English poet and novelist Algernon Charles Swinburne was born on April 5, 1837 in London, England. He invented the roundel form, which makes use of refrains, repeated according to a certain
stylized pattern. A roundel consists of nine lines each having the same number
of syllables, plus a refrain after the third line and after the last line. He also wrote several novels, and
contributed to the famous 11th Edition of
the Encyclopedia
Britannica. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in
every year from 1903 to 1907 and again in 1909. He was the eldest of six children born to Captain (later
Admiral) Charles Henry Swinburne and Lady Jane Henrietta, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Ashburnham. He grew up at
East Dene in Bonchurch on the Isle of
Wight and attended Eton College
1849–53, where he first started writing poetry, and then Oxford 1856–60 with a brief hiatus
when he was suspended from the
university in 1859 for having publicly supported the attempted assassination of
Napoleon III by Felice Orsini, returning in May 1860,
though he never received a degree. After
leaving college he lived in London and started an active writing career. His poetic works include: Atalanta in Calydon (1865), Poems and Ballads (1866), Songs
before Sunrise (1871), Poems
and Ballads Second Series (1878), Tristram
of Lyonesse (1882), Poems and
Ballads Third Series (1889), and the novel Lesbia Brandon (published posthumously in 1952). Throughout his life, Swinburne battled alcoholism. He was also a very nervous
and excitable character and because of this his health suffered in later life. He
died on April 10, 1909 at the age of 72 in London and was buried at St. Boniface Church on the Isle of Wight.
Michael Thomas
Barry is the author of Great Britain’s Literary Legends.
The book can be purchased from Amazon through the following links:
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