Major Poems and Selected Prose [Paperback]

Algernon Charles Swinburne (Author), Jerome McGann (Editor), Charles L. Sligh (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300104995 | ISBN-13: 978-0300104998 | Publication Date: November 10, 2004

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) is, with Browning and Tennyson, one of the touchstone Victorian poets. He was a major critic and an important fiction writer as well. Emerging out of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, his bold and innovative work made him both a celebrated and controversial writer at home and a figure of international importance. Hugo, Baudelaire, and Mallarmé were among his great admirers.
Jerome McGann and Charles L. Sligh now present a generous sampling of Swinburne’s poetry and prose. This wide-ranging collection satisfies a long need for a comprehensive selection of Swinburne’s work. It is accompanied by learned and critically incisive commentaries and notes.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a book whose absence in some form or other I have bemoaned for decades. The selection here is admirable, profoundly sophisticated: the proportions of verse and prose, inclusion of uncollected writings, and the certainty of scholarly and critical authority in the annotations—all these seem absolutely unexceptionable."—John Hollander

About the Author

Jerome McGann, John Stewart Bryan Professor at the University of Virginia, is the author of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Game That Must Be Lost and editor of Rossetti’s Collected Poetry and Prose, both published by Yale University Press. Charles L. Sligh is a research fellow at The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Hypermedia Research Archive.

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (November 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300104995
• ISBN-13: 978-0300104998
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #956,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent volume for a moderate knowledge of Swinburne, October 12, 2007

By 

Aili (Las Vegas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Major Poems and Selected Prose (Paperback)

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) was a Victorian poet loosely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. He was controversial both in his character and in his work. He is most known in poetry for his mastery of euphony, rhyme, and meter.

Major elements in Swinburne's work include opposition against standard Christianity; neo-paganism (especially associated with Proserpine, Pan, and Diana); parody; and love, especially with relation to death. He is perhaps best known for his poems "The Garden of Proserpine," "Anactoria," and Atalanta in Calydon.

Everything in this book has been selected out of Swinburne's entire corpus by the editors. That means pieces these particular editors do not find necessary or important have not been included, which is always makes me nervous. I am not a Swinburne scholar, but from what I've studied to this point it seems as though these editors made worthy decisions. Furthermore, with 528 pages of text, you're still getting a good bulk of Swinburne's work.

The edition begins with a helpful but not stellar introduction. Jerome McGann uses it as much as an apologetic as an introduction to Swinburne's life and works. Also, I would have liked it if he had given explanation and background for more poems than he did. The bibliography for the introduction in the back is ideal for beginning further study of the poet.

The explanatory notes are very helpful, but certainly not comprehensive. If you want to read Swinburne and get a basic to moderate understanding of the poems with the help of notes, this book is the right level.