[CRITICAL ANNOTATIONS ON THE “SIEGE OF VALENCIA.”
“Of ‘The Siege of Valencia’ we say little, for we by no means consider it as the happiest of Mrs Hemans’s efforts. Not that it does not contain, nay, abound with fine passages; but the whole wants vigour, coherence, and compression. The story is meagre, and the dialogue too diffuse.”—The Rev. Dr Morehead in Constable’s Magazine for September 1823.
“The ‘Tales and Historic Scenes,’ ‘The Sceptic,’ ‘The Welsh Melodies,’ ‘The Siege of Valencia,’ and ‘The Vespers of Palermo,’” says Delta, “may all be referred to this epoch of her literary career, and are characterised by beauties of a high and peculiar stamp. With reference to the two latter, it must be owned, that if the genius of Mrs Hemans was not essentially dramatic, yet that both abound with high and magnificent bursts of poetry. It was not easy to adapt her fine taste and uniformly high-toned sentiment to the varied aspects of life and character necessary to the success of scenic exhibition; and she must have been aware of the difficulties that surrounded her in that path. If these cannot, therefore, be considered as successful tragedies, they hold their places as dramatic poems of rich and rare poetic beauty. Indeed, it would be difficult, from the whole range of Mrs Hemans’s writings, to select any thing more exquisitely conceived, more skilfully managed, or more energetically written, than the Monk’s tale in ‘The Siege of Valencia.’ The description of his son, in which he dwells with parental enthusiasm on his boyish beauty and accomplishments—of his horror at that son’s renunciation of the Christian faith, and leaguing with the infidel—and of the twilight encounter, in which he took the life of his own giving—are all worked out in the loftiest spirit of poetry.”—Biographical Memoir, p. 16-17.
“‘The Siege of Valencia,’ ‘The Last Constantine,’ and other poems, were published in the course of the year 1823. This volume was marked by more distinct evidences of originality than any of Mrs Hemans’s previous works. None of her after poems contain finer bursts of strong, fervid, indignant poetry than ‘The Siege of Valencia;’ its story—a thrilling conflict between maternal love and the inflexible spirit of chivalrous honour—afforded to her an admirable opportunity of giving utterance to the two master interests of her mind. It is a tale that will bear a second reading—though, it must be confessed that, as in the case of ‘The Vespers of Palermo,’ somewhat of a monotony of colouring is thrown over its scenes by the unchanged employment of a lofty and enriched phraseology, which would have gained in emphasis by its being more sparingly used. Ximena, too, all glowing and heroic as she is, stirring up the sinking hearts of the besieged citizens with her battle-song of the Cid, and dying as it were of that strain of triumph—is too spiritual, too saintly, wholly to carry away the sympathies. Our imagination is kindled by her splendid, high-toned devotion—our tears are called forth by the grief of her mother, the stately Elmina, broken down, but not degraded, by the agony of maternal affection, to connive at a treachery she is too noble wholly to carry through. The scenes with her husband are admirable; some of her speeches absolutely startle us with their passion and intensity—the following, for instance:—
‘Love! love! there are soft smiles and gentle words,’” etc.
—Chorley’s Memorials of Mrs Hemans, p. 110-12.
“‘The Siege of Valencia’ is a dramatic poem, but not intended for representation. The story is extremely simple. The Moors, who besiege Valencia, take the two sons of the governor, Gonzalez, captive, as they come to visit their father, and now the ransom demanded for them is the surrender of the city: they are to die if the place is not yielded up. Elmina, the mother of the boys, and Ximena, their sister, are the remaining members of a family to which so dreadful an option is submitted. The poem is one of the highest merit. The subject is of great dignity, being connected with the defence of Spain against the Moors; and at the same time it is of the greatest tenderness, offering a succession of the most moving scenes that can be imagined to occur in the bosom of a family. The father is firm, the daughter is heroic, the mother falters. She finds her way to the Moorish camp, sees her children, forms her plan for betraying the town, and then is not able to conceal her grief and her design from her husband. He immediately sends a defiance to the Moors, his children are brought out and beheaded, a sortie is made from the besieged city: finally, the king of Spain arrives to the rescue; the wrongs of Gonzalez are avenged; he himself dies in victory; and the poem closes with a picture of his wife, moved by the strongest grief, of which she is yet able to restrain the expression. The great excellence of the poem lies in the description of the struggle between the consciousness of duty and maternal fondness. We believe none but a mother could have written it.”—Professor Norton, in North American Review for April 1827.
“The graceful powers of Mrs Hemans in the same walk which had been trodden so grandly by Miss Baillie, were manifested in her ‘Vespers of Palermo’, and her ‘Siege of Valencia.’ The latter is a noble work, and as a poem ranks with her highest productions, though it is filled too uniformly perhaps with the spirit of her own mind, to be very distinctively dramatic. It has indeed variety, but less of the variety of human nature, than of a godlike and exalted nature, which belongs to few among mankind, and to them, perhaps, only in strange and terrible crises. The steadfastness of the paternal chieftain, the sterner enthusiasm of the priest, the mother’s maddening affection, and the gentle heroism of the melancholy Ximena are drawn with individuality, but it is the individuality of a common greatness, the apparent appropriation to many of an essence really the same in all. In her own heart the poetess found this pure essence; and when she created her Christian patriots at Valencia, she but translated herself into a new dialect of manners and motives. Of this one elevated material she has, however, made fine dramatic use. The language, while faultless in its measured music, has passion to swell its cadences; the loftiness is never languid; and the flow of the verse is skilfully broken into the animated abruptness suitable to earnest dialogue. There are many, too, of those sudden glimpses of profound truth in which the energy of passion seems to force its rude way, in a moment, into regions of the heart that philosophy would take hours to survey with its technical language. Thus, when the iron-hearted monk is telling the story of his son’s disgrace,—
’Elmina. He died?
Hernandez. Not so!