Visions of the Past: Felicia Hemans & William Wordsworth
Jillian Garrett
November 19, 2001
I will here attempt to give an idea of the links between Felicia Hemans and William Wordsworth. I will begin with a brief biography of Hemans, followed by a look at the relationship between Hemans and Wordsworth. I will end with a short comparison of Hemans' poem "To My Own Portrait" and "Tintern Abbey."
Hemans' Biography [1]Born Felicia Dorothea Browne in Liverpool in 1793 and raised in North Wales, Hemans was largely home-schooled by her mother. Considered a child prodigy by her family, she loved Shakespeare, was well read in several languages, and is said to have been able to quote passages from literature at length after only one reading. Felicia also studied music and drawing, and was later to include several of her sketches as frontispieces for her publications. She began writing as early as the age of eight, and her first volume, Poems was published by subscription in 1808 when she was only 14. The collection was met with some harsh reviews, which, although upsetting to the young poet, did not lessen her passion for writing. In fact, the same year saw the publication of England and Spain, or Valour and Patriotism. This volume was likely inspired by the service of her elder brothers, who both entered the army at an early age, and served in the Peninsular Campaigns in Spain. As her sister Anne Browne was later to write in her posthumous biography of Hemans, "trumpets and banners now floated through her dreams in which birds and flowers had once reigned paramount." [2]
Felicia's father left his wife and children in 1810 to move to Upper Canada, effectively ending all contact with his family. By this time Felicia was engaged in correspondence with Captain Alfred Hemans. Felicia had met him in 1809 through her brothers, with whom Captain Hemans had fought in Spain. Prior to her courtship with Alfred, there are rumours that Percy Shelley attempted to begin a correspondence with Felicia, having learned of her talent and beauty. However, Felicia's mother is said to have nipped his advances in the bud, refusing to allow Felicia to respond to his letters. The relationship between Felicia and Alfred did advance, however, and they married in 1812, shortly after the publication of The Domestic Affections (1812). Hemans gave birth to five sons over the next six years while still managing to remain a prolific writer, publishing three more volumes of poetry by 1818, including The Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy (1816). Just before the birth of their last son, Alfred moved to Italy under the auspices of ill health, though marital difficulties are also a likely cause. The couple was never to see each other again, but occasionally communicated regarding the education of their sons. The effect of the desertion of both father and husband is clear in Hemans' poetry, in which the circle that she employs in home, hearth and familial imagery is often empty or broken. After the departure of her husband, Hemans moved back into her mother's home and supported herself and her sons with her writing. Felicia deeply appreciated her mother, "by whose unwearied spirit of love and hope she was encouraged to bear on through all the obstacles which beset her path." [3]
Tales and Historic Scenes in Verse (1819) and Lays of Many Lands (1825) reflect her continued interest in themes of battle and patriotism and the history and culture of other countries. She often won prizes for her poetry, including her long poem Dartmoor (1821), which she took pleasure in mostly for the joy it brought her children. Felicia also wrote critical essays reflecting her interest in foreign literature, and two dramas, The Vespers of Palermo and The Siege of Valencia (both of 1823), which received severe reviews. The long poem The Forest Sanctuary (1826), which she deemed her best, was considered her principle work. When her mother died in 1827 the devastation of the loss caused Felicia to spiral into a long grief from which she never fully recovered. She wrote, "in the best of everything I have done, you will find one leading idea - death: all thoughts, all images…are derived from living much in the valley of that shadow." [4] As her brothers and sisters, and then her sons grew up and moved away, the home life of Hemans cherished also disintegrated. According to W. M. Rosetti, Records of Woman (1828) demonstrates her personal feelings more than any other does and it remains her most popular volume. Songs of the Affections (1830) was her last publication before she moved to Dublin to be closer to her brother. Although her health continued to decline, she persevered in her writing, expressing her passion for children and nature, particularly in her home of Wales. Scenes and Hymns of Life (1834), her last publication, was more introspective and reflected her religious devotion. It was critically acclaimed in both Europe and America. After this last professional success Hemans died in 1835 at the age of forty-one.
Felicia Hemans was one of the most prolific writers of her day, and certainly one of the most popular. Though she was a friend of Joanna Baillie and William Wordsworth, Lord Byron did not welcome the competition, commenting that "[t]he He-mans and She-mans of our literature are as plenty as blackberries as we of the North say. They have made a litter-ature of literature." [5] Hemans' talent and fame was, however, unquestionably significant: "For we do not hesitate to say, that she is, beyond all comparison, the most touching and accomplished writer of occasional verses that our literature has yet to boast of." [6]
The Hemans-Wordsworth Relationship [7]Hemans and Wordsworth met in 1830 when she was thirty-six and he was sixty. Although Wordsworth had been a supporter of women writers when he was younger (in fact two early influences were poets Charlotte Smith and Helen Maria Williams), as he matured and grew more conservative, his opinion of "literary ladies" decreased. While he had no complaints about their talent as writers, his opinion of them personally was what diminished, commenting to Samuel Rogers prior to his first meeting with Hemans, "literary Ladies are apt to require a good deal of attention." [8] However, his impression of Hemans was favourable, as she showed none of the affectations that he expected from a writer of her fame. On the other hand, he was perhaps threatened by her intellect, complaining to George Huntly Gordon, "her conversation, like that of many literary Ladies, is too elaborate and studied." [9] As Deborah Kennedy points out, Wordsworth may have felt this way because Hemans did not strive to conceal her learning or her popularity, and did not show "a proper female deference." [10] Nonetheless, they admired each other as poets and, while they never met in person again before Hemans' died in 1835, they continued to correspond by mail.
Hemans held Wordsworth in high esteem, writing "To Wordsworth" in 1828. In this poem Hemans effuses,
True bard and holy! - o thou art ev'n as one
Who, by some secret gift of soul or eye,
In every spot beneath the smiling sun,
Sees where the springs of living waters lie… (25-28)
She also wrote in her Memoirs, "He [Wordsworth] has treated me with so much consideration, and gentleness, and care! - [his poems] have been like balm to my spirit after all the [false] flatteries with which I am blasée. " [11]
Likewise, in his Effusion on the Death of James Hogg (1835-36), Wordsworth praises Hemans, writing,
Mourn rather for that holy Spirit,
Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep;
For Her, who, ere her summer faded,
Has sunk into a breathless sleep. (37-40)
In the prefatory note to this same work Wordsworth reflected on his relationship with the deceased poet, commenting,
there was much sympathy between us, and, if opportunity had been allowed me to see more of her, I should have loved and valued her accordingly; as it is, I remember her with true affection for her amiable qualities, and, above all, for her delicate and irreproachable conduct… [12]
With this as background, I will now turn to a comparison of "Tintern Abbey" and "To My Own Portrait."
"Tintern Abbey" and "To My Own Portrait"
There are immediate and obvious similarities between these two poems, although they are separated in time by 30 years. However, I am unable to say whether or not Hemans had "Tintern Abbey" in mind when she composed "To My own Portrait." Hers is not loco-descriptive, but the two poems do share much thematically. Whether or not Hemans' poem is purposely derivative of Wordsworth's, it seems to me that both works focus on the poets' preoccupation with years past.
In "Tintern Abbey," Wordsworth shifts the focus of his thoughts, first addressing either himself or the reader (depending on how one reads the poem), then speaks to the river Wye directly, and ends with an appeal to Dorothy. "To My Own Portrait" experiences no such shift, yet follows the stages that Wordsworth works through. They begin with discussions of memory that lead into contemplations of the present and the past. When held up to the romanticized images of the past, their present lives inevitably come up short. "Tintern Abbey" begins,
 |
Five years have past, five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a sweet inland murmur. -- Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs… (1-5, emphasis added) |
Wordsworth returns to a scene from his youth, separated from his memories
by "five long years" and all the experiences that have matured him. However,
the landscape bears the impression of remaining the same. Through the stimulus
of a seemingly unchanged locale, Wordsworth is able to recall the sensations
of his younger self, which he finds rejuvenating to his weary present self.
"Though absent long," he persists, "These forms of beauty have not been to
me, / As is a landscape to a blind man's eye" (23-25). Over the past five
years his memories of this place have sustained him, as
|
oft, in lonely rooms, and mid
the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart, And passing even into my purer mind With tranquil restoration… (26-31) |
His memories of a simpler past, embodied in his romanticized memories of the Wye valley, ease the weariness of his current, more personally and politically complicated life as represented by the din of an increasingly urbanised and industrialised world.
In "To My Own Portrait," as the title suggests, Hemans is recalled to her past not by the déjà vu of a familiar landscape, but rather by the image of her younger self as seen in a portrait painting. However, the effect is the same:
How is it that before mine eyes,
While gazing on thy mein,
All my past years of life arise,
As in a mirror seen? (1-4)
Just as the Wye valley and his own past that Wordsworth describes is romanticized, viewed through the lens of tentative reminiscence and wistful remembrance, Hemans' past years are seen as in a mirror - a reflection of their true selves. When we look in a mirror we see the inverse of reality. So Hemans' opening stanza suggests that the memories that spring from looking at her portrait are likewise accurate but inverted.
In each poem the poet works through conflicting emotions towards the past
and the present. The past is looked upon with fondness, yet their younger
selves are viewed as naïve. There is the sense that the older poets are shaking
their heads at their younger selves as they view the past through more cynical
eyes. Where Wordsworth once felt
"aching joys" and "dizzy raptures" (85-6) at the sight he stands before, nature
is now
"the anchor of [his] purest thoughts, the nurse, / The guide, the guardian
of [his] heart, and soul / Of all [his] moral being" (110-112). Similarly,
Hemans mourns the passing of those younger, more innocent years: "The thoughts
of happier years, / and a vain gush of tenderness / O'erflows in child-like
tears; / A passion which I may not stay, / A sudden fount that must have way"
(20-24). The passion of youth has been replaced with reflection, tenderness,
and morality.
Near the end of "Tintern Abbey" Wordsworth turns to Dorothy to
"catch / The language of [his] former heart, and read / [His] former pleasures
in the shooting lights / Of [her] wild eyes" (117-120). He wants her to share
his experiences of five years ago so that he can relive them once again through
her. Whether Dorothy was actually experiencing William's feelings of five
years ago or whether Wordsworth was projecting his desires onto the poetic
characterization of Dorothy, I cannot say for sure, although I do tend to
believe this is the case. It seems that Wordsworth is not interested in Dorothy's
experiences for the sake of her experiencing them, but rather so that she
will remember that he was the one who instructed her in the healing properties
of a communion with nature:
"If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, / Should be thy portion, with what
healing thoughts / of tender joy wilt thou remember me" (144-146). If Wordsworth
looks at Dorothy and sees his own younger self and her potential to become
like his present self, when Hemans looks at the portrait of her younger
self she sees no such glimmers of recognition. She addresses her portrait:
"Almost strange, / Mine imaged self! it seems / That on thybrow of
peace no change / Reflects my own swift dreams; / Almost I marvel not to trace
/ Those lights and shadows in thy face" (25-30). It seems that the
changes that have occurred in Hemans' life since her portrait was painted
have so distanced her from the person she was then that she could no longer
identify with the image of her younger self. "To see thee calm, while powers
thus deep / Affection - Memory - Grief - / Pass o'er my soul" (31-33) makes
Hemans feel as though she has become an entirely different person. The younger
self has not experienced the hardships that the older Hemans has lived through;
thus they are confined to different realities. However, just as Wordsworth
hopes that Dorothy will remember him in her later years, so Hemans knows "That
when my song and soul are gone," (39) her family and friends "Shall seek my
form in thee" (40). But the form is all Hemans and her portrait have left
in common, and the soul that she sees her family searching for will not be
found in the canvas.
While there are obvious stylistic differences in "Tintern Abbey" and "To My own Portrait," I find their similarities quite unmistakeable. Hemans' poem is much shorter, yet encompasses all of the same emotions that Wordsworth works through in "Tintern." Wordsworth looks back with a sense of affection for days gone by. Hemans views her former self with disdain for the naïveté that is evident in the portrait. Their present lives are far removed from what they once were. Looking with adult eyes on youthful selves, each realises that there is no going back.
Notes
1. Written in conjunction with Jana Towler for English 510.09, Refurbishing the Revolutionary Canon, University of Calgary, Fall Semester 2000. Revised by myself, November 2001.
2. Browne, Anne. "Memoir of Mrs. Hemans." V. 1. Hemans' Life and Works, 1839. P. 10
3. Hemans, Felicia. Quoted by Anne Browne. "Memoir of Mrs. Hemans." V. 1. Hemans' Life and Works, 1839. P. 26
4. Hemans, Felicia. Quoted by Anne Browne. "Memoir of Mrs. Hemans." V. 1. Hemans' Life and Works, 1839. P. 251
5. Byron, Lord. From a letter to the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, September 17th, 1820. Byron: A Self-Portrait, Letters and Diaries 1798-1824. V. II. London: John Murray, 1950.
6. Jeffrey, Lord. Edinburgh Review. October, 1829.
7. The information for this section is taken from two sources:
Wolfson, Susan & Peter Manning. The Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. V. 2A. New York: Longman, 1999.
Kennedy, Deborah. "Hemans, Wordsworth, and the 'Literary Lady.'" Victorian Poetry. 35:3 Fall 1997. 267-286.
11. Quoted in Kennedy, p. 273.
12. Longman Anthology, p. 736.
Document prepared November 26th 2001