was and is Felicia Hemans’s most popular, successful, and critically acclaimed collection of poetry, published at the height of her fame in 1828. The volume contains nineteen actual Records, thirty-eight miscellaneous poems, and seven scholarly endnotes. The Records themselves are the focal point of the volume, and they demonstrate the culmination of Hemans’s poetic skills as she developed as a professional writer throughout the 1810s and 1820s. The Records capture moments in the lives of particular women, both famous and unknown, and “actual historical events are the basis for most of” these poems (Feldman xxi). Hemans, however, does not record history proper, but rather the emotions and psychological states of her female characters. Hemans personalizes and…
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Citation: Reno, Seth. "Records of Woman". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 April 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=24724, accessed 21 November 2024.]