Felicia Hemans (September 25, 1793 - 1835), was an English poetess. source: http://www. ... Location within England Coordinates: , Sovereign state United Kingdom Constituent country England Region North West England Ceremonial county Historic county Merseyside Lancashire Admin HQ Liverpool City Centre Founded 1207 City Status 1880 Government  - Type Metropolitan borough, City  - Governing body Liverpool City Council Area  - Borough & City 43. ... Motto (French) God and my right Anthem No official anthem - the United Kingdom anthem God Save the Queen is commonly used England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto)1 Government Constitutional monarchy  -  Monarch Queen Elizabeth II... Dublin city centre at night WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: , Statistics Province: Leinster County: Dáil Éireann: Dublin Central, Dublin North Central, Dublin North East, Dublin North West, Dublin South Central, Dublin South East European Parliament: Dublin Dialling Code: 01, +353 1 Postal District(s): D1-24, D6W Area: 114. ... For the album by the Kaiser Chiefs see Employment (album) Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... In English usage, nationality is the legal relationship between a person and a country. ... is the 268th day of the year (269th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1793 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... | Come and take it, slogan of the Texas Revolution 1835 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...

Early life and works

She was born Felicia Dorothea Browne in Liverpool, 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 near Abergele and 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 fifteen, 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. Location within England Coordinates: , Sovereign state United Kingdom Constituent country England Region North West England Ceremonial county Historic county Merseyside Lancashire Admin HQ Liverpool City Centre Founded 1207 City Status 1880 Government  - Type Metropolitan borough, City  - Governing body Liverpool City Council Area  - Borough & City 43. ... Borders of the Republic of Venice in 1796 Capital Venice Language(s) Venetian, Latin Religion Roman Catholic Government Republic Doge  - 1789–97 Ludovico Manin History  - Established 697  - Treaty of Zara June 27, 1358  - Treaty of Leoben April 17, 1797 * Traditionally, the establishment of the Republic is dated to 697. ... A consulate (or consular office) is a form of diplomatic mission in charge of matters related to individual people and businesses, in other words issues outside inter-governmental diplomacy. ... Denbighshire (Welsh: Sir Ddinbych) is a county in North Wales. ... This article is about the country. ... St. ... Flintshire (Welsh Sir y Fflint) is a county in northern Wales. ... George IV (George Augustus Frederick) (12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Hanover from 29 January 1820 until his death. ... Year 1808 (MDCCCVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... -1... Holy Cross Church Daventry is a market town in Northamptonshire, England with a population of 22,367 (2001 census). ... Northamptonshire (abbreviated Northants or Nhants) is a landlocked county in central England with a population of 629,676 (2001 census). ...

During their first six years of marriage Felicia gave birth to five sons, 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.

Subjects and influences

Mr Hemans went to Italy, and Felicia remained in Wales at St. Asaph, in the house called Bronwylfa where she had grown up. It was here that she had composed an elegy to Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, daughter and sole heir of the Prince of Wales, who had died in childbirth in 1817. When the Prince eventually became King George IV, she wrote a poem in memory of his late father, George III. Written alongside her eldest brother's military and diplomatic career under Tory politicians, these poems yet speak for women's interests; and Hemans's extensive use of historical, European, and global settings reflected the Whig leanings of such fellow writers and influences as Byron, the Shelleys, and Madame de Staël and her circle. The proprieties of the English marketplace allowed readers to turn their gaze from Hemans's many renderings of historical duplicity and atrocity, a number involving maternity and religion or race (Suliote mothers in Albania, a Muslim child and mother in India, an American Indian woman and her child). Engraving from a portrait of Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, in the National Portrait Gallery, attributed to Sir Thomas Lawrence Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales (January 7, 1796 – November 6, 1817) was the only child of the ill-fated marriage between George IV (at that time the Prince of Wales... 1817 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 1738 – 29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until 1 January 1801, and thereafter of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death. ...

Hemans was prolific in the years that followed her husband's departure, producing plays as well as poetry. In 1819, she won a competition for a poem on a Scottish historical theme, out of a huge number of entries. This gained her the appreciation of the Scottish public. Her play, "The Vespers of Palermo", its heroine miscast and its ending rewriten, failed at Covent Garden in 1823 but was performed more successfully at Edinburgh in 1824, at the instigation of Joanna Baillie and Sir Walter Scott, literary friends of hers. Her intellectual associations included the American Unitarians William Ellery Channing and Andrews Norton, the latter publishing her work in America and inviting her to edit a magazine in Boston. From 1823, she wrote regularly for the "New Monthly Magazine," then "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine" and the verse annuals that entered the market in the mid-1820s. This article is about the country. ... Covent Garden is a district in central London and within the easterly bounds of the City of Westminster. ... , Edinburgh (() pronounced ; Scottish Gaelic: ) is the capital of Scotland and its second largest city. ... Joanna Baillie (1762-1851), poetess and dramatist. ... Raeburns portrait of Sir Walter Scott in 1822. ...

Another collection of poems, Welsh Melodies, included translations of Welsh poems, evidence that Felicia Hemans had a certain amount of knowledge of the language. The poems were really intended as song lyrics, and dealt with historical subjects and folklore. "The meeting of the bards" was written for the London Eisteddfod of 1822, at which some of her songs were also performed. In 1825, her brother, in whose house she was living, got married, causing her to move with her children to Rhyllon, another house only a short distance away. Two years later, however, following the death of her mother, she left Wales for good, moving first to the outskirts of Liverpool, where she joined an active cultural circle involving the Roscoes, the Chorleys, and other cosmopolitan contacts, and later visiting Scott at Abbotsford and Edinburgh, where William Blackwood published most of her later books, and the Lake District, where she stayed with Wordsworth at Rydal Mount. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 – April 23, 1850) was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads. ... Rydal Mount was William Wordsworths home from 1813 to 1850. ...

Later life

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 of Great Britain and Ireland. When she died of dropsy, Wordsworth and Walter Savage Landor composed memorial verses in her honour. Dublin city centre at night WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: , Statistics Province: Leinster County: Dáil Éireann: Dublin Central, Dublin North Central, Dublin North East, Dublin North West, Dublin South Central, Dublin South East European Parliament: Dublin Dialling Code: 01, +353 1 Postal District(s): D1-24, D6W Area: 114. ... Motto Dieu et mon droit(French) God and my right1 Anthem God Save the King (Queen) Territory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Capital London Language(s) English² Government Constitutional monarchy Monarch  - 1801–1820 George III  - 1820–1830 George IV  - 1830–1837 William IV  - 1837–1901... Walter Savage Landor (January 30, 1775 - September 17, 1864), English writer, eldest son of Walter Landor and his wife Elizabeth Savage, was born at Warwick. ...

Legacy

Felicia Hemans' works appeared in nineteen individual books during her lifetime. After her death in 1835 they 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 poetesses, like Britons Caroline Norton and Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Americans Lydia Sigourney and Frances Harper, the French Anable Tastu and German Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, and others, she was a valued model, or (for Elizabeth Barrett Browning) a troubling predecessor; and for male poets including Tennyson and Longfellow, an influence less acknowledged. To many readers she offered a woman's voice confiding a woman's trials; to others a lyricism apparently consonant with Victorian chauvinism and sentimentality. 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. In her most successful book, "Records of Woman" (1828), she chronicles the lives of women, both famous and anonymous. Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (Sheridan) (1808 - 1877), grand-daughter of Richard Brinsley Sarah, married in 1827 the Hon. ... Letitia Elizabeth Landon (August 14, 1802 - October 15, 1838), English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L. E. L. than as Miss Landon or Mrs Maclean, was descended from an old Herefordshire family, and was born in Chelsea, London. ... Lydia Huntley Sigourney née Lydia Howard Huntley (September 1, 1791 - June 10, 1865) was an extremely popular American poet during the early and mid 19th century. ... Frances Harper Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (24 September 1825 - 22 February 1911) born to free parents in Baltimore, Maryland, was an African-American abolitionist and poet. ... Annette von Droste-Hülshoff on the Twenty Deutsche Mark banknote House of Annette von Droste-Hülshoff in Meersburg (Germany). ... Elizabeth Barrett Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning (March 6, 1806 – June 29, 1861) was a member of the Barrett family and one of the most respected poets of the Victorian era. ... Tennyson may refer to: A placename: In Australia: Tennyson, Queensland Tennyson railway station, Brisbane Tennyson, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney Tennyson Point, New South Wales a suburb of Sydney Tennyson, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide Tennyson, Victoria In the United States of America: Tennyson, Wisconsin Tennyson, Indiana... Baron Longfellow , also named Andy Kim was an artist from the 60s. ...

Despite her illustrious admirers, if in keeping with her success on the popular marketplace, her stature as a serious poet gradually declined. A jocular reference by Saki in The Toys of Peace suggests simultaneously that she was a household word and that Saki did not take her seriously. Schoolchildren in the U. S. were still being taught The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England ("The breaking waves dashed high/On a stern and rock-bound coast...") in the middle of the 20th century. But by the 21st century, The Stately Homes of England refers to Noel Coward's parody, not to the once-famous poem it parodied, and Felicia Hemans is now remembered popularly for her poem, "Casabianca", and in fact for one line only: Saki (December 18, 1870 – November 14, 1916) was the pen name of British author Hector Hugh Munro, whose witty and sometimes macabre stories satirised Edwardian society and culture. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... The 21st century is the present century of the Anno Domini (common) era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ... Sir Noël Peirce Coward (December 16, 1899 – March 26, 1973) was an Britain/British actor, playwright, and composer of popular music. ... See Casabianca (disambiguation) for other meanings Casabianca is a poem written in the early 19th century by British poet Felicia Hemans (who was, before about 1950, generally credited as Mrs. ...

"The boy stood on the burning deck".

However, Hemans has resumed a role in standard anthologies and in classrooms and seminars and literary studies, especially in the U. S. It is likely that further poems will be familiar to new readers, such as "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," and "Corinne at the Capitol."

Further reading

• "Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature," 3rd ed., 4: 351-60 (2000)
• "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography," 26: 274-77 (2004)
• "Felicia Hemans: Selected Poems, Letters, Reception Materials," ed. Susan J. Wolfson (2000)
• "Felicia Hemans: Selected Poems, Prose, and Letters," ed. Gary Kelly (2002)
• Emma Mason, "Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century" (2006)
• "Felicia Hemans: Reimagining Poetry in the Nineteenth Century," ed. Nanora Sweet & Julie Melnyk (2001)
• Paula Feldman, "The Poet and the Profits: Felicia Hemans and the Literary Marketplace," "Keats-Shelley Journal" 46 (1996): 148-76
• Peter W. Trinder, "Mrs Hemans," U Wales Press (1984)

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Felicia Hemans

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Author:Felicia Hemans

• Felicia Hemans at The Victorian Web
• Felicia Hemans at A Celebration of Women Writers
• [1] Her life in Liverpool and how she is forgotten in her home city.
• Complete scanned text of the first edition of Modern Greece (1817).