Algernon Charles Swinburne

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Algernon Charles Swinburne
pre-Raphaelite
Notable workPoems and Ballads
Signature

Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as Poems and Ballads, and contributed to the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Swinburne wrote about many

anti-theism. His poems have many common motifs, such as the ocean, time, and death. Several historical people are featured in his poems, such as Sappho ("Sapphics"), Anactoria ("Anactoria"), and Catullus ("To Catullus").[1]

Biography

Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1862, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Swinburne was born at 7 Chester Street,

Northumbrian family. He grew up at East Dene in Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight.[2] The Swinburnes also had a London home at Whitehall Gardens, Westminster.[3]

As a child, Swinburne was "nervous" and "frail", but "was also fired with nervous energy and fearlessness to the point of being reckless."[4] He went riding and wrote plays with his first cousin Mary Gordon who lived nearby on the Isle of Wight. They secretly collaborated on her second book, Children of the Chapel, which contained an unusual amount of beatings.[5]

Swinburne attended Eton College (1849–53), where he started writing poetry. At Eton, he won first prizes in French and Italian.[4] He attended Balliol College, Oxford (1856–60), with a brief hiatus when he was rusticated[6] from the university in 1859 for having publicly supported the attempted assassination of Napoleon III by Felice Orsini.[7] He returned in May 1860, though he never received a degree.

Swinburne spent summer holidays at Capheaton Hall in Northumberland, the house of his grandfather, Sir John Swinburne, 6th Baronet (1762–1860), who had a famous library and was president of the Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle upon Tyne. Swinburne considered Northumberland to be his native county, an emotion reflected in poems like the intensely patriotic "Northumberland", "Grace Darling" and others. He enjoyed riding his pony across the moors; he was a daring horseman, "through honeyed leagues of the northland border", as he called the Scottish border in his Recollections.[8]

In the period 1857–60, Swinburne became a member of Lady Trevelyan's intellectual circle at Wallington Hall.

After his grandfather's death in 1860 he stayed with William Bell Scott in Newcastle. In 1861, Swinburne visited Menton on the French Riviera, staying at the Villa Laurenti to recover from the excessive use of alcohol.[9] From Menton, Swinburne travelled to Italy, where he journeyed extensively.[9] In December 1862, Swinburne accompanied Scott and his guests, probably including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, on a trip to Tynemouth. Scott writes in his memoirs that, as they walked by the sea, Swinburne declaimed the as yet unpublished "Hymn to Proserpine" and "Laus Veneris" in his lilting intonation, while the waves "were running the whole length of the long level sands towards Cullercoats and sounding like far-off acclamations".[10]

NPG P416. Swinburne with nine of his peers at Oxford, ca. 1850s (Left to right: 1. Joseph Frank Payne, standing; 2. George Rankine Luke, sitting; 3. John Warneford Hoole, standing; 4. Algernon Charles Swinburne, sitting; 5. Thomas Hill Green, standing; 6. John Nichol, sitting; 7. James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, standing; 8. Albert Venn Dicey, sitting; 9. Aeneas James George Mackay, standing; 10. Thomas Erskine Holland, sitting)[11]

At Oxford, Swinburne met several

Pre-Raphaelites, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He also met William Morris. After leaving college, he lived in London and started an active writing career, where Rossetti was delighted with his "little Northumbrian friend", probably a reference to Swinburne's diminutive height—he was just 5'4".[12]

Swinburne was an

alcoholic and algolagniac and highly excitable. He liked to be flogged.[13] His health suffered, and in 1879 at the age of 42, he was taken into care by his friend, Theodore Watts-Dunton, who looked after him for the rest of his life at The Pines, 11 Putney Hill, Putney.[14] Watts-Dunton took him to the lost town of Dunwich, on the Suffolk coast, on several occasions in the 1870s.[15]

St. Boniface Church, Bonchurch
, Isle of Wight, pictured in 2013

In Watts-Dunton's care Swinburne lost his youthful rebelliousness and developed into a figure of social respectability.

St. Boniface Church, Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight.[17]

Work

16 Cheyne Walk, home to Swinburne
Blue plaque at 16 Cheyne Walk
The Pines, Putney
Blue plaque at The Pines, Putney
Vanity Fair in 1874

Swinburne's poetic works include: Atalanta in Calydon (1865), Poems and Ballads (1866), Songs before Sunrise (1871), Poems and Ballads Second Series, (1878) Tristram of Lyonesse (1882), Poems and Ballads Third Series (1889), and the novel Lesbia Brandon

(published posthumously in 1952).

mediaeval in style, tone and construction. Also featured in this volume are "Hymn to Proserpine", "The Triumph of Time" and "Dolores (Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs)
".

Swinburne wrote in a wide variety of forms, including Sapphic stanzas (comprising 3 hendecasyllabic lines followed by an Adonic):

So the goddess fled from her place, with awful
Sound of feet and thunder of wings around her;
While behind a clamour of singing women
     Severed the twilight.[19]

— "Sapphics", stanza 6

Swinburne devised the poetic form called the

Sir Edward Elgar as the song "Roundel: The little eyes that never knew Light". English composer Mary Augusta Wakefield
set Swinburne's May Time in Midwinter to music.

Swinburne was influenced by the work of

Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Victor Hugo.[16]
Swinburne was popular in England during his lifetime but his stature has greatly decreased since his death.

After the first Poems and Ballads, Swinburne's later poetry became increasingly devoted to celebrations of republicanism and revolutionary causes, particularly in the volume Songs before Sunrise.[1] "A Song of Italy" is dedicated to Mazzini; "Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic" is dedicated to Victor Hugo; and "Dirae" is a sonnet sequence of vituperative attacks against those whom Swinburne believed to be enemies of liberty. Erechtheus is the culmination of Swinburne's republican verse.[1]

He did not stop writing love poetry entirely; indeed his epic-length poem Tristram of Lyonesse was produced during this period but its content is much less shocking than that of his earlier love poetry. His versification, and especially his rhyming technique, remained in top form to the end.[1]

Reception

Swinburne is considered a poet of the decadent school.[20] Swinburne's verses dealing with sadomasochism, lesbianism and other taboo subjects often attracted Victorian ire, and led to him becoming persona non grata in high society [citation needed]. Rumours about his perversions often filled the broadsheets, and he ironically used to play along, confessing to being a pederast and having sex with monkeys.[21]

In France, Swinburne was highly praised by Stéphane Mallarmé, and was invited to contribute to a book in honour of the poet Théophile Gautier, Le tombeau de Théophile Gautier (Wikisource): he answered by six poems in French, English, Latin and Greek.

H. P. Lovecraft considered Swinburne "the only real poet in either England or America after the death of Mr. Edgar Allan Poe."[22]

Renee Vivien, the English poet, was highly impressed with Swinburne and often included quotes of him in her works.[23]

Lamb: and his perception of relative values is almost always correct". Eliot wrote that Swinburne, as a poet, "mastered his technique, which is a great deal, but he did not master it to the extent of being able to take liberties with it, which is everything."[24] Furthermore, Eliot disliked Swinburne's prose, about which he wrote "the tumultuous outcry of adjectives, the headstrong rush of undisciplined sentences, are the index to the impatience and perhaps laziness of a disorderly mind.".[25]

Swinburne was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature every year from 1903 to 1909. In 1908 he was one of the main candidates considered for the prize, and was nominated again in 1909.[26][27][28]

Selections from his poems were translated into French by Gabriel Mourey: Poèmes et ballades d'Algernon Charles Swinburne (Paris, Albert Savine, 1891), incorporating notes by Guy de Maupassant; and Chants d'avant l'aube de Swinburne (Paris, P.-V. Stock, 1909). Gabriele D'Annunzio repeatedly emulated Swinburne in his own poetry, and it is believed that his acquaintance with Swinburne was primarily through Mourey's French translations.[29]

Verse drama

  • The Queen Mother (1860)
  • Rosamond (1860)
  • Chastelard (1865)
  • Bothwell (1874)
  • Mary Stuart (1881)
  • Marino Faliero (1885)
  • Locrine (1887)
  • The Sisters (1892)
  • Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards (1899)

Prose drama

Poetry

^† Although formally tragedies, Atalanta in Calydon and Erechtheus are traditionally included with "poetry".

Criticism

Major collections

  • The poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne, 6 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1904.
  • The Tragedies of Algernon Charles Swinburne, 5 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1905.
  • The Complete Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne, ed. Sir Edmund Gosse and Thomas James Wise, 20 vols. Bonchurch Edition; London and New York: William Heinemann and Gabriel Wells, 1925–7.
  • The Swinburne Letters, ed. Cecil Y. Lang, 6 vols. 1959–62.
  • Uncollected Letters of Algernon Charles Swinburne, ed. Terry L. Meyers, 3 vols. 2004.

Ancestry

See also

References

  • Joshi, S. T. (1993). Lord Dunsany: a Bibliography / by S. T. Joshi and Darrell Schweitzer. Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. p. 2.
  1. ^ a b c d e Walsh, John (2012), An Introduction to Algernon Charles Swinburne, Bloomington: The Algernon Charles Swinburne Project, retrieved 4 December 2015
  2. ^ "Algernon Charles Swinburne". www.poetryfoundation.org. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  3. ^ Cox, Montagu H; Norman, Philip. "No. 3 Whitehall Gardens Pages 204-207 Survey of London: Volume 13, St Margaret, Westminster, Part II: Whitehall I. Originally published by London County Council, London, 1930". British History Online. Retrieved 7 August 2020.
  4. ^ a b "Algernon Charles Swinburne Facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Algernon Charles Swinburne". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  5. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8
    , retrieved 2 September 2023
  6. ^ Swinburne, Algernon (1919), Gosse, Edmund; Wise, Thomas (eds.), The Letters of Algernon Charles Swinburne, vol. 1–6, New York: John Lane Company, retrieved 4 December 2015
  7. ^ Everett, Glenn. "A. C. Swinburne: Biography". Victorian Web. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  8. ISBN 9781909496699
    , retrieved 4 December 2015
  9. ^
    ISBN 978-1-84511-455-8
    .
  10. ^ Scott, William (1892), Autobiographical Notes of the Life of William Bell Scott, London: Forgotten Books, retrieved 4 December 2015
  11. ^ ’’Algernon Charles Swinburne with nine of his peers at Oxford’’ https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitExtended/mw08504/Algernon-Charles-Swinburne-with-nine-of-his-peers-at-Oxford
  12. ^ Edmund Gosse, The Life of Algernon Swinburne, 1917 (The Macmillan Company), p. 258, cited (w/ a Google-book link) at "Before Dawn by Algernon Swinburne". Archived from the original on 12 May 2015. Retrieved 26 November 2012..
  13. ^ John O‘Connell (28 February 2008). "Sex and books: London's most erotic writers". Time Out. Archived from the original on 10 April 2019. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
  14. ^ Blue Plaques Listing for London, English Heritage, Accessed December 2009.
  15. ^ W.G.Sebald, The Rings of Saturn, Harvill 1998 / Vintage 2002 pp. 161-66
  16. ^
    ISBN 9781139017183
  17. ^ Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Locations 45952-45953). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition
  18. ISBN 0-520-20729-7
    , p.168
  19. ^ Swinburne 1889, p. 229.
  20. ISBN 978-0521646802
    .
  21. ^ Everett, Glenn (June 2000). "A. C. Swinburne: Biography". www.victorianweb.org. Archived from the original on 27 April 2022. Retrieved 6 December 2007.
  22. ^ H.P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters: Volume 1. Sauk City: WI: Arkham House, 1965, p. 73
  23. ^ "Renée Vivien | French poet | Britannica".
  24. ^ Eliot T.S. Reflections on Vers Libre New Statesman 1917
  25. ISBN 978-0486299365
    .
  26. ^ "Algernon Charles Swinburne". The Nomination Database for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Nobel Foundation. April 2020. Retrieved 14 March 2021.
  27. ^ Helmer Lång, 100 nobelpris i litteratur 1901–2001, Symposion 2001, pp. 25, 56.
  28. ^ Wilhelm Odelberg, Nobel: The Man and His Prizes, p. 97.
  29. JSTOR 458461
    .

Sources

External links

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