Felicia Hemans: Selected Poems, Prose and Letters

by Felicia Hemans, Gary Kelly, Susan J. Wolfson (Editor)

Felicia Hemans was the most widely read woman poet in the nineteenth-century English-speaking world. Broadview’s edition shows why she was one of the few standard poets to be found in middle-class homes on both sides of the Atlantic, despite being routinely disparaged as a “merely” feminine poet. Included here is poetry representative of her entire career, from often-anthologized works, such as “The Homes of England” and “Casabianca,” to several long poems in their entirety, such as “The Forest Sanctuary.” Also included are selections of her prose and letters, a comprehensive introduction, and selections of views and reviews showing her changing and controversial place in culture into the twentieth century. All selections are edited, annotated, and introduced.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Romanticism, 19th Century

498 pages, Paperback

First published December 18, 2000

About the author

Felicia Dorothea Browne Hemans was an English poet. Two of her opening lines, The boy stood on the burning deck and The stately homes of England, have acquired classic status.

Felicia was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, a granddaughter of the Venetian consul in that city. Her father's business soon brought the family to Denbighshire in North Wales, where she spent her youth. They made their home at Gwrych near Abergele and later at Bronwylfa, St. Asaph (Flintshire), and it is clear that she came to regard herself as Welsh by adoption, later referring to Wales as "Land of my childhood, my home and my dead". Her first poems, dedicated to the Prince of Wales, were published in Liverpool in 1808, when she was only fourteen, arousing the interest of no less a person than Percy Bysshe Shelley, who briefly corresponded with her. She quickly followed them up with "England and Spain" [1808] and "The domestic affections", published in 1812, the year of her marriage to 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, Felicia gave birth to five sons, including Charles Isidore Hemans, and then the couple separated. Marriage had not, however, prevented her from continuing her literary career, with several volumes of poetry being 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). "Tales and Historic Scenes" was the collection which came out in 1819, the year of their separation.

From 1831 onwards, she lived in Dublin, where her younger brother had settled, and her poetic output continued. Her major collections, including The Forest Sanctuary (1825), Records of Woman and Songs of the Affections (1830) were immensely popular, especially with female readers. Her last books, sacred and profane, are the substantive Scenes and Hymns of Life and National Lyrics, and Songs for Music. She was by now a well-known literary figure, highly regarded by contemporaries such as Wordsworth, and with a popular following in the United States and the United Kingdom. When she died of dropsy, Wordsworth and Walter Savage Landor composed memorial verses in her honour. She is buried in St. Ann's Church, Dawson Street.

Reviews

[Valeddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conflicted about this one. On the one hand there are immensely well-written passages, such as the one about Napoleon in 'The Restoration of Works to Italy', giving him an immense sense of power, but not in a glorifying way, especially as it aptly, and smoothly transitions into discussion of the resultantly fallen Italian soldiers in his wake. On the other hand, it isn't all like this, and can hammer the same points home far too many times.

[Kayla Greer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bye Felicia (kidding! it was good)

[Teshamae · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book of poems by an author whose name no one knows today. But in her time, she was the most well-known poetess in England - more popular than William Wordsworth! While her writing appears to fit the conventions that bound women writers at the time, a closer look will reveal much that advocates for greater rights for women.

[Ebookwormy1]

Casabianca is Carp-500

[Christin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am all about the recovery of feminist poets, but I really think her work is inferior to LEL and EBB. Too wordy and lacking in the lyricism of the Big 6 Male Romantics.