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Locrine: “Today will die tomorrow.”
Locrine: “Today will die tomorrow.”
Locrine: “Today will die tomorrow.”
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Locrine: “Today will die tomorrow.”

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Algernon Charles Swinburne was born on April 5th, 1837, in London, into a wealthy Northumbrian family. He was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford, but did not complete a degree. In 1860 Swinburne published two verse dramas but achieved his first literary success in 1865 with Atalanta in Calydon, written in the form of classical Greek tragedy. The following year "Poems and Ballads" brought him instant notoriety. He was now identified with "indecent" themes and the precept of art for art's sake. Although he produced much after this success in general his popularity and critical reputation declined. The most important qualities of Swinburne's work are an intense lyricism, his intricately extended and evocative imagery, metrical virtuosity, rich use of assonance and alliteration, and bold, complex rhythms. Swinburne's physical appearance was small, frail, and plagued by several other oddities of physique and temperament. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s he drank excessively and was prone to accidents that often left him bruised, bloody, or unconscious. Until his forties he suffered intermittent physical collapses that necessitated removal to his parents' home while he recovered. Throughout his career Swinburne also published literary criticism of great worth. His deep knowledge of world literatures contributed to a critical style rich in quotation, allusion, and comparison. He is particularly noted for discerning studies of Elizabethan dramatists and of many English and French poets and novelists. As well he was a noted essayist and wrote two novels. In 1879, Swinburne's friend and literary agent, Theodore Watts-Dunton, intervened during a time when Swinburne was dangerously ill. Watts-Dunton isolated Swinburne at a suburban home in Putney and gradually weaned him from alcohol, former companions and many other habits as well. Much of his poetry in this period may be inferior but some individual poems are exceptional; "By the North Sea," "Evening on the Broads," "A Nympholept," "The Lake of Gaube," and "Neap-Tide." Swinburne lived another thirty years with Watts-Dunton. He denied Swinburne's friends access to him, controlled the poet's money, and restricted his activities. It is often quoted that 'he saved the man but killed the poet'. Swinburne died on April 10th, 1909 at the age of seventy-two.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateDec 2, 2015
ISBN9781785434945
Locrine: “Today will die tomorrow.”

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    Book preview

    Locrine - Algernon Charles Swinbourne

    Locrine by Algernon Charles Swinburne

    A TRAGEDY

    Algernon Charles Swinburne was born on April 5th, 1837, in London, into a wealthy Northumbrian family.  He was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford, but did not complete a degree.

    In 1860 Swinburne published two verse dramas but achieved his first literary success in 1865 with Atalanta in Calydon, written in the form of classical Greek tragedy. The following year Poems and Ballads brought him instant notoriety. He was now identified with indecent themes and the precept of art for art's sake.

    Although he produced much after this success in general his popularity and critical reputation declined. The most important qualities of Swinburne's work are an intense lyricism, his intricately extended and evocative imagery, metrical virtuosity, rich use of assonance and alliteration, and bold, complex rhythms.

    Swinburne's physical appearance was small, frail, and plagued by several other oddities of physique and temperament. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s he drank excessively and was prone to accidents that often left him bruised, bloody, or unconscious. Until his forties he suffered intermittent physical collapses that necessitated removal to his parents' home while he recovered.

    Throughout his career Swinburne also published literary criticism of great worth. His deep knowledge of world literatures contributed to a critical style rich in quotation, allusion, and comparison. He is particularly noted for discerning studies of Elizabethan dramatists and of many English and French poets and novelists. As well he was a noted essayist and wrote two novels.

    In 1879, Swinburne's friend and literary agent, Theodore Watts-Dunton, intervened during a time when Swinburne was dangerously ill. Watts-Dunton isolated Swinburne at a suburban home in Putney and gradually weaned him from alcohol, former companions and many other habits as well.

    Much of his poetry in this period may be inferior but some individual poems are exceptional; By the North Sea, Evening on the Broads, A Nympholept, The Lake of Gaube, and Neap-Tide.

    Swinburne lived another thirty years with Watts-Dunton. He denied Swinburne's friends access to him, controlled the poet's money, and restricted his activities. It is often quoted that 'he saved the man but killed the poet'.

    Algernon Charles Swinburne died on April 10th, 1909 at the age of seventy-two.

    Index of Contents

    DEDICATION

    PERSONS REPRESENTED

    SCENE - BRITAIN

    ACT

    SCENE I—Troynovant. A Room in the Palace

    SCENE II—Gardens of the Palace

    ACT II

    SCENE I—The Banks of the Ley

    SCENE II—Troynovant. A Room in the Palace

    ACT III

    SCENE I—Troynovant. A Room in the Palace

    SCENE II—Gardens of the Palace

    ACT IV

    SCENE I—The Banks of the Ley

    SCENE II—Troynovant. A Room in the Palace

    ACT V

    SCENE I—Fields Near the Severn

    SCENE II—The Banks of the Severn

    ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

    ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

    DEDICATION

    TO ALICE SWINBURNE

    I.

    The love that comes and goes like wind or fire

    Hath words and wings wherewith to speak and flee.

    But love more deep than passion's deep desire,

    Clear and inviolable as the unsounded sea,

    What wings of words may serve to set it free,

    To lift and lead it homeward? Time and death

    Are less than love: or man's live spirit saith

    False, when he deems his life is more than breath.

    II.

    No words may utter love; no sovereign song

    Speak all it would for love's sake. Yet would I

    Fain cast in moulded rhymes that do me wrong

    Some little part of all my love: but why

    Should weak and wingless words be fain to fly?

    For us the years that live not are not dead:

    Past days and present in our hearts are wed:

    My song can say no more than love hath said.

    III.

    Love needs nor song nor speech to say what love

    Would speak or sing, were speech and song not weak

    To bear the sense-belated soul above

    And bid the lips of silence breathe and speak.

    Nor power nor will has love to find or seek

    Words indiscoverable, ampler strains of song

    Than ever hailed him fair or shewed him strong:

    And less than these should do him worse than wrong.

    IV.

    We who remember not a day wherein

    We have not loved each other,—who can see

    No time, since time bade first our days begin,

    Within the sweep of memory's wings, when we

    Have known not what each other's love must be,―

    We are well content to know it, and rest on this,

    And call not words to witness that it is.

    To love aloud is oft to love amiss.

    V.

    But if the gracious witness borne of words

    Take not from speechless love the secret grace

    That binds it round with silence, and engirds

    Its heart with memories fair as heaven's own face,

    Let love take courage for a little space

    To speak and be rebuked not of the soul,

    Whose utterance, ere the unwitting speech be whole,

    Rebukes itself, and craves again control.

    VI.

    A ninefold garland wrought of song-flowers nine

    Wound each with each in chance-inwoven accord

    Here at your feet I lay as on a shrine

    Whereof the holiest love that lives is lord.

    With faint strange hues their leaves are freaked and scored:

    The fable-flowering land wherein they grew

    Hath dreams for stars, and grey romance for dew:

    Perchance no flower thence plucked may flower anew.

    VII.

    No part have these wan legends in the sun

    Whose glory lightens Greece and gleams on Rome.

    Their elders live: but these—their day is done,

    Their records written of the wind in foam

    Fly down the wind, and darkness takes them home.

    What Homer saw, what Virgil dreamed, was truth,

    And dies not, being divine: but whence, in sooth,

    Might shades that never lived win deathless youth?

    VIII.

    The fields of fable, by the feet of faith

    Untrodden, bloom not where such deep mist drives.

    Dead fancy's ghost, not living fancy's wraith,

    Is now the storied sorrow that survives

    Faith in the record of these lifeless lives.

    Yet Milton's sacred feet have lingered there,

    His lips have made august the fabulous air,

    His hands have touched and left the wild weeds fair.

    IX.

    So, in some void and thought-untrammelled hour,

    Let these find grace, my sister, in your sight,

    Whose glance but cast on casual things hath power

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