SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES. - English poet, b. in London on 5 Apr. 1837, d. at Putney Hill on 10 Apr. 1909.
He made his debut 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. In the meantime 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 controversy: the poet became known to the general public for his independence from Victorian tradition, in the field of politics as well as of morality. His political passion is attested 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 the following works (Poems and Ballads, 1878, 1889; the drama Erechtheus, 1876; the chivalric poem Tristram of Lyonesse, 1882), the poet returns to the manners and themes of his poems, but with a vein by now tired.
His activity as a critic is to be noted, marked by a particular sensibility 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, the various influences of the Pre-Raphaelites, of Landor, of the early Romantics and of the Greek and Latin poets are recognizable. Often eloquence prevails over song; yet always very much alive is the tendency toward pure musical expression and the sense of the beauty of words and of their position in the verse. In any case, his most genuine inspiration is to be identified more in the poems dominated by sensual obsession and by a soft sense of death than in the patriotic ones, where the influence of Victor Hugo's rhetoric is more evident. Of the partly positive value of his work as poet and critic, confirmation is given by the influence exercised on Walter Pater and on other men of letters of the following generation.
Bibliography6 worksedd.: Selections, edited by E. Gosse and T. J. Wise, London 1919; Works, 20 vols., ibid. 1926-27. Studies: T. J. Wise, A. bibliogr. of S., i
BIBL.: edd.: Selections, edited by E. Gosse and T. J. Wise, London 1919; Works, 20 vols., ibid. 1926-27. Studies: T. J. Wise, A. bibliogr. of S., ibid. 1918-19; A. Galimberti, L'aedo d'Italia, Palermo 1925; G. Lafourcade, S. A. Literary biography, ibid. 1932; C. K. Hyder, S. Literary career and fame, Duke 1933; further bibl. in P. W. Bateson, The Cambridge Bibl. of English Literat., III, Cambridge 1940, pp. 317-23.
De, Angelis Giulio. “Swinburne Algernon, charles.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. XI, coll. 1664–1665. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1953. https://azioneromana.com/article/swinburne-algernon-charles.
MLA
De, Angelis Giulio. “Swinburne Algernon, charles.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. XI, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1953, coll. 1664–1665. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/swinburne-algernon-charles.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec11_swinburne_algernon_charles,
author = {De, Angelis Giulio},
title = {Swinburne Algernon, charles},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {XI},
pages = {1664--1665},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1953},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/swinburne-algernon-charles}
}
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