Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Sidor ...
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
2
INTRODUCTION
Dithyrambs and odes, innumerable and almost self-abasing,
have been devoted to them through volume after volume.
These, however, are only the more or less stray
variations of a great enthusiasm which, when turned on ideas
and sentiments, grows beautiful and justifiable. Now it is
in one direction, above all, that it is turned: liberty to
Swinburne is the highest and most sacred thing of all. His
Renaissance-born spirit must by its very nature react against
every form of natural or spiritual oppression, and as
naturally it must find in liberty the one goal of its search. His
love of liberty finds its various expression in all his
poetical works, with the possible exception of the first series
of the «Poems and Ballads»; but two of them especially
are filled with it almost entirely. These are the «Songs
before Sunrise* (1871), written while the echoes of the
Italian war of independence and the fall of Napoleon III were
still resounding, and its companion-book, the <Songs of
Two Nations» (1875). Metrically and stylistically, there are
few poems of liberty more beautiful than these in the
world’s literature; but it cannot be denied that sometimes
this perfection of form has been attained at the loss of the
spontaneity and genuineness of the ideas and sentiments.
These two volumes also, and very naturally, furnish good
examples of the two features of the poet’s love of liberty
that have been already mentioned — his dithyrambical
praise and his volcanic hatred of the prominent persons
of the drama that inspired them. Here we understand
the truth of Woodberry’s remark: «there is no such
master of the curse in modern days; he strikes home and
to the pit with it with a mien and a phrase and a
volleying after of fire and wrath fit to hurl Satan down to the
abyss». [Woodberry, page 5]. Read for instance the Dirae
in the «Songs of Two Nations».
Moreover we hear once more in these two volumes
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
