Showing results by author "Algernon Charles Swinburne" in All Categories

A collection of the greatest poetry from the Victorian era, read by some of the 20th century’s most renowned actors. Science, religion and sexuality are played out in these timeless readings of poetry written during the Romantic period.

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. 

Sleep. That most mysterious of times. The unconscious hours. Everyone needs it. Sleep offers a respite from the rigors and challenges of the day - a chance for the brain to process what has happened and bring rest and recuperation before the cycle of daytime activity begins again. Our poets, from Kipling and Swinburne through Hafiz, James Joyce, Edgar Allan Poe and a pillowful of others, explore the wish to rest, to close the eyes and reside in the land of nod. 

The seas and oceans have a mystical power over us: From a playful day at the beach to the hysterical waves of a storm, this ever-changing element evokes both beauty and fear; its great mass, its shimmering beauty, its raging howl and all in colours from blue to grey to green and crystal clear. In these collections of verse our poets - including Tennyson, Swinburne, Keats, Shelley, and many others - explore the relationship between ourselves and the great mystical waters.

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) was a poet, critic, novelist, and playwright. He was born in London and educated at Eton and Oxford and was a contemporary of the Pre-Raphaelites. "Hymn to Proserpine" was published in 1866 in "Poems and Ballads", Swinburne's first collection of poems which was a great success but which contained subjects that were, at the time, very controversial. Other poems in this collection are: "A Ballad of Dreamland", "A Leave-Taking", "At Parting", "August", "Genesis", "Itylus", "Rococo", "Sapphics", "An Interlude", "The Nightingale", "Three Faces", and "Before the Mirror."

Poetry is often cited as our greatest use of words. The English language has well over a million of them and poets down the ages seem, at times, to make use of every single one. But often they use them in simple ways to describe anything and everything from landscapes to all aspects of the human condition. Poems can evoke within us an individual response that takes us by surprise, that opens our ears and eyes to very personal feelings.

March - the third month of the year in the Gregorian calendar brings with it the Spring Equinox and the promise of warmer days and shorter nights. Our selected poets, including Swift, Yeats, Morris, Swinburne, and Austin, of course provide the words to match the mood.

The seas and oceans have a mystical power over us: From a playful day at the beach to the hysterical waves of a storm, this ever-changing element evokes both beauty and fear. Its great mass, its shimmering beauty, its raging howl, and all in colours from blue to grey to green and crystal clear. In these collections of verse our poets - including Tennyson, Swinburne, Keats, Shelley, and many others - explore the relationship between ourselves and the great mystical waters.

Victor Hugo is one of the best-known French writers, and is part of the greatest literary figures of all time. His poetry made him famous very early, cementing his reputation as one of the greatest lyric poets when he was only 20 years old. He was also a novelist and a dramatist, and furthered the cause of Romanticism, this exalted artistic movement which toyed with Sublime and soared on the winds of emotion.