Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne (April 5, 1837 - April 10, 1909) was an English poet, playwright, writer, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poems, such as “Poems and Ballads,” and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the British Encyclopedia. Swinburne wrote about many forbidden topics, such as lesbianism, cannibalism, sadomasochism, and antiteism. His poems have many common motives, such as the ocean, time and death. His poems feature several historical people, such as Sappho (“Sapphics”), Anaktoria (“Anactoria”), Jesus (“Anthem Proserpine”: Galilaee, La. “Galilean”) and Catullus (“To Catullus”). Swinburne was born on April 5, 1837, at 7th Chester Street in Grosvenor Place, London. He was the eldest of six children born to Captain (later Admiral) Charles Henry Swinburne (1797–1877) and Lady Jane Henrietta, daughter of the 3rd Earl. Ashburnham, a wealthy Northumbrian family. He grew up on East Den in Boncherch on the Isle of Wight. As a child, Swinburne was “nervous” and “weak,” but “was also dismissed by nervous energy and fearlessness to such an extent that he became reckless” . Swinburne studied at Eton College (1849–53), where he began to write poetry. At Eton, he received first prizes in French and Italian. He enrolled at Balliol College in Oxford (1856–60) with a short break when he was expelled from the university in 1859 because he publicly supported the attempted murder of Napoleon III Felice Orsini. He returned in May 1860, although he never received a degree. From 1857–60, Swinburne became a member of Lady Trevelyan’s intellectual circle in Wallington Hall.