Algernon Charles Swinburne

Abstract

Swinburne was the first decadent English aesthete. He is mostly known for Atalanta in Calydon (1865) a drama in Greek form with the usual accompanying choruses, and for the three series, Poems and Ballads (1866, 1878 and 1889). The poems of the first series prompted unrestrained censure and ridicule from critics such as Robert Buchanan and John Morley, for their preoccupation with the ideas of de Sade and masochism; but some of Swinburne’s most famous compositions are in the volumes Dolores, Itylus, Hymn to Proserpine and Laus Veneris (Praise of Beauty). His peculiar subject matter, together with his attraction to the idea of the femme fatale, appealed to Monckton Milnes and Richard Burton. The second series produced Ave, Atque Vale (Hail, and farewell) inspired by the death of Baudelaire, whose Les Fleurs du Mal (The flowers of evil) Swinburne admired.