Algernon Charles Swinburne Quote

Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He was a major contributor to the Pre-Raphaelite movement in poetry, along with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris. His most influential works were the verse drama Atalanta in Calydon (1865), written in the form of an Ancient Greek tragedy, and his lushly Pre-Raphaelite Poems and Ballads (1866).
In his poetry, Swinburne rebelled against the Christian morality of the Victorian era, drawing from Classical and medieval sources to explore topics such as atheism in "Hymn to Proserpine," homosexuality in "Anactoria," and sadomasochism in "Dolores." His poems share common motifs, such as the ocean, time, love, and death, and his verse was often complex, incorporating double rhymes and rare anapestic meter into long poems of intricate design.
Swinburne's poetic style—rhythmic, alliterative, and sensual—drew both obsession and condemnation during his lifetime. While Swinburne's work attracted considerable scandal, it had many prominent defenders, including John Ruskin. Swinburne was deeply influenced by the French poets François Villon and Théophile Gautier, and by Charles Baudelaire, the author of the controversial Les Fleurs du mal, for whom Swinburne wrote the poetic eulogy "Ave Atque Vale."
Swinburne was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature every year from 1903 to 1909. After the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson in 1892, Swinburne was considered for the post of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, but was disqualified by Queen Victoria on moral grounds. Nevertheless, Swinburne's example inspired a new generation of fin-de-siecle poets such as Oscar Wilde and Ernest Dowson.