Gender, Emotion and Transcendence In John Keats' “Ode On Melanchholy" and Felicia Dorothea Hemans' "Ode to Cheerfulness"

Introduction Melancholy has been tied to the Romantic literary tradition and its preoccupation with intensely emotional experiences, as well as the poetic forms that best accommodate them. Odes, elegies and laments are remarkably prominent in the Romantic canon and have come to epitomize the nineteenth century as a time “steeped in melancholy” (Bowring 38). While Romanticism is largely remembered as an age of melancholy, there were many women poets who were unable to fully access these expressions of sorrow, therefore relying on more joyful emotions that are not as closely associated with the period. Poets such as Felicia Hemans and Letitia Elizabeth Landon wrote on topics of mild sentiment and the domestic, working within structures of feminine identity that were both acceptable and commercial. Although these writers often fought against such conventions in their work, the masculine gendering of melancholy and its connection to poetic genius and transcendence ultimately reduces the ability of women writers to achieve an eternal reputation in the canon of Romantic literature.

Gender, Emotion and Transcendence In John Keats' “Ode On Melanchholy" and Felicia Dorothea Hemans' "Ode to Cheerfulness"

Introduction Melancholy has been tied to the Romantic literary tradition and its preoccupation with intensely emotional experiences, as well as the poetic forms that best accommodate them. Odes, elegies and laments are remarkably prominent in the Romantic canon and have come to epitomize the nineteenth century as a time “steeped in melancholy” (Bowring 38). While Romanticism is largely remembered as an age of melancholy, there were many women poets who were unable to fully access these expressions of sorrow, therefore relying on more joyful emotions that are not as closely associated with the period. Poets such as Felicia Hemans and Letitia Elizabeth Landon wrote on topics of mild sentiment and the domestic, working within structures of feminine identity that were both acceptable and commercial. Although these writers often fought against such conventions in their work, the masculine gendering of melancholy and its connection to poetic genius and transcendence ultimately reduces the ability of women writers to achieve an eternal reputation in the canon of Romantic literature.

Scrapped Sentiment: Letitia Landon and Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap-Book, 1832–1837

This essay examines several ‘companion poems’ that Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) wrote for the literary annual Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap-Book between 1832 and 1838. Each of these poems was designed to ‘complement’ the visual content of an engraving with which the poem was paired. Most of the poems are written in the first person. The ‘I’ that speaks each one seems motivated by a particular set of ideological allegiances that clash with the apparent ideological allegiances of other ‘I's. No attempt is made to account for the discrepancies. I argue that the companion poems ultimately showcase the unsettling resemblance between moral convictions and commodities. The net effect is that the annual implies – in the words of Dickens's villainous character James Harthouse – that ‘any set of ideas will do just as much good as any other set, and just as much harm as any other set’.