Synopses & Reviews
Republican, pagan, a sensualist alive to pleasure and to pain, Swinburne flouted the rules of Victorian decorum and morality in his life and work He created a unique means of expression through what Tennyson called his 'wonderful rhythmic invention', and yet his verse was influenced by poets from numerous periods and countries. Many of his poems are opulent hymns to sensual love, in all its aspects, and to death and to the loss of love.
Swinburne's verse is immensely diverse in form: together these two works demonstrate its rich complexity and variety. As T. S. Eliot remarked, there is no reason to call his power over words anything but genius.
This Penguin edition contains a preface, a table of dates, a commentary on the poems and two appendices, one of which is a map of the places mentioned in Atalanta in Calydon.
Synopsis
Flouting conventional Victorian attitudes about religion, politics, decorum and morality, Swinburne was a sensualist, alive to pleasure and to pain. He was a poet not of objects and things, or of word paintings, but of energies-of wind and water-and what Tennyson called wonderful rhythmic invention. Atalanta in Calydon is a drama in classical Greek form, with choruses that reveal Swinburne's mastery of melodious verse. His poems are opulent hymns to sensual love in all its aspects, to the loss of love, and to death.
Together, the works in this unique volume demonstrate Swinburne's mastery of form and the rich complexity of his poetry. This edition contains a preface, a commentary on the poems and two appendices, including a map of the places mentioned in Atalanta in Calydon.
Synopsis
This volume brings together Swinburne's major poetic works, ATALANTA IN CALYDON (1865) and POEMS AND BALLADS (1866). ATALANTA IN CALYDON is a drama in classical Greek form, which revealed Swinburne's metrical skills and brought him celebrity. POEMS AND BALLADS brought him notoriety and demonstrates his preoccupation with de Sade, masochism, and femmes fatales. Also reproduced here is 'Notes on Poems and Reviews', a pamphlet Swinburne published in 1866 in response to hostile reviews of POEMS AND BALLADS.
Table of Contents
Poems and Ballads and Atalanta in Calydon Acknowledgments
Preface
Table of Dates
Further Reading
Poems and Ballads
A Ballad of Life
A Ballad of Death
Laus Veneris
Phaedra
The Triumph of Time
Les Noyades
A Leave-Taking
Itylus
Anactoria
Hymn to Proserpine
Ilicet
Hermaphroditus
Fragoletta
Rondel
Satia te Sanguine
A Litany
A Lamentation
Anima Anceps
In the Orchard
A Match
Faustine
A Cameo
Song Before Death
Rococo
Stage Love
The Leper
A Ballad of Burdens
Rondel
Before the Mirror
Erotion
In Memory of Walter Savage Landor
A Song in Time of Order, 1852
A Song in Time of Revolution, 1860
To Victor Hugo
Before Dawn
Dolores
The Garden of Prosperine
Hesperia
Love at Sea
April
Before Parting
The Sundew
Félise
An Interlude
Hendecasyllabics
Sapphics
At Eleusis
August
A Christmas Carol
The Masque of Queen Bersabe
St. Dorothy
The Two Dreams
Aholibah
Love and Sleep
Madonna Mia
The King's Daughter
After Death
May Janet
The Bloody Son
The Sea-Swallows
The Year of Love
Dedication, 1865
Atalanta in Calydon
Notes
Appendix 1: Notes on Poems and Reviews
Appendix 2: Map of places in Atalanta in Calydon
Index of Titles and First Lines