Algernon Charles Swinburne: No Other God— I a Vision Op Life
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This dissertation has been i microfilmed exactly as receivod . 68-17 603 THOMPSON, Tftelma Rae Payne, 1922- i ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE: NO OTHER GOD— I A VISION OP LIFE. 'I The University of Oklahoma, Ph.D., 1968 | Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan ©Copyright by THELMA RAE PAINE THOMPSON i ' 1969 1 THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE: NO OTHER GOD A VISION OF LIFE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfilImant of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY THELMA RAE PAYNE THOMPSON Norman, Oklahoma 1968 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE; NO OTHER GOD A VISION OF LIFE APPROVED BY DISSERTATION COMMITTEE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To the two principal administrators of Bishop College, Dallas, Texas, I express immeasurable gratitude for their spiritual and financial magnanimity in providing the opportunity which made possible this study at the University of Oklahoma. In his heroic capacity to feel the future stirring. Dr. Milton King Curry, Jr., President, actively set a precedent for the faith and perseverance to prosecute an ideal to its fullest fruition. Dr. Charles L. Knight, Academic Dean, provided a dynamic symbol of striving for academic excellence. In the preliminary stages of this study, my gratitude to the following persons is inestimable : Mrs. Rebecca A. Hudson, Reference Librarian, Bishop College, for the magnitude of her assistance in helping to find a working text of the poetry involved and for securing numerous materials from the Dallas libraries ; Mrs. Gail Buckley for cooperative efforts in child-care and typing ; and Mrs. Kay Barrick, in a special way, for strenuous typing to prepare reading copies. iii A special kind of appreciation is expressed to Professor Jack Lehmer Kendall, Director of the Study. He provided the initial inspiration for the project through his intellectually invigorating courses in Victorian literature. Most particularly, my profound gratitude is felt for his many hours of meticulous, painstaking reading and general supervision of the study. To each committee member -- Professor Rudolph Bambas, Professor Victor Elconin, Professor James Sims, and Associate Professor David French -- I express infinite thanks for stimulating support and helpful suggestions which contributed to the finalization of this study. The myriad relatives and friends who have encouraged me both by word and deed are too numerous to be listed by names. They have my enduring love and gratitude as manifestations of my indebtedness to them. IV DEDICATION To Reginald Mack Leffall, III for his unwavering faith and quintessential inspiration and to the hallowed memory of my beloved father John Edward Payne, Sr. whose inspiriting charisma is a magnificent legacy to his progeny and to the heaven around me in my seven-year-old daughter Harolyn Edleeca V TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................. iii DEDICATION .................... v Chapter I. INTRODUCTION: AURA OF CRITICISM.......... 1 II. THE SWINBURNE AN VISION. .............. 25 III. FROM EROTICISM TO NIHILISM: A YEARNING FOR HARMONIOUS EXPANSION. ........ 50 IV. REPUBLICANISM: AN ALTERNATIVE WAY — A NEW C O S M O L O G Y . ............... 102 V. CREATIVE ORDERING: TOWARD PARADISE .... 137 VI. A PARADISE WITHIN: THE WAY OF THE STOIC. I89 VII. CONCLUSION: THE TORCH ETERNAL, ...... 221 FOOTNOTES ..................... 242 BIBLIOGRAPHY..........o......... 26l vx ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE; NO OTHER GOD A VISION OF LIFE CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: A CLARION CALL Since the literary artist presents an imaginative interpretation of human experience which provides a dimension deeper than actual life, he should be granted his choice of subject and appraised for the manner in which he handles the subject. If he is true to the integrity of his own creative imagination, the end-product will be an organic whole in which are discernible both truth and beauty. Morality is inevitably an inextricable quality in such an art-piece. Henry James defends this position thus : There is one point at which the moral sense and the artistic sense lie very near together; that is in the light of the very obvious truth that the deepest quality of a work of art will always be the quality of the mind of the producer. In proportion as that intelli gence is fine will the novel, [^the poenQ the picture, the statue partake of the substance of beauty and truth. To be constituted of such elements^is, to my vision, to have purpose enough. 2 It is sadly ironic that no artist has suffered more from the general lack of respect for this principle than its principal nineteenth century proponent, the great literary virtuoso Algernon Charles Swinburne, In his case, the pendulum of criticism has swung only from the stigma of moral depravity, in his own day, to the image of his being only an ingenious artificer, in our times. Most of the criticism of Swinburne which has accrued over the past one hundred and two years offers a combination of biography and literary evaluation with too much proneness to read into the poetry itself preponderant biographical implications. In addition, many of the critical biographers of Swinburne exhibit psychologically slanted prejudices and descant upon Meredith's early position that Swinburne "lacked an internal center." Ironically, Meredith's later attitudes are, for the most part, ignored by such critics of Swinburne. The title-page inscription in William Rossetti's Swinburne's Poems and Ballads : A Criticism, sets forth succinctly the prevailing tenor of the critical attitude toward Swinburne: Let us for a moment stoop to the arbitration of popular breath. Let us assume that Homer was a drunkard, that Virgil was a flatterer, that Horace was a coward, that Tasso was a madman. Observe in what a ludicrous chaos the imputations of real or fictitious crime has been confused in the contemporary calumnies against poetry and poets. --Shelley 3 Too long the critical legacy bequeathed to posterity regarding Swinburne has remained negatively prejudiced. He appears as a naughty, sophomoric rebel, a Victorian psyche delic who delighted in shocking the "delicate" sensibility of the Establishment. Or he appears as a sexually frus trated sado-masochist who was insufficiently physically virile for a conventionally masculine philosophy of life and art. Or as a slavish hero-worshipper with no moral fiber of his own. Or as a lyricist in the particularized sense of having extraordinary powers of achieving incanta- tory hypnosis by the musical monotony of his verse. Or as a servile imitator and parodist, an expert at assembling pastiche, with little originality. Or as one who knew life Vicariously only, through steeping his mind in the great literary masters rather than involving himself in actual life. Before I9OO, the major criticism of Swinburne the poet was presented by John Morley and William Michael Rossetti, 18665 James Russell Lowell, I87I 5 Robert Buchanan, 18725 Edmund Stedman, 1875j Amy Sharp, 18915 George Saintsbury, 1895 i George Meredith, I86I-I899 5 and John Ruskin. After the appearance of Poems and Ballads, first series, I866, John Morley, a supposedly intelligent and influential critic, issued anonymously an overemotion alized review which condemns Swinburne for the pervasive use of the theme of eroticism, a perverse revivification 4 of pagan joy, and the generally unedifying nature of the volume. He concludes that Swinburne is "either the vindictive and scornful apostle of a crushing ironshod despair, or else he is the libidinous laureate of a pac^? 2 of satyrs." In short, Swinburne stood condemned for using subject-matter which was offensive to the Victorian taste. Morley's attitude is characteristic of much of the entire corpus of criticism of Swinburne the poet. As a result of the misreading of Swinburne's first published volume of poetry the atmosphere of criticism which still surrounds his poetry is heavily laden with erroneous conceptions. Poems and Ballads: A Criticism, 1866, by William Rossetti, friend and critic, presents a more sympathetic attitude toward Swinburne the poet. His general estimate is that "Algernon Swinburne is one of that rare and electest class — the writers whom contemporaries, even the well-affected among them, are likely to praise 3 too little rather than too much." This proved to be the understatement of the decade, for, in I872 another scathing critical attack was made upon Swinburne by Robert Buchanan in The Fleshly School of Poetry. Buchanan is appropriately called by William Rossetti, "a poor and pretentious poetaster who stirs storms and teapots." Buchanan initiates the pro-Tennyson-anti-French attitude which permeates the Victorian Era. On one hand, Buchanan extols Tennyson's poetic art as epitomizing all that was excellent; 5 on the other hand he condemns Swinburne, steeped in French literary tradition, as having prostituted his birthright as poet. Buchanan sees only one means of redemptions Then let Mr. Swinburne burn all his French books, go forth into the world, look men and women in the face -- try to seek some nobler inspiration than the smile of harlotry and the shriek of atheism -- and there will be hope for him. Thus far he has given us nothing but borrowed rubbish -- His own voice may be worth hearing when he choos]|s once and forever to abandon the falsetto. In 18719 James Russell Lowell displayed a critical attitude toward Swinburne closely akin to that of English critics in indicating that Swinburne’s art obscures thoughto Even in this misdirected evaluation, however, Lowell exhibits a vestige of optimism. He says of At alant a in Calydon: Atalanta shows that poverty of thought and pro fusion of imagery which are at once the defect and compensation of youthful poetry, even Shakespeare’soooBut At alanta is hopefully dis tinguished in a rather remarkable way, from most early attempts, by a sense of form and proportion, which is seconded by a reasonable impinging of other faculties, as we may fairly expect, gives promise of rare achievement hereafter.