A Study of Shakespeare: "Body and Spirit Are Twins: God Only Knows Which Is Which."

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

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.

Genres: Shakespeare, Nonfiction

106 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

In musical, often erotic verse, British poet and critic Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote and attacked the conventions of Victorian morality.

This controversial Englishman in his own day invented the roundel form and some novels and contributed to the famous eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerno...

Reviews

[Joseph Wilson]

There are sentences in this book you have to see to believe.

[Alan]

Words, words, words, frothy words. Swinburne indulges himself in pompous, circuitous verbosity without enlightening me.

[Philip]

A Study Of Shakespeare by Algernon Charles Swinburne is not an easy read for a twenty-first century reader. The prose is like sludge and feels like it sticks to the feet as one trudges through the mire. The concept of “over-written” was clearly unknown to Swinburne, but then perhaps I am merely making aesthetic judgments of culture “then” based on values that are “now”, which is inadmissible.

There are, however, multiple references to Shakespeare’s contemporaries and some classical allusions, which come across as insiders’ comments, where the assumed knowledge is gargantuan, but what is communicated is minuscule. This often leaves the reader thinking he has not understood some “in joke” that the initiated might assume is obvious.

The book arose because of an ongoing controversy about who had written much of the output that was labelled “Shakespeare”. The controversy continues, of course, but no longer in the form that Swinburne would recognise.

What we have on many occasions is the equivalent of a linguistic analysis in an age where computers did not exist. The fact that a known writer uses a construction that also appears in a text by Shakespeare is cited as evidence that the Shakespeare’s authorship might be questioned. At times, the similarities are valid observations, but others they have the status of saying that both of authors used a space between words. So what if, in an age when classical allusions were common, two people mentioned sirens?

And what about the signature of metre? This text regularly cites differences of metre between a Shakespeare and someone else, but there are precious few examples to illustrate the points.
I was not convinced by these attempts to transfer ownership of texts, which exist in published form bearing Shakespeare’s name. Precisely who was the William Shakespeare who wrote plays, we will perhaps never know. Maybe it was the person from Stratford-upon-Avon. Maybe it was a person from Stratford East. And perhaps there is evidence that there was collusion between authors when putting a work on stage. Ask George Frederick Handel how many versions of his oratorios might have existed.

But it’s clear that someone did write the plays and sources much closer to the authorship ascribe them to a certain William Shakespeare. Up jumps Swinburn in the latter part of the nineteenth century, with all his undeniable scholarship, and, on the basis of similarities of text or a wholly subjective appreciation of metre, ascribes authorship to someone else. Read A Study Of Shakespeare as an historical exercise in self-delusion, only if you are familiar with quantities of what Shakespeare actually did write.

[narsil]

This might be some of the most overindulgent, melodramatic prose ever written, what a delight.