Felicia Hemens

The Effigies

This poem starts out telling us about the way a fallen hero is remembered and honored for his actions. He is rewarded for his actions in battle by fame. The woman he left behind is not honored for her actions. While he is at battle she continues to tend to his home (line 43-44), prays for his safety (line 45) and waits for him to return (line 48). None of her actions are celebrated although in losing her knight she has also made a great sacrifice for her homeland. Not only is  her sacrifice just as great but a death in battle requires a great heroic moment while she has to live her sacrifice day in day out for the rest of her life.

The argument could also be made that his fame is temporary. The poem mentions that his name is “faded from the stone” (lines 5-6) and that the speaker has to trace his deed “through a cloud of years.” (lines 7-8) At this point our warrior is still remembered but the world is starting to forget him. We are given vague descriptions of his heroic deeds (lines 9-16) and we are told that the leaders celebrated his deeds. I wonder if she is also criticizing the leaders who order men into battle from their safe, lofty positions (lines 17-18) and who celebrate the victories with “blood-red wine” (line 20) with little thought to the individual lives that are impacted by these actions.

The Image in Laura

This poem made me think of the discussion in class on Tuesday over “The Skylark.” Shelley was writing about achieving “unpremeditated art” a higher form of art than something purposefully created by following our established blueprints for building something artistic. It seems to me that Hemans is arguing that this woman who died trying to protect her child from the volcanic eruption at Herculaneum achieved just that. She compares the impression to manmade art multiple times (lines 9-12, 33-36) to show us that there is no comparison. This impression tells us more about human love (lines 37-41) and sacrifice (lines 21-24) than a state-commissioned piece of art ever could.  We don’t know who this woman was but her actions left an impression upon the very earth.

Woman and Fame

This poem goes into the fleetingness and fickleness of fame. The first few stanzas go into the allure of fame. It tells us about how people strive for it and how it calls to us. Many look at as a path to a sort of immortality. Women are denied access to this kind of fame and are confined to the domestic sphere (lines 17-18 and the quote before the poem). At the same time she questions if fame is worth pursuing. She refers to it as “hollow” and questions what it really does to enrich us. Fame doesn’t live up to what it promises us.