144-] English Literature

144-] English Literature

Female suicide in Hemans' works

Several of Hemans's characters take their own lives rather than suffer the social, political and personal consequences of their compromised situations. At Hemans's time, women writers were often torn between a choice of home or the pursuit of a literary career. Hemans herself was able to balance both roles without much public ridicule, but left hints of discontent through the themes of feminine death in her writing. The suicides of women in Hemans's poetry dwell on the same social issue that was confronted both culturally and personally during her life: the choice of caged domestication or freedom of thought and expression.

"The Bride of the Greek Isle", "The Sicilian Captive", "The Last Song of Sappho" and "Indian Woman's Death Song" are some of the most notable of Hemans' works involving women's suicides. Each poem portrays a heroine who is untimely torn from her home by a masculine force – such as pirates, Vikings, and unrequited lovers – and forced to make the decision to accept her new confines or command control over the situation. None of the heroines are complacent with the tragedies that befall them, and the women ultimately take their own lives in either a final grasp for power and expression or a means to escape victimisation.

Selected works

Coeur De Lion At The Bier Of His Father

Torches were blazing clear,

Hymns pealing deep and slow,

Where a king lay stately on his bier

In the church of Fontevraud .

As if each deeply furrowed trace

Of earthly years to show, -

Alas! that sceptred mortal's race

Had surely closed in woe!

And the holy chant was hushed awhile,

As, by the torch's flame,

A gleam of arms up the sweeping aisle

With a mail-clad leader came .

He came with haughty look,

An eagle-glance and clear;

But his proud heart through its breast-plate shook

When he stood beside the bier!

"Oh, father! is it vain,

This late remorse and deep ?

Speak to me, father! once again ,

I weep, - behold, I weep!

Alas! my guilty pride and ire!

Were but this work undone,

I would give England's crown, my sire!

To hear thee bless thy son .

"Thou that my boyhood's guide

Didst take fond joy to be! -

The times I've sported at thy side,

And climbed thy parent knee!

And there before the blessed shrine,

My sire! I see thee lie, -

How will that sad still face of thine

Look on me till I die!"

From the "Coeur De Lion At The Bier

Of His Father" poem

Poems by Felicia Dorothea Browne (1808)

"England and Spain" by Felicia Dorothea Browne (1808)

The Domestic Affections and Other Poems by Felicia Dorothea Browne (1812)

"Our Lady’s Well"

"On the Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy" (Two editions, 1816)

"Modern Greece" (1817)

Translations from Camoens; and Other Poets, with Original Poetry (1818)

Hymns on the Works of Nature, for the Use of Children

Records of Woman: With Other Poems

"The Better Land"

The Vespers of Palermo (1823, play)

Casabianca (1826, poem)

"Corinne at the Capitol"

"Evening Prayer at a Girls' School"

"A Farewell to Abbotsford"

"The Funeral Day of Sir Walter Scott"

"Hymn by the Sick-bed of a Mother"

"Kindred Hearts"

"The Last Song of Sappho"

"Lines Written in the Memoirs of Elizabeth Smith"

"The Rock of Cader Idris"

"Stanzas on the Late National Calamity, On the Death of the Princess Charlotte"

"Stanzas to the Memory of George III"

"Thoughts During Sickness: Intellectual Powers"

"To the Eye"

"To the New-Born"

"Woman on the Field of Battle"

Felicia Dorothea Hemans

1793–1835

Felicia Hemans Poems

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CasabiancaDesign and PerformanceDirgeFlight of the SpiritSabbath SonnetThe Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers

Felicia Dorothea Hemans Poems

1- Casabianca

The boy stood on the burning deck

Whence all but he had fled;

The flame that lit the battle's wreck

Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,

As born to rule the storm;

A creature of heroic blood,

A proud, though childlike form.

 

The flames roll'd on...he would not go

Without his father's word;

That father, faint in death below,

His voice no longer heard.

 

He call'd aloud..."Say, father,say

If yet my task is done!"

He knew not that the chieftain lay

Unconscious of his son.

 

"Speak, father!" once again he cried

"If I may yet be gone!"

And but the booming shots replied,

And fast the flames roll'd on.

 

Upon his brow he felt their breath,

And in his waving hair,

And looked from that lone post of death,

In still yet brave despair;

 

And shouted but one more aloud,

"My father, must I stay?"

While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud

The wreathing fires made way,

 

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,

They caught the flag on high,

And stream'd above the gallant child,

Like banners in the sky.

 

There came a burst of thunder sound...

The boy-oh! where was he?

Ask of the winds that far around

With fragments strewed the sea.

 

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,

That well had borne their part;

But the noblest thing which perished there

Was that young faithful heart.

Felicia Dorothea Hemans

2- A Spirit's Return★★★★★★★★Thy voice prevails - dear friend, my gentle friend!

This long-shut heart for thee shall be unsealed,

And though thy soft eye mournfully will bend

3- Bring Flowers

Bring flowers, young flowers, for the festal board,

To wreathe the cup ere the wine is pour'd;

Bring flowers! they are springing in wood and vale,

Poem4.Alaric In Italy

Heard ye the Gothic trumpet's blast?

The march of hosts as Alaric passed?

His steps have tracked that glorious clime,

Poem5.Dirge

CALM on the bosom of thy God,

  Fair spirit, rest thee now!

E'en while with ours thy footsteps trod,

  His seal was on thy brow.

Poem6.Address To Music

OH thou! whose soft, bewitching lyre,

Can lull the sting of pain to rest;

Oh thou! whose warbling notes inspire,

Poem7.The Landing Of The Pilgrim Fathers In New England

"Look now abroad--another race has fill'd

Those populous borders--wide the wood recedes,

And town shoots up, and fertile realms are till'd;

The land is full of harvests and green meads."--BRYANT

Poem8.An Hour Of Romance

There were thick leaves above me and around,

And low sweet sighs like those of childhood's sleep,

Amidst their dimness, and a fitful sound

Poem9.Address To Thought

OH thou! the musing, wakeful pow'r,

That lov'st the silent, midnight hour,

Thy lonely vigils then to keep,

And banish far the angel, sleep,

Poem10.A Monarch's Death-Bed

A monarch on his death-bed lay -

Did censors waft perfume,

And soft lamps pour their silvery ray,

Thro' his proud chamber's gloom?