Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon
Prosody as sublimation in Victorian ‘Greek’ tragedy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12936549 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Orla Polten (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Pages | clw012-clw012 |
| Publication date | 2016-09-21 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Classical Receptions Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1759-5134 • E-ISSN: 1759-5142 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/crj/clw012 |
| OpenAlex | W2482388657 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 23 |
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
Art · Greek tragedy · Linguistics · Literature · Poetry · Prosody · Tragedy (event · Classical Studies and Philology · French Literature and Criticism · Musicology and Musical Analysis · History · Philosophy
Wordsworth's Philosophic Song
Critique of the Power of Judgment
Prosody as cognition
From Atalanta in Calydon
Greek Tragic Style
The Sublime in Antiquity
Classical Pasts
Hebrew and Hellene in Victorian England
The Logic of Practice
Swinburne
What is Sublimated in Sublimation
Lessons on the analytic of the sublime
The melodics of long poems
Musical Thinking
| Highly cited | No |
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