| Felicia Hemans | |
| Birth Date: | 1793 9, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Liverpool, Lancashire, England |
| Occupation: | Poet |
| Nationality: | Welsh, English, British |
| Period: | Late Romantic |
| Genre: | Poetry |
Felicia Dorothea Hemans (25 September 1793 – 16 May 1835) was an English poet (who identified as Welsh by adoption).[1] [2] Regarded as the leading female poet of her day, Hemans was immensely popular during her lifetime in both England and the United States, and was second only to Lord Byron in terms of sales.[3]
Two of her opening lines, "The boy stood on the burning deck"[4] and "The stately homes of England", have acquired classic status.[5]
Felicia Dorothea Browne was the daughter of George Browne, who worked for his father-in-law's wine importing business and succeeded him as Tuscan and imperial consul in Liverpool, and Felicity, daughter of Benedict Paul Wagner (1718–1806), wine importer at 9 Wolstenholme Square, Liverpool and Venetian consul for that city.[6] Hemans was the fourth of six children (three boys and three girls) to survive infancy. Her sister Harriet collaborated musically with Hemans and later edited her complete works (7 vols. with memoir, 1839). George Browne's business soon brought the family to Denbighshire in North Wales, where she spent her youth. They lived in a cottage within the grounds of Gwrych Castle near Abergele[7] when Felicia was seven years old until she was sixteen[8] and in 1809 moved to Bronwylfa, St. Asaph (Flintshire). She later called Wales "Land of my childhood, my home and my dead".[9] Lydia Sigourney says of her education:
The nature of the education of Mrs. Hemans, was favourable to the development of her genius. A wide range of classical and poetical studies, with the acquisition of several languages, supplied both pleasant aliment and needful discipline. She required not the excitement of a more public system of culture,—for the never-resting love of knowledge was her school master.[10]Hemans was proficient in Welsh, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.[11] Her sister Harriet remarked that "One of her earliest tastes was a passion for Shakspeare, which she read, as her choicest recreation, at six years old."[12]
Hemans’ first poems, dedicated to the Prince of Wales, were published in Liverpool in 1808, when she was fourteen,[13] arousing the interest of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who briefly corresponded with her.[14] [15] She quickly followed them up with "England and Spain" (1808), politically addressing the Peninsular War,[16] and "The Domestic Affections" (1812). In contrast to its title, which Hemans did not choose, many of the book's poems explore issues of patriotism and war.[17]
Hemans‘ major collections, including The Forest Sanctuary (1825), Records of Woman and Songs of the Affections (1830) were highly popular.[18] Hemans published many of her pieces in magazines first, enabling her to remain in the public eye and adapt to her audience, as well as earning additional income.[19] Many of her pieces were used for schoolroom recitations and collections were presented as school prizes, especially to female readers.[20]
Her last books, published in 1834, were Scenes and Hymns of Life and National Lyrics, and Songs for Music. It has been suggested that her late religious poetry, like her early political poetry, marks her entry into an area of dispute that was both public and male-dominated.[21]
At the time of her death in 1835, Hemans was a well-known literary figure, highly regarded by contemporaries, and with a popular following in the United States and the United Kingdom.[22] Both Hemans and Wordsworth were identified with ideas of cultural domesticity that shaped the Victorian era.[23] [24] [25]
On 30 July 1812, Felicia Browne married Captain Alfred Hemans, an Irish army officer some years older than herself. The marriage took her away from Wales, to Daventry in Northamptonshire until 1814. During their first six years of marriage, Hemans gave birth to five sons, including G. W. Hemans and Charles Isidore Hemans, and then the couple separated. Marriage had not, however, prevented her from continuing her literary career. Several volumes of poetry were published by the respected firm of John Murray in the period after 1816, beginning with The Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy (1816) and Modern Greece (1817). The collection Tales and Historic Scenes came out in 1819, the year of the Hemans' separation.[26]
One of the reasons why Hemans was able to write prolifically as a single parent, was that many of the domestic duties of running a household were taken over by her mother, with whom she and her children lived. It was a financial necessity for Hemans to write to support herself, her mother, and the children.[27] [28] On 11 January 1827, Hemans' mother died, leading to the breaking up of the household. Hemans sent her two oldest sons to Rome to join their father, and moved to a suburb of Liverpool with her younger sons.[29]
From 1831, Hemans lived in Dublin, which was recommended as healthier than Liverpool.[29] Despite the change, she continued to experience poor health. She died on 16 May 1835. Sources suggest that she had suffered from an attack of scarlet fever, followed by a "consumptive decline",[29] or by "dropsy".[30] She may have experienced rheumatic fever and heart problems as well as circulatory problems.[31] She was buried in St. Ann's Church, Dawson Street, Dublin.[29] William Wordsworth mentioned her in a memorial stanza,[32] and Letitia Elizabeth Landon,[33] Lydia Huntley Sigourney,[34] and Walter Savage Landor composed memorial verses in her honour.[29] Lydia Huntley Sigourney also wrote a memoir to preface an American edition of Hemans' collected works.[35]
Hemans's works appeared in nineteen individual books during her lifetime, publishing first with John Murray and later with Blackwoods.[27] After her death in 1835, her works were republished widely, usually as collections of individual lyrics and not the longer, annotated works and integrated series that made up her books. For surviving female poets, such as Caroline Norton,[36] Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Lydia Sigourney and Frances Harper,[37] the French Amable Tastu[38] and German Annette von Droste-Hülshoff,[39] she was a valued model.[29] To many readers she offered a woman's voice confiding a woman's trials; to others, a lyricism consonant with Victorian sentimentality and patriotism.[40] [41] In her most successful book, Records of Woman (1828), she chronicles the lives of women, both famous and anonymous.[42] Portraying examples of heroism, rebellion, and resistance, she connects womanhood with "affection's might".[43] Among the works she valued most were the unfinished "Superstition and Revelation" and the pamphlet "The Sceptic," which sought an Anglicanism more attuned to world religions and women's experiences.[19]
Hemans' poem "The Homes of England" (1827) is the origin of the phrase "stately home", referring to an English country house.[44]
Despite her illustrious admirers her stature as a serious poet gradually declined, partly due to her success in the literary marketplace. Her poetry was considered morally exemplary, and was often assigned to schoolchildren; as a result, Hemans came to be seen as more a poet for children rather than a serious author. Schoolchildren in the U.S. were still being taught "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England" in the middle of the 20th century.[45] [46] But by the 21st century, "The Stately Homes of England" refers to Noël Coward's parody, not to the once-famous poem it parodied.[47] [48]
With the rise in women's studies, Hemans' critical reputation has been re-examined.[49] [50] Her work has resumed a role in standard anthologies and in classrooms and seminars and literary studies, especially in the US. Anthologised poems include "The Image in Lava," "Evening Prayer at a Girls' School," "I Dream of All Things Free", "Night-Blowing Flowers", "Properzia Rossi", "A Spirit's Return", "The Bride of the Greek Isle", "The Wife of Asdrubal", "The Widow of Crescentius", "The Last Song of Sappho", "Corinne at the Capitol" and "The Coronation of Inez De Castro".
See main article: article and Casabianca (poem). First published in August 1826 the poem Casabianca (also known as The Boy stood on the Burning Deck)[51] by Hemans depicts Captain Luc-Julien-Joseph Casabianca and his 12-year-old son, Giocante, who both perished aboard the ship Orient during the Battle of the Nile.[52] The poem was very popular from the 1850s on and was memorized in elementary schools for literary practice. Other poetic figures such as Elizabeth Bishop[53] and Samuel Butler allude to the poem in their own works.[54]
"'Speak, Father!' once again he cried / 'If I may yet be gone! / And'—but the booming shots replied / And fast the flames rolled on."
The poem is sung in ballad form (abab) and consists of a boy asking his father whether he had fulfilled his duties, as the ship continues to burn until the magazine catches fire. Hemans adds the following note to the poem: 'Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the Admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the Battle of the Nile) after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned, and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.'[55]
Martin Gardner included Casabianca in his collection of ''Best Remembered Poems'', along with a childhood parody.[56] Michael R. Turner included it among the "improving gems" of his 1967 ''Parlour Poetry''.[57] Others wrote modern-day parodies that were much more upbeat and consisted of boys stuffing their faces with peanuts and bread.[58] These contrast sharply with the dramatic image created in Hemans' Casabianca.
Her second book, England and Spain, or, Valour and Patriotism, was published in 1808 and was a narrative poem honouring her brother and his military service in the Peninsular War. The poem called for an end to the tyranny of Napoleon Bonaparte and for a long-lasting peace. Multiple references to Albion, an older name for Great Britain, emphasize Hemans's patriotism.[59]
"For this thy noble sons have spread alarms, and bade the zones resound with BRITAIN's arms!"[60]
See also: Suicide in literature. Several of Hemans's characters take their own lives rather than suffer the social, political and personal consequences of their compromised situations. At Hemans's time, women writers were often torn between a choice of home or the pursuit of a literary career.[61] Hemans herself was able to balance both roles without much public ridicule, but left hints of discontent through the themes of feminine death in her writing.[62] The suicides of women in Hemans's poetry dwell on the same social issue that was confronted both culturally and personally during her life: the choice of caged domestication or freedom of thought and expression.
"The Bride of the Greek Isle", "The Sicilian Captive", "The Last Song of Sappho" and "Indian Woman's Death Song" are some of the most notable of Hemans' works involving women's suicides. Each poem portrays a heroine who is untimely torn from her home by a masculine force – such as pirates, Vikings, and unrequited lovers – and forced to make the decision to accept her new confines or command control over the situation. None of the heroines are complacent with the tragedies that befall them, and the women ultimately take their own lives in either a final grasp for power and expression or a means to escape victimisation.[62]
