In the rich tapestry of nineteenth-century American literature and reform, few figures shine as brightly—or with as enduring a flame—as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Born into freedom yet forged in the fires of racial injustice, she emerged as a poet of profound moral vision, a tireless abolitionist lecturer, a pioneering novelist, and a champion of women’s rights, temperance, and Black uplift. Her life spanned the a…
“Every mother should endeavor to be a true artist. I do not mean by this that every woman should be a painter, sculptor, musician, poet or writer.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Spirituality
Felicia Dorothea Hemans, born Felicia Dorothea Browne on 25 September 1793 and dead on 16 May 1835, was among the most celebrated poets of the early nineteenth century. In her lifetime she was read with an enthusiasm now difficult to imagine: her poems circulated throughout Britain, Ireland, the United States, and the British Empire; they appeared in annuals, schoolbooks, anthologies, newspapers, and domestic parlors…
“It is, in my opinion, full of beauty, and of truth, developing itself clearly and sorrowfully, like almost all truth, I believe, through the colouring mists of imagination.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
