Swinburne’s Tristram of Lyonesse as Assimilationist Epic

Abstract

The trouble with Tristram of Lyonesse (1882) — what has kept it the most underrated major narrative in nineteenth-century English verse — is the same as the notorious trouble with Swinburne: too much rhetoric. Must he be so redundantly figurative? Critics bent on writing off freakish ingenuity used to put the question of Swinburne’s rhetorical excess rhetorically and leave it that way. Lately the question has received more serious answers, but these are sometimes framed so generally that they incur the same charge of abstraction that has been levelled against the poet.¹ The following essay on Swinburne’s narrative masterpiece also aims at some broad generalisations; I want to make my way, however, through a detailed consideration of the most conspicuous rhetorical convention of the genre to which Tristram of Lyonesse (albeit problematically) belongs: the epic simile.² Seeing how Swinburne’s similes mingle figurative description with literal narration can provide terms in which to understand larger, correlative issues: the bearing of his rhetorical practice on his epic theme, and the stance he assumes as an epic poet transmitting traditional materials. This stance, I shall suggest in closing, exemplifies Swinburne’s original Victorian position on the Romantic issue of poetic originality.