Visions of the Past: Felicia Hemans & William Wordsworth
I will here attempt to give an idea of the links between Felicia Hemans and William Wordsworth. I will begin with a brief biography of Hemans, followed by a look at the relationship between Hemans and Wordsworth. I will end with a short comparison of Hemans' poem "To My Own Portrait" and "Tintern Abbey."
Hemans' Biography [1]
Born Felicia Dorothea Browne in Liverpool in 1793 and raised in North Wales, Hemans was largely home-schooled by her mother. Considered a child prodigy by her family, she loved Shakespeare, was well read in several languages, and is said to have been able to quote passages from literature at length after only one reading. Felicia also studied music and drawing, and was later to include several of her sketches as frontispieces for her publications. She began writing as early as the age of eight, and her first volume, Poems was published by subscription in 1808 when she was only 14. The collection was met with some harsh reviews, which, although upsetting to the young poet, did not lessen her passion for writing. In fact, the same year saw the publication of England and Spain, or Valour and Patriotism. This volume was likely inspired by the service of her elder brothers, who both entered the army at an early age, and served in the Peninsular Campaigns in Spain. As her sister Anne Browne was later to write in her posthumous biography of Hemans, "trumpets and banners now floated through her dreams in which birds and flowers had once reigned paramount." [2]
Felicia's father left his wife and children in 1810 to move to Upper Canada, effectively ending all contact with his family. By this time Felicia was engaged in correspondence with Captain Alfre...
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... V. 1. Hemans' Life and Works, 1839. P. 26
4. Hemans, Felicia. Quoted by Anne Browne. "Memoir of Mrs. Hemans." V. 1. Hemans' Life and Works, 1839. P. 251
5. Byron, Lord. From a letter to the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, September 17th, 1820. Byron: A Self-Portrait, Letters and Diaries 1798-1824. V. II. London: John Murray, 1950.
6. Jeffrey, Lord. Edinburgh Review. October, 1829.
7. The information for this section is taken from two sources:
Wolfson, Susan & Peter Manning. The Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. V. 2A. New York: Longman, 1999.
Kennedy, Deborah. "Hemans, Wordsworth, and the 'Literary Lady.'" Victorian Poetry. 35:3 Fall 1997. 267-286.
8. Quoted in Kennedy, p. 268.
9. Quoted in Kennedy, p. 270.
10. Kennedy, p. 270.
11. Quoted in Kennedy, p. 273.
12. Longman Anthology, p. 736.
"Morton, Thomas - Introduction." Literary Criticism (1400-1800). Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg. Vol. 72. Gale Cengage, 2002. eNotes.com. 2006. 21 Feb, 2011
Thatcher, Laurel. A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. 1st. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. 1-142 . Print.
Wordsworth, William. “The Thorn.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature: Vol. 2B. Ed. David Damrosch, et al. New York: Longman, 1999. 319-325.
2. Weir Alison, Eleanor of Aquitane; a Life ; Ballantine Publishing, 1999, New York. Pgs 1-37
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
Scott- Kilvert, Ian. “George Gordon, Lord Byron.” British Writers. Vol. IV. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1981. Print.
Howells, W.D. “Editha.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter et al. Concise ed. Boston: Houghton, 2004. 1445-1454. Print.
In this Bibliography written by Susanne Woods, the author analyzes the life of Amelia Lanyer and how her life story contributes to the many poems she wrote. Lanyer is considered to be the first women to ever publish collection
Storey, Mark. The Problem of Poetry in the Romantic Period. New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc, 2000.
Woodring, Carl. Politics in English romantic poetry . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970. Print.
Damrosch, David. Longman anthology of British literature. 2nd ed. Vol. A. New York: Longman, 2004. Print.
The "Autobiography". Abrams 1601 - 1604. Mulock, Dinah. Maria. A Woman's Thoughts About Women.
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979.
Longman, (2000). The Longman Anthology of British Literature, vol. B. Damrosch, D. (ed.). NY, LA: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
Longman. The Longman Anthology of British Literature, vol. B. Damrosch, D. (ed.). NY, LA: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 2000.