Lecture VIII--Romance and the Romantics

     

     

    Cabanel: The Death of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, 1870, oil on canvas, Musée
    d'Orsay at Paris. Images from CGFA Gallery

     

    Unknown Writer of the Week:  Margaret Fuller

    Margaret Fuller 
    Summer On The Lakes, in 1843 
    An Electronic Edition

    Yet thought of day makes dream of night: 
    She is not worthy of the knight, 
    The inmost altar burns not bright. 

    If loneliness thou canst not bear, 
    Cannot the dragon's venom dare, 
    Of the pure need thou shouldst despair. 

    Now sadder that lone maiden sighs, 
    Far bitterer tears profane her eyes, 
    Crushed in the dust her heart's flower lies. 


    On the bank of Silver Lake we saw an Indian encampment. A shower threatened us, but we resolved to try if we could not visit it before it came on. We crossed a wide field on foot, and found them amid the trees on a Shelving bank; just as we reached them the rain began to fall in torrents, with frequent thunder claps, and we had to take refuge in their lodges. These were very small, being for temporary use, and we crowded the occupants much, among whom were several sick, on the damp ground, or with only a ragged mat between them and it. But they showed all the gentle courtesy which marks them towards the stranger, who stands in any need; though it was obvious that the visit, which inconvenienced them, could only have been caused by the most impertinent curiosity, they made us as comfortable as their extreme poverty permitted. They seemed to think we would not like to touch them: a sick girl in the lodge where I was, persisted in
    moving so as to give me the dry place; a woman with the sweet melancholy eye of the race, kept
    off the children and wet dogs from even the hem of my garment. 

    Without, their fires smouldered, and black kettles, hung over them on sticks, smoked and seethed in the rain. An old theatrical looking Indian stood with arms folded, looking up to the heavens, from which the rain dashed and the thunder reverberated; his air was French-Roman, that is, more romanesque than Roman. The Indian ponies, much excited, kept careering through the wood, around the encampment, and now and then halting suddenly, would thrust in their intelligent, though amazed, phizzes, as if to ask their masters when this awful pother would cease, and then, after a moment, rush and trample off again. 

    At last we got off, well wetted, but with a picturesque scene for memory.

    The Life of Margaret Fuller

    778 Timothy Fuller born, Margaret Fuller's father. 
    1789 Margarett Crane born, Margaret Fuller's mother. 
    1801 Timothy Fuller graduates from Harvard. 
    1803 Ralph Waldo Emerson born. Died 1882. 
    1804 (1804 - 1806) Lewis and Clark Expedition. 
    1809 Marriage of Timothy Fuller and Margarett Crane. 
    1810 (May 23) Sarah Margaret Fuller born at Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. 
    1812 Birth of Julia Adelaide Fuller. 
    1814 Death of Julia Adelaide Fuller. Age 18 months. 
    1815 Birth of Eugene Fuller. 
    1817 Timothy Fuller begins serving the first of four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. 
    Birth of William Henry Fuller. 
    Henry David Thoreau born. Died 1862. 
    1818 Fuller meets Ellen Kilshaw, the "first friend" that she describes in "Autobiographical Sketch." 
    1821 Attends Dr. John Park's school in Boston. 
    1822 Birth of Arthur Buckminster Fuller 
    1823 Begins attending Miss Prescott's Young Ladies' Seminary in Groton, Massachusetts. 
    1824 Birth of Richard Frederick Fuller 
    1825 Timothy Fuller retires from Congress. Margaret Fuller returns to Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
    1826 Birth of James Lloyd Fuller. 
    1828 (May 23) Edward Breck Fuller born on Margaret Fuller's eighteenth birthday. 
    1833 Moves with her family to Groton, Massachusetts. Teaches the younger children of the family: Arthur, Ellen, Richard, Lloyd. Translates Goethe's Torquato Tasso. 
    1834 (November 27) Publishes her first article, "In Defense of Brutus," in the Boston Daily Advertiser & Patriot. 
    1835 (July) Visits Niagara Falls. 
    (October 1) Father, Timothy Fuller, dies from cholera. Margaret cancels her European trip with John and Eliza Farrar. 
    1836 (July) First visit to Emerson in Concord. 
    (Winter) Begins teaching at Bronson Alcott's Temple School in Boston. Gives private language lessons. 
    1837 Emerson delivers "American Scholar" address to Harvard graduating class.  (April) Leaves Boston for a respite in Groton. 
    (June) Moves to Providence, Rhode Island, and begins teaching at the Green Street School. 
    1838 (December) Leaves position at Green Street School and moves to Boston. Gives private language lessons. 
    1839 (May or June) Publishes Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe. Continues working on the life of Goethe. 
    (April) Moves with her mother and younger brothers to Jamaica Plain, near Boston. 
    (October) Nominated as the editor of the Transcendental periodical, the Dial. 
    (November) Begins the first series of Conversations for adult women. The topic is Greek mythology. 
    1840 (July) The first issue of the Dial is published. Edits the Dial from July 1840 until July 1842. 
    (November) Begins series of Conversations on the fine arts.  1841 Publishes essay, "Goethe" in the Dial. 
    (March - May) Gives a series of Conversations on mythology. It is attended by Caroline Dall [Healey] whose notes are later published as Margaret and Her Friends. 
    (May) Visits Concord and Brook Farm.  (September) Sister Ellen marries William Ellery Channing. 
    (November) Begins a series of Conversations on ethics  
    1842 Publishes "Bettine Brentano and Her Friend Günderode" in the Dial. 
    Publishes translation of Correspondence of Fraulein Günderode with Bettine von Arnim. 
    (March) Resigns as editor of the Dial. 
    1843 (May) Finishes "The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men, Woman versus Women"
    and sends it off to the Dial for publication. It was later developed into Woman in the Nineteenth Century. (1845) 
    (May 25) Begins the journey commemorated in Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. With the financial assistance of Sarah Shaw and James Freeman Clarke, Fuller travels with Sarah Ann Clark and her brother James Freeman Clark. Visits
    Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois.  
    (July) "The Great Lawsuit" published. (September 19) Returns from journey to Boston. 
    (Winter) Begins a series of Conversations on education. 
    1844 (April) Concludes final series of Conversations. (June) Publishes Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. 
    (November) Begins residing in Horace Greeley's household in New York. Begins literary editorship at the New-York Daily Tribune. (November) Visits women prisoners at Sing Sing.  (December 7) Publishes her first critical piece in the New-York Daily Tribune. (December) Meets and falls in love with James Nathan. Her letters to him are
    published as Love-Letters of Margaret Fuller 1845-1846 (1903) 1845 (February) Meets James Nathan and falls in love. (February) Publishes Woman in the Nineteenth Century. 
    (June) James Nathan leaves for Europe. (July 4) Thoreau goes to Walden Pond. 
    1846 Resigns literary editorship at New-York Daily Tribune and takes a position as foreign correspondent with the same paper. (August) Sails for Europe with Marcus and Rebecca Spring. (August) Publishes Papers on Literature and Art. Travels in England, Scotland, and France. Meets Mazzini, Carlyle and Wordsworth in England. 
    1847 (February) Leaves France for Italy. 
    (April-May) Visits Rome and meets Giovanni Angelo Ossoli. 
    (June-October) Leaves France and travels in northern Italy and Switzerland, (October) Begins residing in Rome. 
    1848 (May) Begins residing in Rieti, near Rome, and makes visits to Rome. 
    (September 5) Her son, Angelo Ossoli, is born. (November) Pellegrino Rossi assassinated and Pope Pius IX flees Rome. 
    1849 (February) Roman Republic proclaimed. (April) Siege of Rome by France begins. French invade Rome and restore Pope to power. (April) Begins working in a hospital in Rome while the Revolution peaks. 
    (June-July) Lives in Rome. (July) Returns to Rieti after the Revolution fails. (September) Visits the Browinings in Florence. (November) Moves with Ossoli and son to Florence. (Winter or Spring 1850) Marries Ossoli. 
    1850 (February 13) Publishes her last dispatch in the New-York Daily Tribune. 
    (May 17) Sails with family on the Elizabeth for New York. (July 19) Elizabeth is grounded on a sandbar. Fuller dies with husband and son only a few hundred yards from Fire Island. 
    1852 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli published. Compiled and edited by Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke. 
    1855 Arthur B. Fuller edits and publishes Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition and Duties of Woman Includes articles, extracts of letters, and an edited version of Woman in the Nineteenth Century 


    Detail retrenchment

    Two weeks ago we looked at Mary Shelley and Frankenstein.  One of the Issues then was that of child death - something that will continue to influence the writing of women and the situation of women through the 20th Century.  I was able to find some statistics that are surely of interest.  These child mortality statistics at least give us an idea of the kind of dangers that might have been in place in the past centuries.

    Most of the statistics are from this century, but by looking at birth mortalities in less-developed nations, we can get an idea of what the differences might be--

    Infant Mortality Rates in 1900

    Infant Mortality and Death Rates - Selected Countries

    Overall Country Rates - 1950/1990

    and here is the one that might be easiest for us to understand:

    Los Angeles Statistics for 1900's

    From: C-ap@clari.net (AP / JEAN H. LEE, Associated Press Writer) Keywords: North America
    Organization: Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press (via ClariNet)
    Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:40:01 PST

    UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The world's population -- already more than double what it was in 1950 -- is projected to boom by another 3 billion in the next half-century, with Africa and Asia dwarfing Europe, even with the staggering toll of AIDS, a new U.N. study says.
    Today, there are some 6.1 billion people in the world. By 2050, that figure is anticipated to swell to 9.3 billion -- with nearly nine of every 10 people living in a developing country, one out of six in India alone, according to the study to be released Wednesday by the U.N. Population Division.
    And while AIDS is projected to kill hundreds of millions more in Africa, the number of people in the world's 48 poorest nations, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, is expected to triple in the next 50 years, the study said.
    Meanwhile, dropping birthrates make it imperative for Europe and Japan to rethink their immigration policies and adjust social services to accommodate a shrinking work force and a growing elderly population, said Joseph Chamie, director of the U.N. Population Division.
    ``Some people think the world population problem is over,'' he said. ``No. This is a long-term issue and it's a very complex symphony -- you have some countries declining, you have other countries growing rapidly, and you have some staying the same. When you add those up, you have a very complex world.''
    The projections are a hint of what Chamie calls an upcoming ``new order'' -- an older, larger, poorer world dependent on migration to fill the gap between nations that cannot feed their people and wealthy countries seeking a labor force.
    But Ben Wattenberg, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, cautioned that the study's estimates could be ``potentially misleading.''  The fertility rate -- the average number of children born to a woman during her childbearing years -- is dropping faster and more consistently worldwide than the U.N. report suggests, making it likely that the 2050 population estimate is inflated, he said. ``Their numbers are high -- they should be lower.''
    The report said that taking into account improved economies as well as lower mortality and fertility rates, growth will be rapid in Africa, much of Asia and Latin America. The United States, with a fresh influx of 1 million immigrants a year, will grow to nearly 400 million at mid-century from 283 million today, it said.
    Europe, in contrast, will start seeing a decline as early as 2003 without migration. Ukraine's population is projected to drop nearly by 40 percent by 2050, Russia's by 28 percent, Italy's by a quarter.
    Last year, the 15 European Union nations together recorded a natural population growth -- births minus deaths -- of 343,000. It took India just a week to match that.
    Fifty years ago, Europe claimed 22 percent of the world population, Africa just 8 percent. In 50 years, Africa will have three times as many people as Europe, even though AIDS is anticipated to cut Africa's population growth by 15 percent by 2050.
    ``It's like a mortality avalanche from the HIV/AIDS epidemic,'' Chamie said. ``Despite that, you see Africa going from about 800 million to 2 billion'' by 2050. Without AIDS, that figure would be 300 million higher, Chamie noted. Meanwhile, the industrialized world -- Europe, North American, Japan, Australia and New Zealand -- will face an aging population. A fifth of Europe was age 60 or older in 1998; by 2050, that figure could jump to 37 percent, the report predicted. Fewer workers will be bearing the burden of supporting its many elderly, an economic impact that Paul Hewitt of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said could prove ``catastrophic'' when many of the world's baby boomers begin retiring en masse.
    ``It's probably going to be the biggest crisis of the next 50 years,'' said Hewitt, project director for the center's Global Aging Initiative. ``If we handle it wrong, we could end up with a 1930s-style depression.'' Countries must rethink pension, retirement, trade and immigration, he said.
    ------

    On the Net:
    U.N. Population Division:
    http://www.un.org/esa/population/unpop.htm

    So much for love, romance, and the Birds and the Bees.

    back to the Romantic Movement

    Tonight we are going to do another dance across the Century - this time looking at some women writers who were either Romantics themselves or were influenced by the Romantic Movement.  Many women turned to poetry in these times, and they were probably as good as many of the male writers.  However, their life histories, as we would expect, include the struggle to raise children, the loss of children, care of the family, removal from the world, and a general indifference from the makers of canonical history.

    We will be looking at:

    Some other Romantic Writers

    American Transcendentalism and its Legacy

    Victorian Cousins

    The Toreador by Mary Cassatt (1873)

    We saw the incipient beginnings of the Romantic Movement way back when the name arose, as a way of describing the content and sympathies of the Wandering Minstrels from France and Italy.  For the English, who took to Romance in a quite different way than the French or Germans, Romance was often associated with sunnier climes to the south, where, nevertheless, quite unfortunate things happened.  We saw Romantic sensibility in Aphra Behn, in the early gothic Romances such as those written by Ann Radcliffe, and in the much darker visions of Mary Shelley.  Technically, Jane Austen is in the category of Romantic writers, but we have seen how sensible is her "romantic sensibility."

    But once the Romantic movement got in full swing, it has not really stopped, although it goes in and out of official favor.  As Romanticism blossomed, it came to mean several different things.  It could refer to love, of course - and we have the dramatic evidence of the death of Paolo and Francesca from Dante's Purgatorio (The Divine Comedy) as pictured above.  But it could also mean a penchant, or even worship of "wild" nature.  It could refer to a kind of sentimentality for the past - that is, the Gothic and Medieval periods.  Or, it could be expressed in a fondness for the tender things of life, little puppies, children, the poor, or, say, Indians.  Romanticism tended to favor the impulsive over the considered, the hot over the cool, tragedy over comedy, spirit over body, emotion over reason, and - as we have seen, the picturesque over the ordinary. By the Victorian Era, Romanticism had several faces, one was the kind of domestic sweetness local romantic dreams, the other was the exciting, daring, and often dark side of the romantic impulse - often expressed as "foreign, "  exotic.  

    In this lecture we are going to jump ahead a little.  We will cover the entirety of the 19th Century Romantic Women Writers, of whom there are many!  It is a high romantic crime to cover all of this wonderful writing in such a hurry - but I hope to give you many resources here that will allow you to explore these novelists and poets in more detail.  First off, I recommend the Voice of the Shuttle, Alan Liu's extraordinary collection of literature resources.  This link is to the Romantics.

    The main noted Romantic writers who were women, then, included Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, and Ann Radcliffe, all of whom we have looked at, at least briefly.  The Romantic Movement in England, however, has come to be more associated with the dashing male poets, including Percy Shelley.  Perhaps more widely read these days are William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, and the indomitable Lord Byron.  The "lyric," or poetic voice comes of age in the years between 1803 and 1840 - 1803 being the "moment" of William Wordsworth's

    INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF
    EARLY CHILDHOOD

    THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
    The earth, and every common sight,
    To me did seem
    Apparelled in celestial light,
    The glory and the freshness of a dream.
    It is not now as it hath been of yore;--
    Turn wheresoe'er I may,
    By night or day,
    The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

    And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
    Forebode not any severing of our loves!
    Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
    I only have relinquished one delight
    To live beneath your more habitual sway.
    I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
    Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
    The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
    Is lovely yet;
    The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
    Do take a sober colouring from an eye
    That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
    Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
    Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
    Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
    To me the meanest flower that blows can give
    Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
    (1803-6.)

    This poem, a wonderful example of the lyric voice, informs us in a way, of a few other ideas that we are concerned with in looking at women writers.  Last week we talked about the necessity for authentication.  This drive is seen most clearly in the lyric voice of the Romantic poets - a sense that each person's individual connection with nature and spirituality was a justification in itself.  We also see here the notion that children are gifted with a direct connection with nature that is "educated" out of them as they grow older.  Finally, the ability of nature, herself, to re-establish the connection with wonder and spiritual wholeness will persevere in Romantic writings all along.

    As you would expect, women were especially suited to these sentiments, and were certainly allowed access to the "lyric" voice - and we had many fine Romantic women poets - although they often fall nominally in the Victorian era. It is instructive to note that the role of the "lone poet wandering among the hills" was given more specifically to men, and women Romantic poets were expected to sit in the dooryard, even in those years.  Thus, the limitations of Romanticism tended to keep women's thoughts more focused on home.  But we see the focus still on the innocence of childhood, the beauty of nature, and the sanctity of life itself.  Also, throughout the Romantic era, we see a continuation of the fascination with the gothic and wildly beautiful in poems like The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Coleridge) and Ode to a Nightingale (Keats).


Mary Darby Robinson

THE POOR SINGING DAME

Beneath an old wall, that went round an old castle, 
For many a year, with brown ivy o'erspread; 
A neat little hovel, its lowly roof raising, 
Defied the wild winds that howl'd over its shed: 
The turrets, that frown'd on the poor simple dwelling, 
Were rock'd to and fro, when the tempest would roar, 
And the river, that down the rich valley was swelling, 
Flow'd swiftly beside the green step of its door. 

The summer sun gilded the rushy roof slanting, 
The bright dews bespangled its ivy-bound hedge, 
And above, on the ramparts, the sweet birds were chanting, 
And wild buds thick dappled the clear river's edge, 
When the castle's rich chambers were haunted and dreary, 
The poor little hovel was still and secure; 
And no robber e'er enter'd, nor goblin nor fairy, 
For the splendours of pride had no charms to allure. 

The lord of the castle, a proud surly ruler, 
Oft heard the low dwelling with sweet music ring, 
For the old dame that lived in the little hut cheerly, 
Would sit at her wheel, and would merrily sing: 
When with revels the castle's great hall was resounding, 
The old dame was sleeping, not dreaming of fear; 
And when over the mountains the huntsmen were bounding 
She would open her lattice, their clamours to hear. 

To the merry-toned horn she would dance on the threshold, 
And louder, and louder repeat her old song: 
And when winter its mantle of frost was displaying, 
She caroll'd, undaunted, the bare woods among: 
She would gather dry fern, ever happy and singing, 
With her cake of brown bread, and her jug of brown beer, 
And would smile when she heard the great castle-bell ringing, 
Inviting the proud to their prodigal cheer. 

Thus she lived, ever patient and ever contented, 
Till envy the lord of the castle possess'd, 
For he hated that poverty should be so cheerful, 
While care could the fav'rites of fortune molest; 
He sent his bold yeomen with threats to prevent her, 
And still would she carol her sweet roundelay; 
At last, an old steward relentless he sent her-- 
Who bore her, all trembling, to prison away! 

Three weeks did she languish, then died broken-hearted, 
Poor dame! how the death-bell did mournfully sound! 
And along the green path six young bachelors bore her, 
And laid her for ever beneath the cold ground! 
And the primroses pale 'mid the long grass were growing, 
The bright dews of twilight bespangled her grave, 
And morn heard the breezes of summer soft blowing, 
To bid the fresh flowerets in sympathy wave. 

The lord of the castle, from that fatal moment 
When poor singing Mary was laid in her grave, 50
Each night was surrounded by screech-owls appalling, 
Which o'er the black turrets their pinions would wave! 
On the ramparts that frown'd on the river, swift flowing, 
They hover'd, still hooting a terrible song, 
When his windows would rattle, the winter blast blowing, 
They would shriek like a ghost, the dark alleys among! 

Wherever he wander'd they followed him crying; 
At dawnlight, at eve, still they haunted his way! 
When the moon shone across the wide common they hooted, 
Nor quitted his path till the blazing of day. 
His bones began wasting, his flesh was decaying, 
And he hung his proud head, and he perish'd with shame; 
And the tomb of rich marble, no soft tear displaying, 
O'ershadows the grave of the poor singing dame! 

Hemans, Felicia Dorothea Browne, 1793-1835

The following pieces are the genuine productions of a young lady, written between the age of eight and thirteen years. By this
information it is not intended to arrogate to them that favour to which they may perhaps have no intrinsic claim; but if it should
appear that they possess a degree of merit sufficient to obtain the approbation of the reader, the circumstances under which they have been produced may give them that additional interest to which they are most truly intitled. They owe their publication to the kind and condescending favour of the RIGHT HONOURABLE VISCOUNTESS KIRKWALL, to the regard and partialities of friendship, and to the hope that they may in some degree be rendered subservient to the earnest wish of the young authoress for intellectual improvement. 

Original list of subscribers printed two columns per page.

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES. 
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER. 
HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS SOPHIA OF GLOUCESTER. 
HER Grace the Duchess of St. Albans 
Rt. Hon. the Earl of Altamont 
Mrs. Arkwright, Willersley, Derbyshire 
Miss Arkwright, ditto 
Mrs. P. Arkwright, Rock-House, ditto, 2 copies 
Mrs. R. Arkwright, Normanton, Leicestershire 
Mrs. R. Arkwright, Bakewell, Derbyshire 
The Rev. Robert Anwyll 
Mrs. Richard Allison, Liverpool, 2 copies 
Miss Ashton, Woolton 
Charles Aubert, Esq. London 
Mrs. Aubert, ditto 
George Atkins, Esq. Cork 
Mrs. Aspinall, Liverpool 
Mrs. William Aspinall, ditto 
Miss Helen Aspinall, Edge-Hill, ditto 
Mrs. Abney, King's Newton, Derby 
John Allen, Esq. Waterford 
YOUTH.

OH ! halcyon Youth, delightful hours,
When not a cloud of sorrow lowers;
When every moment wings its flight,
To waft new joy and new delight.
Kind, unsuspecting, and sincere,
Youth knows no pang, no jealous fear;
And sprightly Health, with cherub face,
Enlivens ev'ry opening grace;
And laughing Pleasure hovers near,
And tranquil Peace to youth is dear.
If Sorrow heave the little breast,
There plaintive sorrow cannot rest;
For swiftly flies the transient pain,
And Pleasure re-assumes her reign.
The tale the sons of woe impart,
Vibrates upon the youthful heart;
The soul is open to belief,
And Pity flies to soften grief.
Hope with sweet expressive eye,
Mirth, and gay Felicity,
Fancy in her lively dress,
Pity who delights to bless;
Innocence, and candid Truth,
These and more attend on Youth.

There is something about the Romantic poet's voice that grows cloying to our taste today!  The lyric voice tends to address itself to something, like Ah, Youth! or Oh Hills! and so forth (a conceit of the genre) -and we find it somewhat comic today, since so much very bad Romantic poetry has been written in the meantime.  I once heard probably the worst first line quoted as "Ah, heavenly inoculation, descend!"

Nonetheless, Felicia Browne Hemans' life history and poetry are very typical of a "middle class" woman in the Romantic era.

1793: Felicia Browne Hemans born in Liverpool to George Browne, wine merchant, and Felicity Wagner Browne, daughter of consul for Austrian Tuscany. War with France. Financial panic "ruins" the Brownes.

1808 Felicia Browne (Hemans) publishes two books at age 14.    Poems dedicated to the Prince of Wales and placed by William Roscoe whose liberty odes it echoes in a study of the girl-laureate ("Genius," "Pity"). Her brothers in the Peninsular campaign, Browne writes England and Spain; or, Valour and Patriotism celebrating Britain's re-engagement with republican values in over 300 heroic couplets. With Robert Southey's The Chronicle of the Cid, an early entry in Peninsular literature forthcoming by Byron, Scott, Landor, etc.

1812 13 Mar P.B. Shelley continues a correspondence with Hemans, admiring her poetry, contesting her interest in "fatal sanguinary war." Mrs. Browne finds Shelley a dangerous "flatterer" and discontinues the correspondence.

Felicia Browne (Hemans) publishes The Domestic Affections which probes the expense of domestic poetics in a context of world war ("the storms of Discord roll / . . .from pole to pole"). She marries Captain Hemans, veteran of Peninsular and Low Countries campaigns. The Hemanses soon move in with her mother.

1816 Felicia Hemans, The Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy, a triumph on the return of Italian treasures from the Louvre: its second edition begins her ten-year association with John Murray. Poet remains in Wales, using male connections (brother Thomas, Captain Hemans, Reginald Heber, H.H. Milman, Charles Hamilton) for relations with publishers. Byron reads and admires Restoration as he leaves Diodati for Italy.

1817 Hemans, Modern Greece (anon.), topographical poem laments yet embraces history's violent displacements, as of the Elgin marbles.

Turner's Burning of the Houses of Parliament

1818 Hemans, translations from Camoens, and other Poets, with Original Poetry.

1818 April Hemans, "Stanzas on the Death of Princess  Charlotte," Blackwood's.

1819 Captain Hemans moves to Italy leaving five boys with Felicia; two join him in the 1830s. Hemans, Tales, and Historic Scenes in Verse, including 3-canto Oriental tale The Abencerrage and episodes from Sismondi's Histoire des r‚publiques Italiennes du moyen ƒge (1809-1818). Hemans, Wallace's Invocation to
Bruce, Blackwood's, winner nation-wide competition.

1820 Hemans, The Skeptic, attacking Byron and Shelley, and Stanzas to the Memory of the Late King. Reginald Heber critiques Hemans' "Superstition and Revelation" fragment as unorthodox.  Oct. Omnibus review of Hemans by John Taylor Coleridge in Quarterly Review and, like Blackwood's (1817, 1820), welcomes her as an antidote to Byron.

1821 Hemans, Dartmoor, Royal Society of Literature, 50-guinea prize; on conversion of P.O.W. camp to school for prisoners's children. Welsh Melodies, Power; music by John Parry; for Eisteddfod by Cymrodorian Society.

1823 Hemans, The Vespers of Palermo and The Siege of Valencia. . .Other Poems (plays, Spenserians, lyric cycles). Hemans begins publishing in the New Monthly Magazine: 171 appearances by 1835. 12 Dec. Hemans' The Vespers of Palermo staged at Covent Garden with Kemble, Young, Yates, Bartley, and

1825 Hemans, The Forest Sanctuary (includes "Lays of Many Lands" series). Other narratives of this period unfinished or suppressed (The Tale of the Secret Tribunal). Roscoe, "A Letter to the Rev. William Lisle Bowles." Maria Jane Jewsbury, Phantasmagoria.

1826 Hemans resumes publishing in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, to total 75 appearances by 1835.
 Andrews Norton begins publishing Hemans' works in Boston. Reserves profits for her, offers her a
magazine editorship. Aug. "Casabianca" first appears, in Monthly Magazine or British Register.

1827 Hemans, Hymns on the Works of Nature, Boston (later London, Dublin as Hymns for Childhood).
Hemans' mother dies 11 Jan. Jan. and April In North American Review, Andrews Norton and George Bancroft review Hemans' work, Norton as "the voice of religious homage" vs. "expensive religious establishment."

1828 Hemans, Records of Woman, Edinburgh/London/Boston. Travels to Scotland, receives M.J. Jewsbury in Wales,
and moves to Wavertree, Liverpool, living first with Rose Lawrence. Later associates, Jewsbury and Henry
Chorley.

1829 Hemans' The Forest Sanctuary republished (Blackwood's, Cadell) with new lyrics (including "Casabianca").
Maria Jane Jewsbury dedicates Lays of Leisure Hours to Hemans. 
Francis Jeffrey reviews Hemans in Edinburgh Review as a female Wordsworth who, with "tenderness," writes of
"that subtle and mysterious analogy which exists between the physical and the moral world."

1831 Feb. In the Athenaeum, Jewsbury anonymously proposes
Hemans as "speaker" of "a feminine literary house of commons." April Hemans removes to Dublin and environs. Her
brother George is soon commissioner of police in Ireland. Her connections are the Graveses (whose 20-c.
scion is Robert Graves) and the family of Archbishop Whately. Through Wordsworth, she places her confidante
R.P. Graves as curate at Bowness.

Poetical Works of Hemans, Heber and Pollok published in Philadelphia, forerunner of the Poetical Works of Mrs
Felicia Hemans reprinted 24[+] times in Philadelphia and Boston 1835-1867: one of several popular collected
and selected Hemans in Britain and America.

1833 Oct. M.J. Jewsbury (Fletcher) dies of cholera in India.

1834 Hemans, National Lyrics, and Songs for music (Dublin, London, etc.). Scenes and Hymns of Life, with other religious poems (Edinburgh, etc.).

1835 15 May Felicia Hemans dies in Dublin, of tuberculosis (?) complicated by scarlet fever (?). All sons schooled or placed, one in a government clerkship at the behest of Sir Robert Peel: Charles Isidore Hemans becomes eccentric guide to Roman Campagna, George Willoughby a civil engineer in Ireland, Henry William a British consul at Buffalo and contributor to
the North American Review, etc.

July Hemans' last periodical appearance is "Sabbath Sonnet" in Blackwood's. 

We can see in Felicia Hemans' life a pattern, now, that is not unlike that of a male writer in some ways.  She writes steadily, through all life crises, she produces a stunning amount of work, she receives much critical attention, and she is even paid and wins prizes.  Nonetheless, she has been consigned to the secret places where women are put to rest, or rot. Notable, too, is the fact that she raised her children alone, placed all of them in "good livings" - and died, again, relatively young.


Continue with Lecture VIII.

 

Literature 45  - Women in Literature :  

Marjorie C. Luesebrink, MFA


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