University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 1-1-2011 Swinburne's "The Tale of Balen": an Edition with Critical Commentary Warren Hill Kelly University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Kelly, Warren Hill, "Swinburne's "The Tale of Balen": an Edition with Critical Commentary" (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1396. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1396 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SWINBURNE’S THE TALE OF BALEN : AN EDITION WITH CRITICAL COMMENTARY A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Mississippi Warren Hill Kelly June 2011 Copyrighted in 2011 by Warren Hill Kelly All rights reserved ABSTRACT Warren Hill Kelly’s Swinburne’s The Tale of Balen : an Edition with Critical Commentary comprises a variorum-like edition of the poem that records all variances of the poem evident in its manuscript through its first and second editions, Chatto & Windus 1896 and 1904, or those editions produced during the poet’s lifetime and therefore potentially bearing evidence of his editorial input. The edition forms as its basis the poet’s final intention expressed in the manuscript, and notes all alterations within the manuscript and the first two published editions, and by coupling the edition’s text with the notations pertaining to the manuscript, readers have access to, in effect, a transcription of the poem’s manuscript. The edition also contains an introduction that accounts for the poem’s antecedents, that is, the poet’s life and influences as well as the history of the Balen myth, and that traces the poem’s critical reception since its publication into the present. The introduction contains also a brief user’s guide and some observations regarding Swinburne’s manuscript practices. ii DEDICATION In Memoriam David Carroll Kelly (1942-2002) iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge and thank some individuals, who assisted me either in their capacity as agents of an institution or on a personal basis. In the former category, I am grateful to the people of The British Museum and Library, who have kindly granted me permission to use and reproduce Swinburne’s manuscript of The Tale of Balen , which resides in The British Museum as Ashley 4409 . Additionally, I am thankful to the library staff of the academic libraries where I conducted research, including the university libraries at The University of Mississippi, Cornell University, and Florida Atlantic University. I owe a profound debt of gratitude to the members of my doctoral and dissertation committee at the University of Mississippi—Professors Benjamin F. Fisher, Colby H. Kullman, T. J. Ray, and John R. Neff—and a couple of professors who served on the committee, but because of scheduling conflicts were unable to see this project and degree to its completion— Professors Ronald A. Schroeder and John Cloy. Special thanks is due to Professor Ben Fisher, who has directed my work and who suggested that I construct a variorum-type edition of The Tale of Balen —a project he had first planned to undertake—as my dissertation. I am certain also that I would not have been able to complete the present project without the help of many family members and friends. I offer great thanks to my father, William G. Kelly, Jr., who has strongly encouraged and has financed this and all of my educational pursuits, and likewise, I would like to thank my mother, Sue E. Lesikar, and stepfather, the late Johnny N. iv Lesikar. Much thanks is due also to too many members of my extended family to name here, and to many friends, especially Brian A. Nagel, who has been an on-going source of encouragement and technical support. To these people and many other people whom I have no doubt neglected to acknowledge, I would like to express thanks. v TABLE OF CONTENTS SECTION PAGE Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Swinburne’s Biography .................................................................................................... 1 Sources and Analogues to The Tale of Balen ................................................................... 5 A Survey of the Poem’s Critical Reception………………… ........................................ 12 Editorial Observations from Transcribing the Manuscript and Collating Editions ........ 38 A Guide to Using the Edition ......................................................................................... 40 Edition Proper ............................................................................................................... 42 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 298 Vita ................................................................................................................................ 304 vi INTRODUCTION Taken together, the present edition of The Tale of Balen and this introduction are designed to provide a reader with a view of the poem’s influences and evolution and an account of its changing interpretations over time. To those ends, the poem’s text comprises, in a variorum-like format, a record of alterations to the poem from its manuscript through its first two published editions, or those produced during the poet’s lifetime. I also survey in my introduction Swinburne’s biography with special reference to its bearing on the poem, the poem’s antecedents and analogues, and an overview of the poem’s critical reception. Swinburne’s Biography In London on April 5, 1837, Algernon Charles Swinburne was born into an aristocratic family, of which he was the eldest of six children. The household resided mainly at the family seat on the Isle of Wight, but periodically visited another family house in Northumberland, locations that fostered the poet’s devotion to the natural landscape and the sea. These affections appear in The Tale of Balen in the poet’s numerous natural descriptions, especially at the beginning of each of the poem’s fyttes. Swinburne’s education, of course, pervades The Tale of Balen , and all of his other works, in inestimable ways. This cultivation began at home, where his mother, Lady Jane, acquainted the young Swinburne with an array of art and literature, including the Bible, Shakespeare’s plays, Sir Walter Scott’s Waverly novels, those of Dickens, and the writings of Dante. Additionally she initiated his study of French and Italian at home. His learning of those modern 1 languages continued as he entered Eton College in April of 1849, and in his four years there he studied also classical Greek and Latin poetry and expanded his knowledge of English literature, notably Elizabethan drama. Despite Swinburne’s success at Eton, unclear circumstances led to his finishing his preparation for university, under a tutor at his family’s home. During this time the young Swinburne aspired to join the army, which his father, Admiral Charles Henry Swinburne forbade, likely because of his son’s frailty. Instead, Swinburne attended Balliol College, Oxford University, where his family anticipated his undertaking a degree in preparation for a legal or ecclesiastical career. At Oxford Swinburne encountered some influences that left indelible marks on his poetry and other writings. One was John Nichol, a leader within Old Mortality, a group of student intellectuals, to which Swinburne belonged. Pulled by Nichol’s sway, Swinburne resigned his religious faith and adopted a belief in political republicanism, which would form the ideological foundation of some future national poetry, poems that also bear the influence of Percy Bysshe Shelley. A second influence at Oxford was the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, particularly the members Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, and Edward Burne-Jones. This movement’s interest in medievalism, no doubt, sowed the seeds that bloomed years later as The Tale of Balen , and the poet’s other medieval poems. Initially, William Morris’s poem “The Defence of Guenevere” inspired imitation in Swinburne that manifested as his poem Queen Yseult . Although Swinburne’s poetry and writing evolved at Oxford, his extracurricular commitments and idiosyncratic habits led to his leaving the university in 1860 without taking a degree. In 1861 Swinburne took up residence in London and affirmed his intention to have a literary career, a choice his father begrudgingly consented to, and the poet’s living came 2 originally from an allowance his father bestowed. In the city Swinburne reestablished his association with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which, with other associations, contributed to his cultivating a bohemian lifestyle, replete with alcoholism. Also, in 1862, the poet’s brief love affair with Jane Faulkner regrettably dissolved. Despite these difficulties, Swinburne continued writing critical reviews and poetry, but popularity evaded him, that is, until the publication (at his father’s expense) of Atalanta in Calydon , which received fervent praise and established the poet’s reputation. This critical favor was relatively short-lived, because Swinburne’s 1866 Poems and Ballads was denounced as unethical. Distressed