ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses three poems by women poets, all of which have as their subject another woman poet. The three poems are: Felicia Hemans, 'The Grave of a Poetess' Wu, Romanticism; L.E.L., 'Stanzas on the Death of Mrs Hemans'; Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 'L.E.L.'s Last Question'. It focuses on three main topics: the growth in the number of poems about the realm of domestic affections, poems designed to have a direct emotional effect on the reader; the importance of virtue for women writers; and nature of the relation between women writers. Women poets acknowledge the intertextuality that is so often hidden or unacknowledged by male Romantic poets. A more direct constraint on women poets was the image of the 'poetess' cultivated by influential reviewers. The stanza of the poem could be summed up by the word 'harmonious'. Other women writers dignify the domestic and the quotidian as the subject matter of poetry. They perceive themselves as part of a sisterly endeavour.
