Hesperia

Hesperia: A Poem is a lengthy verse volume by Richard Henry Wilde (1789–1847), an Irish-American lawyer, and first edited and published by his son in 1867. The title work is described as "a nationalistic poem in four cantos", named as "Florida", "Virginia", "Acadia", and "Louisiana"; and as "one of the few full-length poems by early southern writers". Content The Oxford Companion to American Literature, fourth edition, described Hesperia as "a long poem in Tom Moore's vein." The Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century calls it "part epic, part Byronesque narrative in the manner of Childe Harold, part autobiography and part philosophic essay." It is written in ottava rima. Dedication Hesperia is dedicated to a fictitious "Marchesa Manfredina di Cosenza". Tucker points out that the name derives from Manfredi di Cosenza, mentioned in the Purgatorio of Dante. In the Dedication, the title Hesperia is explained, as to an Italian: from the Greek, it implies the westward land (from the literal evening star), and so Italy. But also it is to apply to America, further to the west. Tucker accepts the identification of the dedicatee made by Aubrey H. Starke, as Ellen Adair White (Mrs. White Beatty). She was Eleanor Katherine Adair, a daughter of John Adair, who married Joseph M. White, and after his 1839 death as a result of a duel, Theophilus Beatty.