Значение слова SWINBURNE в Литературной энциклопедии

SWINBURNE

ALGERNON CHARLES (1837-1909).-Poet, _s._ of Admiral S. and of Lady Jane Ashburnham, _dau._ of the 3rd Earl of A., _b._ in London, received his early education in France, and was at Eton and at Balliol Coll., Oxf., where he attracted the attention of Jowett, and gave himself to the study of Latin, Greek, French, and Italian, with special reference to poetic form. He left Oxf. without graduating in 1860, and in the next year _pub._ two plays, _The Queen Mother_ and _Rosamund_, which made no impression on the public, though a few good judges recognised their promise. The same year he visited Italy, and there made the acquaintance of Walter Savage Landor (_q.v._). On his return he lived for some time in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, with D.G. Rossetti (_q.v._), and G. Meredith (_q.v._). The appearance in 1865 of _Atalanta in Calydon_ led to his immediate recognition as a poet of the first order, and in the same year he _pub._ _Chastelard, a Tragedy_, the first part of a trilogy relating to Mary Queen of Scots, the other two being _Bothwell_ (1874), and _Mary Stuart_ (1881). _Poems and Ballads_, _pub._ in 1866, created a profound sensation alike among the critics and the general body of readers by its daring departure from recognised standards, alike of politics and morality, and gave rise to a prolonged and bitter controversy, S. defending himself against his assailants in _Notes on Poems and Reviews_. His next works were the _Song of Italy_ (1867) and _Songs before Sunrise_ (1871). Returning to the Greek models which he had followed with such brilliant success in _Atalanta_ he produced _Erechtheus_ (1876), the extraordinary metrical power of which won general admiration. _Poems and Ballads_, second series, came out in 1878. _Tristram of Lyonnesse_ in heroic couplets followed in 1882, _A Midsummer Holiday_ (1884), _Marino Faliero_ (1885), _Locrine_ (1887), _Poems and Ballads_, third series (1889), _The Sisters_ (1892), _Astrophel_ (1894), _The Tale of Balen_ (1896), _Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards_ (1899), _A Channel Passage_ (1904), and _The Duke of Gandia_ (1908). Among his prose works are _Love's Cross Currents_ (1905) (fiction), _William Blake, a Critical Essay_ (1867), _Under the Microscope_ (1872), in answer to R. Buchanan's _Fleshly School of Poetry_, _George Chapman, a Critical Essay_ (1875), _A Study of Shakespeare_ (1879), _A Study of Victor Hugo_ (1886), and _A Study of Ben Jonson_ (1889). S. belongs to the class of "Poets' poets." He never became widely popular. As a master of metre he is hardly excelled by any of our poets, but it has not seldom been questioned whether his marvellous sense of the beauty of words and their arrangement did not exceed the depth and mass of his thought. _The Hymn to Artemis_ in _Atalanta_ beginning "When the hounds of Spring are on Winter's traces" is certainly one of the most splendid examples of metrical power in the language. As a prose writer he occupies a much lower place, and here the contrast between the thought and its expression becomes very marked, the latter often becoming turgid and even violent. In his earlier days in London S. was closely associated with the pre-Raphaelites, the Rossettis, Meredith, and Burne-Jones: he was thus subjected successively to the classical and romantic influence, and showed the traces of both in his work. He was never _m._, and for the last 30 years of his life lived with his friend, Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, at the Pines, Putney Hill. For some time before his death he was almost totally deaf.

Литературная энциклопедия.