tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post8267178754162626836..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Introducing Algernon Charles SwinburneAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-69238209071704718902013-09-16T16:15:31.862-05:002013-09-16T16:15:31.862-05:00Suddenly there is a "crazy musician hair"...Suddenly there is a "crazy musician hair" theme in the comments. Wuthering Expectations is strongly pro-Flock of Seagulls.<br /><br />"All kinds of other things" - I am afraid so. I suppose I will have to mention the flogging thing at some point. No, if I write about his letters I will have to deal with it.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-24504515907646500942013-09-16T13:32:02.398-05:002013-09-16T13:32:02.398-05:00Swinburne would have fit into A Flock of Seagulls ...Swinburne would have fit into A Flock of Seagulls rather nicely. I can imagine the improved lyrics:<br /><br />Reach out a hand to touch your face.<br />With a hand that stings like fire,<br />Weaving the web Desire<br />To snare the bird Delight.<br /><br />You're slowly disappearing from my view<br />Reach out a hand to try again<br />You have the face that suits a woman<br /> For her soul's screen <br />The sort of beauty that's called human<br /> In hell's scene. <br /><br />I'm floating in a beam of light with you<br />A cloud appears above your head<br />A beam of light comes shining down on you<br />You could do all things but be good<br /> Or chaste, or true.<br /><br />So I ran<br />I ran so far away<br />I just ran<br />I ran all night and day<br /><br />Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-15212768413632236402013-09-16T13:01:42.114-05:002013-09-16T13:01:42.114-05:00And look at his hair! I can imagine him as a 1980s...And look at his hair! I can imagine him as a 1980s rocker wearing tight black leather and jamming on a screeching bass! He'd have been good with his drinking too, probably would have added all kinds of other things to it. Stefaniehttp://somanybooksblog.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-68953783414354882972013-09-14T21:55:45.466-05:002013-09-14T21:55:45.466-05:00Wow, this is great. Cleanthess, please promise no...Wow, this is great. Cleanthess, please promise not to be too harsh when I say something stupid about Swinburne. That last line you supply, that is Swinburne squared.<br /><br />I have a copy of <i>Swinburne: The Critical Heritage</i>. It includes several "encounters with Swinburne," including the Adams I used, the Beerbohm piece and the Maupassant story mentioned above, but not the Benson or the Goncourt. It is practically a genre, isn't it? There are even at least two sub-genres, young Swinburne (as in Adams and Maupassant) and domestic Swinburne (as in the Benson and Sebald).<br /><br />CharmedLassie (Brian, too) - yes, read more, soon, please, help! I am not surprised that, even in the context of a Victorian PhD, you have not quite gotten to Swinburne. His stature has dimmed, but there are other reasons, too, which I will mention later if I am lucky.<br /><br />As for Swinburne's criticism, I have only read the excerpts in the Yale book (including parts of the Blake study, which is historically important as part of the rediscovery of Blake). My tentative thought is that Swinburne was not a first-rate critic. His criticism is more helpful for learning about the aesthetics of Swinburne than Blake or Hugo or whoever. Of course, the excerpts I have read were likely chosen for exactly that purpose, and are thus useless for making a judgment.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-20866676022372535892013-09-14T13:49:42.259-05:002013-09-14T13:49:42.259-05:00What is often ignored about Swinburne is how smart...What is often ignored about Swinburne is how smart, erudite and flippant he was. In Swinburne, The Critical Heritage, there is an anecdote about a young writer who told Swinburne about how he liked Jacobean and Caroline drama, and Swinburne proceeded to show the young writer play after play from those periods from Swinburne's own private library and asked him: 'have you read this one? How about this one?' It was later revealed that all of those plays were the sole extant copy left!<br /><br />Anyway, when you're so smart, cultured and flippant, you often write parodies:<br /><br />Of Catullus;<br />My brother, my Valerius, dearest head<br />Of all whose crowning bay-leaves crown their mother<br />Rome, in the notes first heard of thine I read<br />My brother.<br /><br />Of Old English Ballads:<br />WE WERE ten maidens in the green corn,<br />Small red leaves in the mill-water:<br />Fairer maidens never were born,<br />Apples of gold for the king’s daughter.<br />…<br />“Ye’ll make a grave for my fair body,”<br />Running rain in the mill-water;<br />“And ye’ll streek my brother at the side of me,”<br />The pains of hell for the king’s daughter.<br /><br />Of Shakespeare:<br /><br />To sleep, to swim, and to dream, for ever -- <br />Such joy the vision of man saw never;<br />A dream, a dream is it all -- the season, <br />The sky, the water, the wind, the shore? <br />A day-born dream of divine unreason, <br />A marvel moulded of sleep -- no more? <br /><br />Of Swinburne himself:<br /><br />Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional exquisite error,<br />Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitude's breath.<br />Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular tenses--<br />"Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day when we die."Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-31643738496178071932013-09-14T13:37:07.651-05:002013-09-14T13:37:07.651-05:00The Goncourt Brothers also had an...interesting......The Goncourt Brothers also had an...interesting...encounter with Swinburne.<br />Swinburne does seem to be naturally hilarious. Beerbohm's memoir- http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/2355/ - and his pictures of Swinburne have irredeemably rendered him absurd in my eyes, I'm afraid.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-89187166645389949112013-09-14T12:51:09.957-05:002013-09-14T12:51:09.957-05:00I wasn't taken with his long essay on William ...I wasn't taken with his long essay on William Blake.LMRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08538873868140070018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-9380377895312107532013-09-14T11:00:51.264-05:002013-09-14T11:00:51.264-05:00Theres a nice essay on luncheon with Watts-Dunton...Theres a nice essay on luncheon with Watts-Dunton and Swinburne at <i>The Pines</i> Putney by A.C. Benson.<br />http://www.unz.org/Pub/LivingAge-1933feb-00531<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ombhurbhuvahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07789523088428270027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-55680594480024603582013-09-14T10:41:53.591-05:002013-09-14T10:41:53.591-05:00I had read a few of Swineburne's shorter poems...I had read a few of Swineburne's shorter poems at some point some yeas ago. I just looked over a few of them again. <br /><br />The challenging nature of his longer works make me want to read them.<br /><br />That portrait is phenomenal.Brian Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15139559400312336791noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-85432763011608406462013-09-14T04:33:19.675-05:002013-09-14T04:33:19.675-05:00Like you, I can't remember any real reading of...Like you, I can't remember any real reading of Swinburne. The closest I've come to him is utilising a pithy quote of his about Wilkie Collins in my thesis. May be time for me to crack open the old Norton anthology myself when I get home. CharmedLassiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08408541277096433664noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-45374295042895433222013-09-14T00:08:19.420-05:002013-09-14T00:08:19.420-05:00There is a great essay by Julian Barnes and a new ...There is a great essay by Julian Barnes and a new translation of Guy de Maupassant's account of his meeting with Swinburne - really hilarious <br /><br /><br />http://rereadinglives.blogspot.com/2012/07/maupassant-meets-swinburne-short-story.html<br />Mel uhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08714473754458914681noreply@blogger.com