Women Dependent on Men's Affection in Hemans

In Corinne at the Capitol, Properzia Rossi, and The Indian Woman's Death Song Felicia Hemans explores the idea of women who are unable to live without the affections of a beloved man. In Corinne at the Capitol,  Corinne is in the midst of what should be a triumphant moment, being honored in the same vein as Petrarch, but yet sadness is already creeping in. The poem ends with the sentiment "Oh! Art thou not / Happy in that glorious lot? - / Happier, happier far than than thou, / With the laurel on thy brow, / She that makes the humblest hearth / Lovely but to one on earth!" The poem states that Corinne's personal success is outweighed by her failure to secure the attentions of the man she loves, and to make the humblest home appealing to him. The consequence of this failure is played out in more depth in Properzia Rossi, where the goal is that "he may yet, / Feeling sad mastery there, perchance regret / Thine unrequited gift." It is taken farthest in "Indian Woman's Death Song"  where the woman spurned by her husband kills not only herslef but her infant daughter to speare her a similar fate. What perplexed me about Hemans' dedication to this topic was its seeming contrast with her life, as a personally successful poet. She achieved the sort of success that Corinne attained but seemingly was more satisfied with her result, given the information in her biography.

Hemans' Possible Disingenuousness

            On the surface, Felicia Hemans appears to be a poet who reinforces nationalist sentiment.  The tone of her poems is often rapturous of England and its inhabitants, in effect strengthening the status quo.  However, I believe that Hemans’ intentions are more nuanced than they first appear.  I believe that she is deliberately calibrating her enthusiasm, so as to exaggerate the merits of the society she lives in.  This could be meant to appease or placate her audience, but it is also possible that Hemans means to mock her country’s values through hyperbole.

            “The Homes of England” exalts the various residences of the country.  The language Hemans uses to describe the English countryside is hyperbolically favorable, for she notes how the homes are at once “stately,” (1) “merry,” (9) and “blessed” (17). However, the most telling sign of Hemans’ ulterior motive is her suggestion of equality between clearly unequal objects.  For example, Hemans venerates both “hut and hall” (34).  The fact that she considers both the homes of the poor and those of the rich to be equivalent is a sign of her exaggeration.  Hemans also describes the home as the place “Where first the child’s glad spirit loves / Its country and its God,” (39-40) suggesting that “God” and “country” also parallel each other. 

            By itself, “The Homes of England” may seem like a sincere poem.  However, when placed in conversation with poems like “Casabianca” it takes on a more sinister quality.  Specifically, the line that denotes the home as the place “Where first the child’s glad spirit loves / Its country and its God” (39-40) is shown to be a statement with negative ramifications in “Casabianca”.  “Casabianca” is about how blind faith in one’s elders and one’s country leads to a child’s death.  The child does not leave his post because his father, a commander, does not order him to.  The child burns to death precisely because of his allegiance.

            “England’s Dead” could be viewed at first as an ode to the many wartime casualties of England.  However, it can also be viewed as a criticism of England’s imperialism.  The dead soldiers of England rest “On Egypt’s burning plains” (9) and on the “Ganges’ banks” (19).  She writes of the ocean, “Even there sleep England’s dead” (48).   The funeral piles of the “rocks” (51) and the seas and shores are their “grave” (52).  Though Hemans’ poem can be viewed as a lament for England’s patriots, it can also be viewed as a criticism of the fact that many of the men did not die in their homeland. The reader is encouraged to find “Where rest not England’s dead” (56), suggesting that England’s imperialism will continue.

on "Properzia Rossi"

I couldn’t tell at first who the poem was addressed to—because the note says she is showing the sculpture to the Roman Knight it seemed the speaker would be addressing him, and at first she seems to as she says “For thee alone” (7), and calls the work a “farewell triumph” (8). She creates the sculpture as an image of herself, one “whose melancholy love/On thee was lavish’d” (14-15) so it seems like she’s addressing the knight. It feels a bit different at the end of the first section, though, when she says “my spirit, wake!” (21) and almost seems to be telling instead the sculpture to come to life with her emotion in order to make the “he” (23) regret not loving her back. It appears as if she is switching addressees, or she could more just be addressing everyone---or maybe addressing the art---the painting that contains both the knight and the sculpture, or some version of herself as the artist through the art.

This poem features a lot of really evident layers and perhaps switches between them---it’s sort of doubly ekphrastic in that the sculpture inspires the painting which inspires the poem. Then there is also the emotion that inspires her to create the sculpture in the first place, and this emotion seems to also run through the poem. The sculpture and the poem are paralleled in this way—as they are both works of art and both act as vehicles for the artist’s emotion. She puts her “thought, heart, soul, to burn, to shine,/Thro’ the pale marble’s veins” (36-7) and, as she compares the building of the sculpture to a rose blooming, also adds “line by line” (35) which suggests that the growing sculpture aligns with the growing poem.

The idea that the speaker/artist’s love is in vain comes up a lot too: “lov’d so vainly” (9), “vain tenderness” (21), “in vain” (104). It offers art as a vehicle for such emotion—that which cannot be expressed in life, or is underappreciated/misunderstood. As much as she says that her love is in vain, after all, she also makes the distinction a lot between fame and happiness. Her love is thus not necessarily completely in vain—only in regard to happiness. The emotion does serve a purpose—namely, fame. While she calls her love for the night “Thine unrequited gift” (25) she later calls her fame “Earth’s gift” (114) to her, which presents fame as a replacement for love, even as she calls it “Worthless fame!” (85)---what the sculpture, and perhaps poem as well, attempts to accomplish. 

She uses the “name”/“fame” rhyme in lines 123 & 125, and it emphasizes the poem’s role in cementing her name via title and also hints at Hemans’s own name as the poet/actual creator of the art. The art here is very much a part of the artist---the entire work of art is a signature of her fame. The “deep thrill” (126) of vibration the speaker equates her name to calls back to the “dirge-like echoes” (79) in the section before.

Also, by the end of the poem, the fame seems to be a way for the speaker/poet/artist to be worthy of the knight’s/her addressee’s love---as though the fame is worthless unless it makes the knight proud of the fact that he was the object of her affection. Of course, that there seemed at least to me to be some confusion about who was being addressed in the poem complicates this ---and it can perhaps thus come to represent a larger authorial anxiety or fear of an indifferent reader---the  poet/reader relationship becoming one of unrequited love from the spurned poet to the apathetic reader. This perhaps would make sense especially for Hemans or just the female poet in general writing for a male audience.

The Troubling Case of the Ideal Feminine in "Indian Woman's Death Song"

Throughout her works, and as the short biography in the anthology notes, Felicia Dorothea Hemans was a vocal proponent of the virtue of feminine domesticity. She viewed the home as the ideal place for women, somewhere they could escape public world meant for their husbands and accomplish meaningful tasks for their families. And hence she subscribes, possibly inadvertently, to the long-upheld tradition of women having partial agency, meaning they can make decisions only that effect their duties as a wife/mother not in regard to their public lives or status. The passivity forced by this pseudo-agency is seen at the forefront of "Indian Woman's Death Song" and even complicates the poem's subject.

In the piece, agency is given to three characters: the woman, the river, and the woman's husband. Yet, as may be imagined from my intro, these agencies are in no way equal. While the woman has no action but to sing and bear her child, the river is constantly called upon to act, "Roll on!" (20). And though this may be seen as a command, what it also highlights is the woman's powerlessness. She is at the hands of the "Father of ancient waters," which is coincidentally another man (17). Thus I believe that the woman is robbed of her most defining action, the suicide, because it is an action done by the river, not by her. We do not see her decide to place the canoe in the river, but only the canoe gliding at a "fearful" speed, or a speed which one cannot choose.

To bring this a step further, the woman defines herself in terms of her jilted love (24-31) instead of characteristics inherent to her. Yes, in the opening stanza she is defined as acting "proudly and dauntlessly" and that she looked "triumphantly" as her death approached, but these are all defining her attitude toward death, not her as a person apart from this action. There is no woman outside of her death and therefore there is no woman outside of her husband. In effect, Hemans creates a female character that is nothing but a shell through which to convey a suicide and thus the suicide in someway becomes general or dulled. The consequence of losing a life is diminished because the import of that life defined by Hemans (i.e. the woman's ability to be a good wife) is already determined.

Noble Casabianca?

"Casabianca" and "Properzia Rossi"centered on characters of certain tragedy.

Hemans presents Casabianca, the child who dies on a sinking ship because he remains waiting for his father's command instead of fleeing, as a boy with nobility and courage. He is described to be standing on the deck and calls out three times, asking his father if he can leave his post. And there isn't an answer because his "chieftain lay / Unconscious of his son." (15 - 16). Hemans describes him with "brave despair" (24) and "the noblest thing" (39).

She depicts him this way, but within the story, it really seems as though, it wasn't a brave thing to do to remain on the burning ship, but a stupid one. Throughout the poem, I don't think that this kid has guts, I think that the kid should be smart enough to realize that his father wouldn't want him to remain on a burning ship. Hemans likes to write about these characters that are facing tragedy, in hopes that the tragedy gives the story beauty, but I don't find Casabianca, someone to emulate.

Hemans also likes the tragedy of the female sculptor, Properzia Rossi. The story goes that she was very talented and very in love with a Roman Knight. Her love for him leads to her death and he has only indifference for her. 

The poem paints her love for him as one of "passion and of beauty more" (1) but I find that Hemans is once again using tragedy to make the main character seem like a hero. The speaker of the poem is Properzia Rossi and she goes on and on about her love for a man though he doesn't share the same feelings. To me, this isn't beautiful but I wish that the character didn't make her last work for a man who doesn't love her but instead, made it because of her rare talent or even just for herself, or even to defy the man who she gave so much unrequited love to.

The poems seemed similar to me in that Hemans uses their tragedies in hopes that we will appreciate the main characters, but in the realities of the background stories, I found no reason to call them heros.

1795

January 1795

I really enjoy reading poetry from non-canonical writers like Mary Robinson and Barbauld because I have never been introduced to them as I was to the others. Robinson's January poem critiques the English society she lived in at the time. Without having any knowledge of the poem, one may assume the poem is one-sided after hearing it is a critique. But Robinson does not take a side, she acknowledges that there are flaws in her society and also good things in her society. Overall though, the poem seems to have a melancholy tone. The structure of this poem was intriguing to me because every line has an end rhyme and every stanza is a quatrain. The perfectly formulated structure of this poem speaks a lot to the content within the poem. As Robert Creeley says "form is never more than the extension of content." Robinson's poem speaks of a society that is filled with a variety of people and things through a formulaic structure. The society she speaks of is now controllable like the lines in her poem are which serves as very powerful contrast in the poem. Also, the rhyme scheme is consistent throughout the entire poem, making each line, regardless of its content, sound beautiful. It is also interesting to note that she wrote this poem in January, which is one of the coldest months of the year. This would be a dreary time of the year for everyone due to the cold. Again, Robinson makes sure to depict the good and bad of society but her overall tone is not the happiest of tones. The last lines of the poem, "Ruin hasten'd, peace retarded;/ Candor spurn'd, and art rewarded" end on a seemingly positive note. At first I read this and thought "well that's nice. She ended on a good note." But After reading her other poems and coming back to this one, I felt like "and art rewarded" could possibly be read sarcastically or cynically. I am not completely committed to this idea yet and I wonder what the rest of the class thinks about this line!

Mice

As we wind down the semester, it becomes more interesting to examine patterns that have persisted throughout the readings we have done. It is far more interesting to consider these new poems as being part of this anthology and part of a time period, than as an isolated entity. That being said, in Robert Burns' To a Mouse I saw a connection, not just back to Barbauld's mouse poem, but many of the poems we have read this semester.
In the first footnote of the poem, the line reads "Burns's brother claimed that this poem was composed while the poet was actually holding the plow." I'm not even sure this necessarily adds meaning to the poem, but what it does do is present the poem with a myth to go along with it. It creates a mystical aura around the poem. This same technique has been used extensively throughout the semester.
Samuel Coleridge attached a description of his inspiration for Kubla Khan. His supposed was a drug induced dream that he supposedly has transcribed perfectly for us. We also see this attempt at myth in much of Byron's work. His poems bring up questions about countless stories from his own life. Barbauld's mouse poem from last class, brought with it the myth that the mouse (I am assuming the one responsible for "writing" the petition) was set free.
All of these poems are seemingly rich with meaning, yet there is an anxiety to further validate these works with (what I mostly believe to be false) stories about where/when/how the poems were created. It seems that much of the poetry in this time period was afraid to stand alone, so it came prepackaged meaning to ensure that people would consider it. It is almost as if these poets hoped there would be tabloid rumors about their poetry the way celebrities experience rumors now.