

supporting

Also known as the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, Whitefield

Whitefield is the era's most famous preacher, a man whose sermons 'in unequal'd accents flow'd' and whose prayers wrestled with God by night. His death leaves Americans, orphans, and the Countess of Huntingdon to grieve a figure they called more than a father. The elegy turns loss into vision, imagining him sailing to Zion while charging the living to take up the Saviour he offered to the wretched, the starving, and the Africans alike.

Leonard

minor

A character mentioned in a poem, possibly a friend or relative.

Aurora

minor

The Roman goddess of dawn, personified in hymns.

Bosrah

minor

A biblical place personified in a poem about divine judgment.

Ismenus

minor

One of Niobe's sons killed by Apollo.

Thomas Amory

minor

Also known as the Rev. Dr. Thomas Amory, Amory

A clergyman whose sermons are praised in a poem.

Fancy

minor

A personification of imagination and creativity.

Apollo

supporting

Also known as Mr. Richard Wilson Apollo, Wilson, Divine Apollo

Apollo presides over the classical pantheon Wheatley calls on in her opening address to Maecenas, the patron whose favor she courts. He embodies the impossible standard — Homer, Virgil, Terence — against which she measures her own 'fault'ring music,' and his partial grace to 'one alone of Afric's sable race' becomes a quiet, pointed question. His presence frames the book's central tension: a poet asking whether the Muses will answer a voice like hers.

Jesus

minor

Central figure of Christianity, referenced in religious poems.

Phoebus

minor

Also known as Phoebus blaz’d, gay Phoebus, thy

Another name for Apollo, the sun god.

Latona

minor

Also known as Divine Latona

Mother of Apollo and Diana, invoked in the Niobe poem.

Damon

minor

Also known as thy

A pastoral character, possibly a shepherd or lover.

Maro

minor

A reference to the Roman poet Virgil, used as a poetic figure.

Sol

minor

The Roman sun god, personified in hymns.

Aeolus

minor

God of the winds, invoked in a poem about a voyage.

Samuel Marshall

minor

Also known as Dr. Samuel Marshall, Marshall

A clergyman whose death is commemorated in a poem.

Afric

minor

Personification of Africa, referenced in poems about the poet's origins.

Sewell

minor

Also known as the Rev. Dr. Sewell

A clergyman whose death is mourned in a poem.

Israel

minor

Also known as Affrighted Israel

The nation of Israel, personified in biblical poems.

Jove

minor

Also known as Dodonean Jove, the thund’ring Jove, immortal Jove

The Roman king of the gods, invoked in classical allusions.

Amphion

minor

Also known as great Amphion

A mythical musician who built Thebes with his lyre.

Cadmus

minor

Founder of Thebes, mentioned in the Niobe poem.

Eliab

minor

Also known as thy, thee

David's older brother who appears in the Goliath narrative.

Jesse

minor

Also known as The son of Jesse I

Father of David, mentioned in the Goliath poem.

Philistia

minor

The land of the Philistines, personified in the Goliath poem.