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Swinburne’sAtalanta in Calydon:prosody as sublimation in Victorian ‘Greek’ tragedy:

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Polten, Orla 

Abstract

Algernon Charles Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon (1865) is the finest example of Victorian ‘Greek’ tragedy, a genre of English poetry inspired by the forms, contents, and styles of Attic tragedy. For George Saintsbury, Swinburne’s play represented a ‘renouveau of English prosody’: drawing on the metres and rhythms of Ancient Greek, Atalanta opened new phenomenological possibilities for the English language. Swinburne’s fall from critical favour in the early twentieth century has meant the play’s neglect, despite its crucial importance to the history of classical reception in English verse. This article reads Atalanta in Calydon through Greek prosody. Drawing on contemporary reviews, letters, and manuscript material, the article argues that Atalanta’s prosody works through sublimation: that is, transforming desire for unattainable objects (principally ‘the classical’) into the desire for artistic creation. Aesthetic accomplishment serves to relieve the pain of living in Swinburne’s tragic universe.

Description

This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Oxford University Press via https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clw012

Keywords

47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4705 Literary Studies

Journal Title

Classical Receptions Journal

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1759-5134
1759-5142

Volume Title

9

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)