Felicia Hemans Reimagining Poetry in the Nineteenth Century [Hardcover]

This collection of twelve specially commissioned essays, the first to focus on the work of Felicia Hemans, includes new work from important critics in the field - Isobel Armstrong, Stephen Behrendt, Gary Kelly, Susan Wolfson - as well as contributions from emerging scholars. Offering close readings of Heman's poetry, new research on her reception, and analyses of her cultural significance, the collection contributes substantially to our understanding of Hemans and to current debates about romanticism, feminism, canonization, and the relations between gender, culture, and poetry.Dedication List of Illustrations Foreword: Now Our Hemans; M.B.Ross List of Contributors Introduction: Why Hemans Now; N.Sweet & J.Melnyk PART I: READINGS: THE WOMEN'S VOICES, THE POET'S CHOICES Impure Affections: Felicia Heman's Elegiac Poetry and Contaminated Grief; M.T.Williamson The Fragile Image: Felicia Hemans and Romantic Ekphrasis; G.F.Scott The Triumph of Voice in Felicia Hemans's The Forest Sanctuary; J.M.Anderson Hemans's Later Poetry: Religion and the Vatic Poet; J.Melnyk PART II: RECEPTION: THE (RE)MAKING OF THE WOMAN POET 'Certainly not a Female Pen': Felicia Hemans's Early Public Reception; S.C.Behrendt The Search for a Space: A Note on Felicia Hemans and the Royal Society of Literature; B.D.Taylor Felicia Hemans and the Shifting Field of Romanticism; C.Edgar 'The Spells of Home': Hemans, 'Heimat' and the Cult of the Dead Poetess in Nineteenth-Century Germany; F.Lenckos PART III: CONTEXTS: CULTURES OF ROMANCE, HISTORIES OF CULTURE Hemans and the Romance of Byron; S.Wolfson Gender and Modernity in The Abencerrage : Hemans, Rushdie, and 'the Moor's Last Sigh'; N.Sweet Death and the Matron: Felicia Hemans, Romantic Death, and the Founding of the Modern Liberal State; G.Kelly Natural and National Monuments, Felicia Hemans's The Image in Lava : A Note; I.Armstrong Index

'This volume begins with the question 'Why Hemans Now?' and provides, through its many different voicel!