Final answer:
Phillis Wheatley's inability to publish a second volume of poetry could have been due to several factors, including legal restrictions on slaves, censorship by her owners, or lack of interest from publishers given she did not openly criticize slavery in her work.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question why Phillis Wheatley wasn't able to publish a second volume of poetry cannot be answered definitively without more context. However, based on historical accounts, potential reasons could include legal restrictions on slaves, difficulty in gaining financial support, and the censors imposed by her master and society on the content of her works.
Scholastic analyses suggest that while Wheatley did enjoy a certain degree of control over her publications, there were still significant constraints. Slave owners and white society had a vested interest in controlling the narrative and ensuring that slavery was not openly criticized or threatened by the literate slave community.
Phillis Wheatley's unique position allowed her some degree of authorial control, but it’s clear that she, along with other enslaved people, faced several obstacles when it came to literacy and publishing.
These obstacles included censorship, the supreme authority of the master over whether a slave could publish, exhaustive labor reducing the time for writing, and potential backlash or punishment for attempting to subvert the institution of slavery through literature.
Additionally, because Wheatley did not openly protest slavery in her published works, she faced criticism from both her contemporaries and modern scholars, which might have impacted the interest from publishers in a second volume.