Louisa Jane Hall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
February 7, 1802
Louisa Jane Hall | |
|---|---|
| Born | Louisa Jane Park February 7, 1802 |
| Died | September 8, 1892 (aged 90) Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation | Poet, essayist, literary critic |
| Alma mater | Boston Lyceum for Young Ladies |
| Period | Romantic era |
| Spouse |
Edward B. Hall
(m. 1840; died 1866) |
Louisa Jane Hall (née Park; February 7, 1802 – September 8, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and literary critic of the Romantic era.[1][2] None of her poems appeared in print until after she was twenty; they were then published anonymously in the Literary Gazette, and other periodicals. Miriam, a Dramatic Sketch, her most notable work, was begun in the summer of 1826, finished the following summer, and published ten years later. Her other principal work is in prose, Joanna of Naples, an Historical Tale, published in 1838. Hannah, the Mother of Samuel the Prophet and Judge of Israel (1839) was, like Miriam, a verse play.[3] She and her father moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1831, and they lived together until October 1840, when she married the Rev. E. B. Hall, of Providence, Rhode Island.
Louisa Jane Park was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on February 7, 1802.[4] Her parents were Dr. John Park and Louisa (Adams) Park.[5] The father was a physician who had given up his medical practice when she was two, to move to Boston for the purpose of editing the New-England Repertory, a leading political journal of the Federal party.[4]
In a few years, he became weary of the conflict, then waged with so much violence, and, urged to do so by some of the most intelligent citizens, opened the Boston Lyceum for Young Ladies, in which a more thorough education might be received than was common in that period. His daughter was then in her tenth year. He had already made her familiar with Milton and Shakespeare; and it was partly with the view of executing his plans for her education that he decided to become a public teacher. His school was opened in the spring of 1811, and for twenty years was eminently successful. His daughter, except when her studies were interrupted by ill health (in her early years, she showed symptoms of a delicate constitution), was eight years his pupil.[4] She was an industrious scholar, and the thoroughness of her study shows itself all through her works by her chaste and correct style. She continued in her father's school until she was seventeen.[5]
