George Gissing: A Fan's Commonplace Blog

Commonplace 106 George & Swinburne's The Muses of Poetry PART TWO

Swinburne, aged 52 in 1889

In late 1883, George wrote to fellow-poet Algernon Swinburne for an appraisal of his work. At least, that was the cover story - surely George already believed in his own talent? After all, he paid his way through Owens College by winning prizes for his poems, and George was never one to lean towards either modesty or away from self-belief. So, was it a case of exploiting Swinburne's 'sympathy' in the hope the great man would be a useful contact and means of spreading the word about George's undiscovered genius? That sounds more like our man, does it not?

Sappho of Eresos
Roman copy of Greek work
Swinburne was a fan. 
As was Leopardi.

Born into a wealthy, genuinely middle class family, Swinburne went to Eton, then Oxford, from where he was rusticated for his political views. Algernon Swinburne (1837-1909) was possibly the poet George wanted to be. This piece is from this website click:

Swinburne was one of the most accomplished lyric poets of the Victorian era and was a pre-eminent symbol of rebellion against the conservative values of his time. The explicit and often pathological sexual themes of his most important collection of poetry, Poems and Ballads (1866), delighted some, shocked many, and became the dominant feature of Swinburne's image as both an artist and an individual. Nevertheless, critics have found that to focus exclusively on the sensational aspects of Swinburne's work is to miss the assertion, implicit in his poetry and explicit in his critical writings, that his primary preoccupation was the nature and creation of poetic beauty. 

The most important and conspicuous quality of Swinburne's work is an intense lyricism. Even early critics, who often took exception to his subject matter, commended his intricately extended and evocative imagery, metrical virtuosity, rich use of assonance and alliteration, and bold, complex rhythms. At the same time, the strong rhythms of his poems and his characteristic use of alliteration were sometimes carried to extremes and rendered his work highly susceptible to parody. Critics note that his usually effective imagery is at times vague and imprecise, and his rhymes are sometimes facile and uninspired. After establishing residence in Putney, Swinburne largely abandoned the themes of pathological sexuality that had characterized much of his earlier poetry. Nature and landscape poetry began to predominate, as well as poems about children. Many commentators maintain that the poetry written during the years at Putney is inferior to Swinburne's earlier work, but others have identified individual poems of exceptional merit among his later works, citing in particular "By the North Sea," "Evening on the Broads," "A Nympholept," "The Lake of Gaube," and "Neap-Tide." ...

Throughout his career Swinburne also published literary criticism of great acuity. His familiarity with a wide range of world literatures contributed to a critical style rich in quotation, allusion, and comparison. He is particularly noted for discerning studies of Elizabethan dramatists and of many English and French poets and novelists. In response to criticism of his own works, Swinburne wrote essays, including Notes on Poems and Reviews (1866) and Under the Microscope (1872), that are celebrated for their wit and insight. Swinburne also published one novel, Love's Cross-Currents (1901), serially under a pseudonym, and left another, Lesbia Brandon, unfinished at his death. The first attracted little notice other than some speculation about its authorship. Some critics have theorized that Lesbia Brandon was intended as thinly disguised autobiography; however, its fragmentary form resists conclusive interpretation.

Poetry 
by Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema 

When George wrote to him, Swinburne was already a legend, and George held him in high regard. In ‘George Gissing at Work: Extracts From My Reading’ (p. 40) he describes, in 1883, how he thinks Ruskin’s prose is the best there is, and Swinburne is a poetic version of Ruskin. George sent his poetic hero a presentation copy of 'The Unclassed' - sending a gift copy of his latest novel was a typical gesture from our man when he wanted to curry favour especially when he sought out praise and recognition from those he considered his equals. But by 1888, he had stopped being a fan; and yet, when Swinburne’s star was once more in the ascendant, and the death of Tennyson necessitated a new Poet Laureate, George said he backed Swinburne for the job - at least, that's what he told the Idler magazine. So, here is George always following, never leading, aesthetic opinion. He subsequently references Swinburne in his short story 'The Honeymoon', one of the most odious of all George's perverse short stories. There might be a smidgen of jealousy creeping in, and a touch of schadenfreude for Swinburne's fall from favour by mentioning him here.

Swinburne suffered from a strange malady that sometimes resembled epilepsy, which was really the easiest-to-deal-with part of his unique physical and mental condition - a madness possibly brought on by substance abuse. He was friends with the Rossettis and moved in the Pre-Raphaelite wider circle, but he fell under the spell of drink and narcotics, and, for a while, spiralled down into a state of disarray and futility. He was rescued by an intriguing cove called Theodore Watts-Dunton, a renowned lawyer (he represented Swinburne), critic and literary commentator who took Swinburne in to his home and reformed him. A life of decadent excess had worn out the poet, and he needed to be saved from himself. If ever there was a role model George might have made use of, we can be glad it wasn't Swinburne, though it must have been tempting. Perhaps not having much money saved George from this fate! The Divine Oscar said Swinburne was "a braggart in matters of vice, who had done everything he could to convince his fellow citizens of his homosexuality and bestiality without being in the slightest degree a homosexual or a bestialiser." Probably not for want of trying, Oscar haha.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Theodore Watt-Dunston  at 16 Cheyne Walk by Henry Treffry Dunn

Swinburne replied to George on October 29th 1883. He had subbed out the task of critiquing to Watts-Dunton, then taken a look himself at the poems George submitted. Which was generous of the pair of them. He wrote that he believed George had genuine power of language... As to the so-called pessimism of some parts of your work, the one objection that occurs to me is that critics and readers generally will accuse you of treading in the steps of James Thomson, himself a disciple of Leopardi’s, but for this you will probably be prepared. This wasn't exactly fulsome praise, until you understand how immensely talented pessimist Leopardi was, and how downbeat Thomson's more famous works usually turned out to be.

Leopardi (1798-1837) was an Italian talent whose life and work are too immense to go into here, but have a look at this click. He was a polymath and poet who tended towards the darker side of things and his bleak world view would have been a home from home for George. Swinburne translated him into English.

James Thomson (1834-1882) - there is usually BV after his name - BV is for Bysshe Vanolis, the name he adopted as a pseudonym to distinguish him from other poets called James Thomson - was raised in the Holloway Orphanage, an institution set up to care for Scottish children left parentless by the Napoleonic Wars. It was situated in the locale just round the corner from where George lived in Islington, and gave the name to the district of the Caledonian Road click. Thomson was a friend of Charles Bradlaugh's (founder of the National Secular Society and famous for not swearing on the Bible when in Court). One of his most famous poems is 'The City of Dreadful Night'. Here are a couple of verses of the poem that could be about George, and his brooding, misanthropic pessimism:

(From The City of Dreadful Night)

Some say that phantoms haunt those shadowy streets
And mingle freely there with sparse mankind,
And tell of ancient woes and black defeats,
And murmur mysteries in the grave enshrined:
But others think them visions of illusion, 
Or even men gone far in self-confusion;
No man there being wholly sane in mind.

And yet a man who raves, however mad,
Who bares his heart and tells of his own fall,
Reserves some inmost secret good or bad:
The phantoms have no reticence at all:
The nudity of flesh will blush though tameless
The extreme nudity of bone grins shameless,
The unsexed skeleton mocks shroud and pall.

For the complete work click

Presumably, the 'steps' of Thomson's that George was following in were the bleaker thoughts on humanity, urban spaces, psychogeography, pessimism and nihilism. It would seem Swinburne, in passing this remark, was familiar with George's novels, because our man's poems tend to be a bit more upbeat, if a tad fey, in comparison. One of George's failings (as a poet!) is he seems too wedded to the mechanics of poetry and he frequently fails to deliver any money shot - which is really everything a poem is about. All that acquired knowledge about verse construction and Greek composition seems to have smothered creativity and emotional strength. His longer poems are workmanlike but ultimately, unsatisfying in emotional terms.

Thomson became increasingly disillusioned with the lack of recognition for his work, and sank into depression and alcoholism. George, increasingly disillusioned with the lack of recognition for his work, sank into self pity and moved to France.