On Imagination

The invocation of “On Imagination” reads like the accomplished work typical of the Neoclassical poetry then defining British literature. After invoking the muse of the imagination, the poet’s celebration of the imagination’s ability to craft wondrous objects humbles her. She will attempt to create a work that will reflect the glories of the “Fancy” (Line 9). She is ready to respond to the call of the imagination: “Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies / Till some lov’d object strikes her wand’ring eyes” (Line 9-10). Her wandering eye has been duly struck.

There is no disputing the achievement of “On Imagination” as a powerful statement on the energy of the imagination. However, this achievement—the elegant lines, the careful rhymes, the learned allusions of mythology, the lofty diction—would likely not be the same if the poem had been written by, for example, a British literature student at Oxford who had studied all the defining works of the Neoclassical Era and was seeking to pay homage to that movement. The poem’s achievement is enhanced—or undercut, depending on the reading—by factoring in that the poet was a self-taught African enslaved as a child and now owned by a white family in the toney neighborhoods of colonial Boston.