FROM ‘THE TRIUMPH OF TIME’ A.C. Swinburne

Half of you will closely analyse ‘Friend’ while the other half put ‘Triumph of Time’ under the microscope. You will have 25 minutes to annotate and make notes ready to teach the other half of the class – one on one. Use the FLIRTY strategy to identify and comment on key features of the poem. THEN: draw 3 conclusions from your study about the poem – these conclusions should show insight into the PURPOSE and RELEVANCE of this poem – in a broader, more universal sense. CLASS ACTIVITY

Swinburne was one of the most accomplished lyric poets of the Victorian era and was a preeminent 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. INTRODUCTION

from ‘The Triumph of Time’ – 6 stanza’s of a 49 stanza poem. Before our lives divide for ever, While time is with us and hands are free, (Time, swift to fasten and swift to sever Hand from hand, as we stand by the sea) I will say no word that a man might say Whose whole life's love goes down in a day; For this could never have been; and never, Though the gods and the years relent, shall be. Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour, To think of things that are well outworn? Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower, The dream foregone and the deed forborne? Though joy be done with and grief be vain, Time shall not sever us wholly in twain; Earth is not spoilt for a single shower; But the rain has ruined the ungrown corn.

It will grow not again, this fruit of my heart, Smitten with sunbeams, ruined with rain. The singing seasons divide and depart, Winter and summer depart in twain. It will grow not again, it is ruined at root, The bloodlike blossom, the dull red fruit; Though the heart yet sickens, the lips yet smart, With sullen savour of poisonous pain. I have given no man of my fruit to eat; I trod the grapes, I have drunken the wine. Had you eaten and drunken and found it sweet, This wild new growth of the corn and vine, This wine and bread without lees or leaven, We had grown as gods, as the gods in heaven, Souls fair to look upon, goodly to greet, One splendid spirit, your soul and mine.

In the change of years, in the coil of things, In the clamour and rumour of life to be, We, drinking love at the furthest springs, Covered with love as a covering tree, We had grown as gods, as the gods above, Filled from the heart to the lips with love, Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings, O love, my love, had you loved but me! We had stood as the sure stars stand, and moved As the moon moves, loving the world; and seen Grief collapse as a thing disproved, Death consume as a thing unclean. Twain halves of a perfect heart, made fast Soul to soul while the years fell past; Had you loved me once, as you have not loved; Had the chance been with us that has not been.

Born into a wealthy Northumbrian family, Swinburne was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford, but did not complete a degree. While at Oxford, he met the brothers William Michael and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, as well as other members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, a group of artists and writers whose work emphasized medieval subjects, elaborate religious symbolism, and a sensual pictorialism, and who cultivated an aura of mystery and melancholy in their lives as well as in their works. In 1860 Swinburne published two verse dramas in the volume The Queen-Mother and Rosamond, which was largely ignored. He achieved his first literary success in 1865 with Atalanta in Calydon, which was written in the form of classical Greek tragedy. The following year the appearance of Poems and Ballads brought Swinburne instant notoriety. He became identified with the "indecent" themes and the precept of art for art's sake that characterized many of the poems in the volume. He subsequently wrote poetry of many different kinds, including the militantly republican Song of Italy (1867) and Songs before Sunrise (1871) in support of the risorgimento, the movement for Italian political unity, as well as nature poetry. Although individual volumes of Swinburne's poetry were occasionally well received, in general his popularity and critical reputation declined following the initial sensation of Poems and Ballads.Dante Gabriel Rossetti BIOGRAPHY & BACKGROUND

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." CRITICS VIEWS OF HIS WORK

Whose voice is speaking through this poem? Provide evidence. Who is being spoken to? Evidence. What is the subject matter of the poem – list ideas and support with evidence. Identify significant examples of alliteration in each stanza– then analyse the meaning of the sounds and the words which are alliterated. How is the metaphor of a ‘shipwreck’ developed in this poem? Describe the poet’s presentation of desolation and grief. QUESTIONS TO ANALYSE THE POEM StanzaQuoteMeaningEffects

The form of his stanzas is an adaptation of the ottava rima – (an Italian stanza of eight lines, each of eleven syllables (or, in the English adaptation, of ten or eleven syllables), the first six lines rhyming alternately and the last two forming a couplet with a different rhyme: used in Keats' Isabella and Byron's Don Juan). How is Swinburne’s form different from the definition above? Why? What is the effect? How is metaphor used to explore the effects of the end of a relationship? What does the nature imagery suggest about relationships and loss? Give evidence. How is the ‘cycle of life’ denied in his use of nature imagery? Give examples. FURTHER QUESTIONS QuoteMeaningEffect ‘the sea’ ‘husk’ ‘flower’ etc…..

What is the effect of the description of the speaker and lover as ‘gods’? How does the use of Christian imagery elevate the status of the relationship? Give evidence in your answer. How does the Christian imagery separate the lovers from time and mortality? What is the effect of the conditional ‘Had you eaten… / / We had grown as gods’.? How does this conditional mood confirm the poet’s pessimistic tone in the final stanza? Use a comparison chart to relate this poem to ‘A Dream’, ‘One Art’, ‘Time’s Fool’ and ‘Friend’. Look at similarities and contrasts in form, structure, techniques, themes and contexts. FURTHER QUESTIONS

"The Triumph of Time," one of Swinburne's finest early poems, opens with the figure of the shipwreck, for now, as he is about to part from his unnamed beloved, he realizes that he exists, and will exist henceforth, in the condition of the shipwrecked mariner. Therefore, all that follows in the poem must be taken as an interior monologue, for the poet has chosen to keep silent and suppress his complaint to the lost beloved. After emphasizing the fact of his loss with a claim that the two of them could have been as gods and could have made themselves one with the elements, the speaker turns from such broken dreams to confront a desert like landscape bordering upon the waste ocean. This landscape, we soon realize, serves as the equivalent of the speaker's state of mind and spirit, for both are "sick of the run and the rain," bleak and burnt. Here, confronting the "sweet sea, mother of loves and hours, "the saddened lover recognizes that just as he has not been able to preserve his love, there is little that human beings can preserve at all: ANALYSIS

With close reference to this poem, discuss how Swinburne presents his attitude to the loss of love. COMPULSORY ESSAY TOPIC