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Analysis Of HemansThe Grave Of A Poetess

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Through examining Hemans’ The Grave of a Poetess in the context of broader romantic-literature, it becomes increasingly evident that the early 19th century writer imbibes the destabilising qualities of the elegiac tradition to reimagine her work in accordance with a newly feminized romanticism. By resisting the seductive pull of focalising one specific tradition, as reflected by critics’ approbation for her ‘innate sense of balance’(Rudy 547), Hemans’ disassociation of life and death and her infusion of detached reason and unfettered passion seems to suggest that the romantic-era traits found within this poem serve only an extrinsic purpose; potentially in eschewing the androcentric demarcations of the literary epoch in favour of a transgressive, necromantic model of gynocentric creativity.
Firstly, Hemans provides an unsettling problemization of romantic era characteristics as she deploys the solipsistic narrator technique heavily associated with the epoch whilst preserving a kind of collective voice with the deceased poetess. Crucially, the first word of the poem, following the epitaph dedicated to Tighe, is the first person “I” (line 1) which invokes the contemplative voice that critics have come to expect from early 19th century romantic work. Despite this, the poem transgresses this expectation as the monosyllabic tranquility of ‘The light of song’ (16) is gradually replaced by the ‘deep’ (46) musings on Tighe which suggest an irreconcilability between the ‘mortal

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