Swinburne, Algernon Charles. (1837 - 1909).
L i f e
- shocked by a variety of rebellious gestures: pagan in religion, revolutionary in politics, and adherent of practices of Marquis de Sade in love
W o r k
- briefly involved with the Pre-Raphaelites x but: remained a rebel
- characteristic by his radicalism, libertarianism, and paganism
- firmly fixed in ‘an attitude of revolt against current notions of decency and dignity and social duty’
- convinced ‘that art of poetry has nothing to do with didactic matter’
x but: shows a deep understanding of the forms and styles of classical culture
- preoccupied with death: no other English poet wrote more elegies
Atalanta in Calydon (1865):
- a play on ancient Greece, filled with classical allusions
- did not admire the Greek literature for its classic serenity x but: loved Greece as a land of liberty
Poems and Ballads (1866):
- metrical echoes of and variations on Greek poetry
- relishes words as much for their sound as for their sense
> “The Triumph of Time”:
- one of the finest demonstrations of his qualities
> “The Garden of Proserpine”:
- on death and the re-creations in the underworld garden of Proserpine frozen in timelessness
> “Hymn to Proserpine”:
- spoken by the dying anti-Christian Roman Emperor
> “Anactoria”:
- a dramatic monologue poem
- the Greek poet Sappho’s address to a woman she loves
> “Dolores”:
- reverses the Catholic notions of the suffering Virgin
Ave Atque Vale (1868):
- the title: from the Roman poet Catullus’s ‘hail and farewell’
- an elegy in the honour of the dekadent poet Charles Baudelaire
Songs before Sunrise (1871):
- expresses his political support for the Italian Risorgimento
Basics
(Photo: Famous Poets & Poems com).
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Author
Algernon Charles Swinburne. (1837 - 1909). British. -
Work
Poet. Playwright. Author of Ave Atque Vale (1868). -
Genres
Victorian period. Decadence. Poetry. Drama. Elegy.
Literature
Abrams, Meyer Howard, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.
Barnard, Robert. Stručné dějiny anglické literatury. Praha: Brána, 1997.
Baugh, Albert C. ed. A Literary History of England. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.
Coote, Stephen. The Penguin Short History of English Literature. London: Penguin, 1993.
Sampson, George. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946.
Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. New York: Clarendon Press, 1994.
Quote
"I am weary of days and hours, / Blown buds of barren flowers, / Desires and dreams and powers / And everything but sleep."
From "The Garden of Proserpine" (1866).