SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES. - English poet, b. in London on 5 Apr. 1837, d. at Putney Hill on 10 Apr. 1909.
He began by publishing the two dramas *The Queen Mother* and *Rosamond*. In 1861 he visited Italy and returned there in 1864, the year in which he met Walter Savage Landor in Florence. Meanwhile he had come into contact with D. G. Rossetti and G. Meredith. In 1865 he published the drama *Atalanta in Calydon*; in 1866 the *Poems and Ballads*, which gave rise to lively controversies: the poet became known to the general public for his independence from Victorian tradition, both in politics and in morals. His political passion is evidenced by the following works: *Song of Italy*, of 1867, the year in which he met Mazzini, and *Songs before Sunrise* (1871), inspired by the republican ideal and by contemporary Italian history. In all his subsequent works (*Poems and Ballads*, 1878, 1889; the drama *Erechtheus*, 1876; the chivalric poem *Tristram of Lyonesse*, 1882), the poet returns to the style and themes of his earlier poetry, but with a now exhausted vein.
Noteworthy is his activity as a critic, marked by a particular sensitivity and breadth of interests (*William Blake. A Critical Study*, 1867; *A Study of Shakespeare*, 1879; *A Study of Victor Hugo*, 1886).
In his poetry, typical of the end of the century,