Sceptic

The Sceptic is likely a response to Byron (see Sweet and Taylor), it is interesting to speculate on Hemans's possible invocation of the idiom of Byron's nemesis,

Notes on 'The 'Power of Sound' and the Great Scheme of Things: Wordsworth Listens to Wordsworth' 2008

The Sceptic is a long non-narrative poem and a summary or guided tour may be in order.

A Tour of the Sceptic 2001

The Sceptic is pivotal in her career, as it signals a shift from historical themes to philosophical and moral ones, a shift which will culminate in 1825 with The Forest Sanctuary, which although ostensibly a poem with a historical subject takes a philosophical imperative, as it is as much about the process of experience and memory as it is about history proper.

Hemans, Hume and Philosophical Scepticism 2001

It therefore argues that, despite its apparently conservative message, The Sceptic is in fact a subtle critique of contemporary sexual politics.

Literary & Historical Context 2001

Byron's letter of June 1820 where The Sceptic is mentioned, again with a transcription by Barbara Taylor.

Literary & Historical Context 2001

This essay challenges the traditional assumption that The Sceptic is a didactic poem and instead argues that it is an epideictic poem of praise and blame that taunts Byron's scepticism and responds with its own.

Gender and Genre 2001

Chorley and almost everyone else, The Sceptic is not a "didactic" poem?

'A darkling plain': Hemans, Byron and _The Sceptic; A Poem_ 2001

We assemble this Hemans-Byron hypertext in the belief that a Hemans without The Sceptic is an ambitious woman poet defanged, and

'A darkling plain': Hemans, Byron and _The Sceptic; A Poem_ 2001

a Byron without The Sceptic is a privileged poet going unanswered by the sex to whom he is purportedly the "most dangerous."

'A darkling plain': Hemans, Byron and _The Sceptic; A Poem_ 2001

The Sceptic is another enemy of religion, who naturally provokes the indignation of all divines and graver philosophers; though it is certain, that no man ever met with any such absurd creature, or conversed with a man, who had no opinion or principle concerning any subject, either of action or speculation.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 2004