Editing Felicia Hemans (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Felicia Hemans 2.jpg|thumb|left|Felicia Hemans, by Evert A. Duykinick, 1873]]
Hemans's works appeared in nineteen individual books during her lifetime, publishing first with John Murray and later with Blackwoods.<ref name="ncgsjournal.com"/> After her death in 1835, her works 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 female poets,<ref>{{Citation |last=Lootens |first=Tricia |title=Hemans and her American Heirs |date=1999 |work=Women’s Poetry, Late Romantic to Late Victorian: Gender and Genre, 1830–1900 |pages=243–260 |editor-last=Armstrong |editor-first=Isobel |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27021-7_12 |access-date=2024-04-05 |place=London |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-1-349-27021-7_12 |isbn=978-1-349-27021-7 |editor2-last=Blain |editor2-first=Virginia}}</ref> such as [[Caroline Norton]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Stone |first=Marjorie |date=2003 |title=Review of Victorian Sappho |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27793515 |journal=Victorian Review |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=103–110 |jstor=27793515 |issn=0848-1512}}</ref> [[Letitia Elizabeth Landon]],<ref name="Ryan" /> [[Lydia Sigourney]]<ref name=":0" /> and [[Frances Harper]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hill |first=Patricia Liggins |date=1981 |title="Let Me Make the Songs for the People": A Study of Frances Watkins Harper's Poetry |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2904083 |journal=Black American Literature Forum |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=60–65 |doi=10.2307/2904083 |jstor=2904083 |issn=0148-6179}}</ref> the French [[Amable Tastu]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Boutin |first=Aimée |date=2008 |title=Transnational Migrations: Reading Amable Tastu with Felicia Hemans |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1179/174581508X322329 |journal=Romance Studies |language=en |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=210–220 |doi=10.1179/174581508X322329 |issn=0263-9904}}</ref> and German [[Annette von Droste-Hülshoff]],<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Burwick |first1=Frederick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CDuCchT6PE0C&dq=felicia+hemans+Annette+von+Droste-H%C3%BClshoff&pg=PA578 |title=The Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature, 3 Volume Set |last2=Goslee |first2=Nancy Moore |last3=Hoeveler |first3=Diane Long |date=2012-01-30 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-4051-8810-4 |language=en}}</ref> she was a valued model.<ref name="odnb"/> To many readers she offered a woman's voice confiding a woman's trials; to others, a lyricism consonant with Victorian sentimentality and patriotism.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lootens |first=Tricia |date=1994 |title=Hemans and Home: Victorianism, Feminine "Internal Enemies," and the Domestication of National Identity |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/463119 |journal=PMLA |volume=109 |issue=2 |pages=238–253 |doi=10.2307/463119 |jstor=463119 |issn=0030-8129}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Reno |first=Seth |date=2015 |title=Felicia Hemans and the Affections |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26574753 |journal=CEA Critic |volume=77 |issue=1 |pages=4–24 |jstor=26574753 |issn=0007-8069}}</ref> In her most successful book, ''Records of Woman'' (1828), she chronicles the lives of women, both famous and anonymous.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Burwick |first1=Frederick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CDuCchT6PE0C&dq=HEMANS++%22Superstition+and+Revelation%22+and+the+pamphlet+%22The+Sceptic,%22&pg=PA575 |title=The Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature, 3 Volume Set |last2=Goslee |first2=Nancy Moore |last3=Hoeveler |first3=Diane Long |date=2012-01-30 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-4051-8810-4 |language=en}}</ref> Portraying examples of heroism, rebellion, and resistance, she connects womanhood with "affection's might".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Joey S. Kim: "One deep heart wrung!": Felicia Hemans's Affective Poetics in "The Indian City" and "Woman on the Field of Battle" • Issue18.1 • Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies |url=https://www.ncgsjournal.com/issue181/kim.html |access-date=2024-04-05 |website=www.ncgsjournal.com}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Citation |last=Melnyk |first=Julie |title=Hemans's Later Poetry: Religion and the Vatic Poet |date=2001 |work=Felicia Hemans |pages=74–92 |editor-last=Sweet |editor-first=Nanora |url=https://link.springer.com/10.1057/9780230389564_5 |access-date=2024-04-05 |place=London |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |language=en |doi=10.1057/9780230389564_5 |isbn=978-1-349-42094-0 |editor2-last=Melnyk |editor2-first=Julie}}</ref><ref name="Sweet"/>

Hemans' poem "The Homes of England" (1827) is the origin of the phrase "[[Stately home#Origin of the term|stately home]]", referring to an [[English country house]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mandler |first=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wQfqCc0gxAoC&dq=%22stately+home%22&pg=PA63 |title=The Fall and Rise of the Stately Home |date=1997-01-01 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-07869-5 |language=en}}</ref>

{{Quote box |align=right |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right
 |quote =<poem>
From "The Homes of England"

The stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land;
The deer across their greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam,
And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.

The free, fair Homes of England!
Long, long in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be reared
To guard each hallowed wall!
And green forever be the groves,
And bright the flowery sod,
Where first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God.
</poem>|source =From "The Homes of England"<br />(1827)<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=kXd4bRr71a4C&dq=A+library+of+poetry+and+song%3B+being+choice+selections+from+the+best+poets%3B+the+homes+of+england&pg=PA137 ''A Library of Poetry and Song: Being Choice Selections from The Best Poets. With An Introduction by William Cullen Bryant''], New York, J.B. Ford and Company, 1871, p. 137.</ref>}}

Despite her illustrious admirers her stature as a serious poet gradually declined, partly due to her success in the literary marketplace. Her poetry was considered morally exemplary, and was often assigned to schoolchildren; as a result, Hemans came to be seen as more a poet for children rather than a serious author. Schoolchildren in the U.S. were still being taught "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England" in the middle of the 20th century.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-03-08 |title="The breaking waves dashed high": The life and afterlife of Felicia Hemans' 'The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England' (1825) {{!}} Voyaging through History |url=https://voyagingthroughhistory.exeter.ac.uk/2019/03/08/the-breaking-waves-dashed-high-the-life-and-afterlife-of-felicia-hemans-the-landing-of-the-pilgrim-fathers-in-new-england-1825/ |access-date=2024-04-05 |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Downey |first1=Edmund |last2=Hulme |first2=Tom |last3=Vandrei |first3=Martha |date=2023-09-15 |title=The Mayflower and Historical Culture in Britain, 1620 – 2020 |url=https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/138/593/898/7468169 |journal=The English Historical Review |language=en |volume=138 |issue=593 |pages=898–932 |doi=10.1093/ehr/cead152 |issn=0013-8266|hdl=10871/134905 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> But by the 21st century, "The Stately Homes of England" refers to [[Noël Coward]]'s parody, not to the once-famous poem it parodied.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Winn |first=Christopher |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4v2_CwAAQBAJ&dq=felicia+hemans+%22The+Stately+Homes+of+England%22+refers+to+No%C3%ABl+Coward'&pg=PT141 |title=London By Tube: Over 80 intriguing short walks minutes away from London's tube stops |date=2016-04-07 |publisher=Random House |isbn=978-1-4735-2835-2 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Sheppard |first=Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=utoyDQAAQBAJ&dq=felicia+hemans+%22The+Stately+Homes+of+England%22+refers+to+No%C3%ABl+Coward'&pg=PA56 |title=The Meaning of Form in Contemporary Innovative Poetry |date=2016-10-05 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-34045-6 |language=en}}</ref>

With the rise in women's studies, Hemans' critical reputation has been re-examined.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Sweet |first1=N. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iSWFCwAAQBAJ&q=felicia+hemans+women's+studies |title=Felicia Hemans: Reimagining Poetry in the Nineteenth Century |last2=Melnyk |first2=J. |date=2016-02-02 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-230-38956-4 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Carol Shiner |title=Re-visioning romanticism: British women writers, 1776-1837 |last2=Haefner |first2=Joel |date=1994 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania press |isbn=978-0-8122-1421-5 |location=Philadelphia}}</ref> Her work has resumed a role in standard anthologies and in classrooms and seminars and literary studies, especially in the US. Anthologised poems include "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]]", "Corinne at the Capitol" and "The Coronation of [[Inês de Castro|Inez De Castro]]".