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.
Shortly before her death, Felicia Hemans predicted that ‘my
poetry, except some half dozen pieces, may be consigned to oblivion.’ It was a
strange statement coming as it did from someone already famous and celebrated
as one of the most popular poets of her day, and given that her contemporaries
included Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats and Scott. Achieving fame
as a poet was a considerable accomplishment, for a ‘poetess.’ Felicia Hemans
was certainly encouraged and respected by her peers and developed personal
friendships with both William Wordsworth and Sir Walter Scott.
Felicia Dorothea Hemans was an English poet. Two of her opening lines, The boy stood on the burning deck and The stately homes of England, have acquired classic status. Felicia Hemans' paternal grandfather was George Browne of Passage, County Cork, Ireland; her maternal grandparents were Benedict Paul Wagner a wine importer at 9 Wolstenholme Square, Liverpool, and Elizabeth Haydock Wagner of Lancashire. Felicia Dorothea Browne was the fourth of six Browne children (three boys and three girls) to survive infancy. Of her two sisters, Elizabeth died about 1807 at the age of eighteen and Harriet Mary Browne Owen married first the Revd T. Hughes, then the Revd W. Hicks Owen.
She was born Felicia Dorothea Browne on 25th September 1793 in Liverpool. When
her father's business failed about 1800, the family moved first to Gwrych, an
isolated Welsh seaside house; then, in 1809, to St. Asaph, Wales. Felicia was a
clever child who began to read at an early age and did so voraciously from the
well-stocked family library. She read novels and poetry, learned several
languages, and studied music, primarily under the direction of her mother.
According to her sister, Felicia "could repeat pages of poetry from her
favourite authors, after having read them but once over." When she was
eleven or twelve she spent two successive winters in London, where she was awed
by the paintings and sculptures.
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Grade I listed Gwrych Castle overlooks the 500 year old Hen Wrych Hall, once home to the poet Felicia Hemans |
Her first poems, dedicated to the Prince of Wales, were
published in Liverpool in 1808, when she was only fourteen, arousing the
interest of no less a person than Percy Bysshe Shelley, who briefly
corresponded with her. She quickly followed them up with "England and
Spain" published in 1808 and later “The domestic affections",
published in 1812, the year of her marriage to Captain Alfred Hemans, an Irish
army officer some years older than herself. The marriage took her away from
Wales, to Daventry in Northamptonshire until 1814.
During their first six years of marriage, Felicia gave birth
to five sons, including Charles Isidore Hemans, and then the couple separated.
Marriage had not, however, prevented her from continuing her literary career,
with several volumes of poetry being published by the respected firm of John
Murray in the period after 1816, beginning with "The Restoration of the
Works of Art to Italy" (1816) and "Modern Greece" (1817).
"Tales and Historic Scenes" was the collection which came out in
1819, the year of their separation. Felicia Hemans moved to Dublin in 1831,
where she could be near one of her brothers. Her poetic output continued. Her
major collections, including The Forest Sanctuary (1825), Records of Woman and
Songs of the Affections (1830) were immensely popular.
First published in August 1826 the poem Casabianca (also
known as The Boy stood on the Burning Deck) by Felicia Hemans depicts Captain
Louis de Casabianca and his 12-year-old son, Giocante, who both perished aboard
the ship Orient during the Battle of the Nile. The poem was very popular from
the 1850s on and was memorized in elementary schools for literary practice.
Her second book, England and Spain, or, Valour and Patriotism,
was published in 1808 and was a narrative poem honouring her brother and his
military service in the Peninsular War. The poem called for an end of the
tyranny of Napoleon Bonaparte and for a long lasting peace after the war. The
poem is very patriotic towards Great Britain as seen in Heman's multiple
references to "Albion" which is an older name for the isles of Great
Britain.
She died in Dublin on the 16th of May, 1835, at the age of
41. Her death was attributed to a weak heart, which may have been the common
affliction of rheumatic fever.
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Memorial tablet to Felicia Hemans in St Ann's church, Dublin. Photograph by Jeremy Taylor. |
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