The works of Felicia Hemans have received
increased attention in recent years as scholars pay closer attention to
the verse written by women during the nineteenth century. Her early poems
were powerfully influenced by Byron;
he called her The Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy (1816)"a
good poem - very." Her anthology Hymns on the Works of Nature, for the
Use of Children (1827) was in widespread circulation well into the
twentieth century. She raised five sons on her own, supporting herself
by writing, after her husband left her in 1818. She visited Sir Walter
Scott in Scotland ("The Funeral Day of Sir Walter Scott" and "A Farewell
to Abbotsford") and Wordsworth
in the Lake District ("To Wordsworth"). Her poetry is informed by a wide
ranging understand of the natural world (The Sky-lark," "The Nightingale"),
an awareness of the details of the era
of discovery during which she lived ("The Better Land" below), and
powerful sensitivity to the condition of women's lives ("To the New-Born"
and "Hymn by the Sick-bed of a Mother").
|
| A Celebration of Women Writers (UPenn) |
.
