Felicia Hemans

The hardest aspect about Felicia Hemans is trying to understand exactly what kind of writer she was - at least as far as her views on a woman's place are concerned. The women in some of her poems from the selected reading can be taken as very traditional and docile, while others can be seen as very heroic and passionate. After considering Hemans own life, one would probably think that she is less on the traditional side, seeing as how her own father left her family while she was a teenager and even her own husband ended up leaving her family. So while raising her children, their was no male dominant image in the picture for her, so it's easy to see how her writings may have reflected a woman scorned or may have even been "making fun" of the traditional housewife.

The woman depicted as the Wife of Asdrubal may seem rather demented and extremely intense. I had to reread certain parts of the poem just to be sure that I was understanding that she was actually burning herself and her children alive. But this may be a very romantic idea, that the woman would rather die than live to be the wife of a coward and have the children of a coward. Dr. Glance in his podcast asks is this woman a heroic female, a spurned lover, or a homicidal mother? I would like to say that more than anything she is a reflection of Felicia Hemans herself.

Hemans probably related the story of this woman to her own life, with her husband leaving her to go to Italy for "ill health" as the introduction reads in the book (405). Regardless, Asdrubal left his family in order to save his own life, and in some way, perhaps Hemans felt the same way about her own Captain. So she took her children and did the best thing she could think to do. Luckily, Hemans wasn't as extreme and vindictive as the wife of Asdrubal, because Hemans simply went back to live with her mother while the martyr of our story killed herself and the children, hoping that the "avenging spirits" of the children haunt Asdrubal "Till vain remorse thy wither'd heart consume, Scourged by relentless shadows of the tomb!" (408). She obviously wants her husband to pay for the shame that he put upon himself and his family in order to avert death, and perhaps the same is true for Hemans.

It is intersting to note, however, that the wife's name is never given, perhaps this is simply because there is no historical account of what her name was. But as far as the significance that it has to this poem, Hemans herself probably felt that women are too often not given credit for their own actions. Instead of history writing her down as this strong prideful woman who would rather die than be shamed, all her actions are based off of this cowardly man. History doesn't even recognize her as being her own person, the only way she will ever be known is as the wife of Asdrubal.