Reclaiming the Unsung Women of English Romantic Literature
For many years, literary scholars have highlighted the contributions of female poets, novelists, and playwrights who matched the six prominent male figures of English Romanticism. Among them, Felicia Hemans stood out as the second-best-selling poet after Byron, producing 19 volumes in a span of 25 years, remaining essential reading until the mid-20th century. L.E.L., or Letitia Elizabeth Landon, had a significant impact on Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The Grasmere Journals by Dorothy Wordsworth chronicled the Lake Poets, while Sara Coleridge's The Nightingale examined themes of maternal affection. Mary Tighe's Psyche (1805) received accolades from Keats, and Mary Wollstonecraft’s writings influenced many Romantic authors, including her daughter Mary Shelley in Frankenstein (1818). Other important names include Charlotte Smith, Jane Austen, and Emily Brontë, whose works illustrate interconnected influences in Romantic literature.
Key facts
- Felicia Hemans ranked second only to Lord Byron in poetry sales and published 19 volumes across a 25-year career.
- Letitia Elizabeth Landon first published as 'L.' then 'L.E.L.', becoming famous in her early 20s and influencing Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti.
- Mary Tighe's Psyche (1805) was written in Spenserian stanzas and drew praise from John Keats, who referenced it in his 1819 Ode to Psyche.
- Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796) influenced Romantic writers, including her daughter Mary Shelley.
- Charlotte Smith's Elegiac Sonnets (1784) helped repopularize the sonnet form, and her novel Desmond (1792) advocated French Revolutionary ideals.
- Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron (1778) responded to Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764) and influenced Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794).
- Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya (1806) introduced exoticism and dangerous female sexuality, prompting Percy Shelley's Zastrozzi (1810), whose themes reappear in Frankenstein.
- Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847) combined sentimental heroines, sublime landscapes, and a Byronic Gothic antihero.
Entities
Artists
- William Wordsworth
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- William Blake
- Lord Byron
- Percy Shelley
- John Keats
- Felicia Hemans
- Letitia Elizabeth Landon
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- Christina Rossetti
- Dorothy Wordsworth
- Sara Coleridge
- Anna Seward
- Mary Tighe
- Edmund Spenser
- Mary Robinson
- Anna Laetitia Barbauld
- Joanna Baillie
- Amelia Opie
- Mary Wollstonecraft
- Mary Shelley
- Charlotte Smith
- Helen Maria Williams
- Mary Hays
- Jane Austen
- Emily Brontë
- Clara Reeve
- Horace Walpole
- Ann Radcliffe
- Charlotte Dacre
- Bram Stoker
- Robert Southey
- Alonzo Chappel
- Henry William Pickersgill
- Francis Towne
- Thomas Gainsborough
- John Opie
- Joseph Highmore
- Salvator Rosa
- Francesco Hayez
- Samuel Richardson
Institutions
- Armstrong Browning Library and Museum, Baylor University
- The Victorian Web
- National Portrait Gallery, London
- Art UK
- The Armitt Museum, Gallery, Library, Ambleside
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Wallace Collection, London
- Chawton House
- Wikimedia Commons
- National Gallery of Victoria, Australia
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
- Pavia City Museums, Italy
Locations
- England
- Britain
- United States
- America
- Lake District
- Lichfield
- Staffordshire
- Ireland
- Sweden
- Norway
- Denmark
- France
- London
- Ambleside
- New York City
- Pavia
- Italy
- Australia