A NOVEL OF CELIBACY: SWINBURNE’S “LESBIA BRANDON”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24193/subbphilo.2017.1.09Keywords:
roman célibataire, indirection, seriality, memory, decadence, androgyny.Abstract
A Novel of Celibacy: Swinburne’s Lesbia Brandon. Swinburne’s lost masterpiece, Lesbia Brandon, is a text that reflects upon the burden of family memory and on the ways a particular individual could escape the reproduction chain. Caught at different ages, Beauty represents for the Decadent writer a state of unequalled perfection, which can be neither expressed nor related to a referent. In this context, celibacy becomes the social condition of Beauty as well as an aesthetic form. A novel with bachelors and about celibate, Swinburne’s Lesbia Brandon transcends its shocking premises (lesbianism, incest, violence, flogging) and reveals itself as a meditation on the evanescent condition of mortal beauty. Along with his favored typologies and themes, Swinburne also devised here a different way to think the relationship between authoritarian (complementary partners) and egalitarian love (equal or identical partners) within the wider ideological frame of republicanism.
REZUMAT. Un roman al celibatului: Lesbia Brandon de Algernon Charles Swinburne. Capodopera pierdută a lui A.C. Swinburne este un text care reflectă asupra memoriei apăsătoare a familiei precum și asupra soluțiilor individuale de a ieși din lanțul reproducerii. Surprinsă la vârste și prin generații diferite, Frumusețea reprezintă pentru scriitorul decadent un nivel inegalabil de perfecțiune, care nu poate fi exprimat pe deplin nici prin scris, nici prin raportare la un referent real. In termenii definiți de Jean Marie Schaeffer, celibatul devine nu numai forma socială a Frumuseții, ci și figura sa estetică cea mai potrivită. Roman cu celibatari androginici și despre condiția celibatului, Lesbia Brandon reușește să-și transceandă premisele șocante (lesbianism, incest, violență, biciuire) și să se reveleze ca o meditație profundă asupra condiției evanescente a Frumuseții muritoare. Pe lângă tipologiile și temele ce l-au consacrat, Swinburne a reușit să propună aici un nou mod de a înțelege distincția dintre amorul autoritar (dintre parteneri complementari) și amorul egalitarist (dintre parteneri egali sau chiar identici) în contextul mai larg al unei ideologii de tip republican.
Cuvinte cheie: Lesbia Brandon, roman celibatar, indirecţie, serialitate, memorie, decadenţă, androginie.
References
Aquien, Pascal. "Lesbia Brandon, ou l’art et la lanière." Tombeau pur Swinburne. Sous la direction de Dennis Bonnecasse et Sébastien Scarpa. Éditions Aden, 2010, pp. 35-67.
Bertrand, Jean-Pierre, Biron, Michel, Dubois, Jacques, Pâque Jeannine. Le roman célibataire. D’À rebours à Paludes. Éditions José Corti, 1996.
Călinescu, Matei. Cinci feţe ale modernităţii: modernism, avangardă, decadenţă, kitsch, postmodernism. Translated by Tatiana Pătrulescu and Radu Ţurcanu. Univers, 1995.
Cassidy, John A. Algernon C. Swinburne. Twayne Publishers, 1964.
Chew, Samuel C. Swinburne. Archon Books, 1929.
Curtis, Dahl. “Autobiographical Elements in Swinburne’s Trilogy on Mary Stuart.” Victorian Poetry, vol. 3, issue 2, 1965, pp. 91-99. Accessed in March 2011, http://www.saintbonaventure.com.
de Palacio, Jean. Figures et formes de la Décadence. Séguier, 1994.
Dellamora, Richard. Masculine Desire. Sexual Politics of Victorian Aestheticism. University of North Carolina Press, 1990.
Fletcher, Ian. Swinburne. Longman, 1973.
Gilman, Richard. Decadence. The Strange Life of an Epithet. Ferrar Straus and Giroux, 1979.
Gosse, Edmund. The Life of Charles Algernon Swinburne. Macmillan & Co, 1917.
Grădinaru, Camelia. Discursul filosofic postmodern. Institutul European, 2010.
Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory. Edited, Translated, and with an Introduction by Lewis A. Coser. The University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Henderson, Philip. Swinburne. Portrait of a Poet. Macmillan, 1974.
Joad, C.E.M. Decadence. A Philosophical Inquiry, Part I. Principles of Decadence. Faber and Faber Ltd., 1948.
Kuduk Weiner, Stephanie. Republican Politics and English Poetry, 1789-1874. Macmillan-Palgrave, 2005.
La Cassagnère, Christian. “Entre texte et fantasme: la famme fatale de Swinburne.” Tombeau pour Swinburne. Sous la direction de Dennis Bonnecasse et Sébastien Scarpa. Éditions Aden, 2010, pp. 50-76.
Lafourcade, Georges. La Jeunesse de Swinburne. Paris, 1928.
Lang, Cecil Y. (ed.). Swinburne Letters. Vol. I-VI. Yale University Press, 1959-1962.
Levin, Yisrael. “Introduction.” A. C. Swinburne and the Singing Word. New Perspectives on the Mature Work. Edited by Yisrael Levin. Ashgate, 2010, pp. 5-15.
Mayfield, John S. Swinburneaiana. A Gallimaufry of Bits and Pieces About Algernon Charles Swinburne. The Waring Press, 1974.
McGann, Jerome J. Swinburne. An Experiment in Criticism. Chicago University Press, 1972.
Murfin, Ross C. Swinburne, Hardy, Lawrence, and the Burden of Belief. The University of Chicago Press, 1978.
Musil, Robert. Precision and Soul: Essays and Addresses. Edited and Translated by Burton Pike and David S. Luft. The University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Overton Fuller, Jean. Swinburne. A Critical Biography. Chatto &Windus, 1968.
Paglia, Camille. Sexual Personae. Art and Decadence from Neferititi to Emily Dickinson. Yale University Press, 1990.
Pater, Walter. Renaşterea. Translated by Iolanda Mecu. Univers, 1982.
Patraș, Roxana. Cântece dinaintea Decadenței. A.C. Swinbune si declinul Occidentului. Timpul, 2013.
Praz, Mario. The Romantic Agony. 2nd edition. Translated by Angus Davisdson. Collins, 1966.
Riede, David G. Swinburne. A Study of Romantic Mythmaking. University Press of Virginia, 1978.
Rooksby, Rikki. A.C. Swinburne: A Poet’s Life. Scolar Press, 1997.
Rosenberg, John D. “Swinburne.” Victorian Studies, vol. 11, issue 2, 1967, pp. 131-152.
Ross C. Murfin. Swinburne, Hardy and Lawrence and the Burden of Belief. University of Chicago Press, 1978.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles. Chastelard. Chatto&Windus, 1878.
---. Lesbia Brandon. An historical and critical commentary being largely a study (and elevation) of Swinburne as a novelist. Edited by Randolph Hugues. The Falcon Press, 1952.
---. Love’s Cross-Currents. A Year’s Letters. Chatto & Windus, 1905.
---. Songs before Sunrise. Chatto & Windus, 1871.
---. Swinburne Replies. Notes on Poems and Reviews. Under the Microscope. Dedicatory Epistle. Edited by Clyde Kenneth Hyder. Syracuse University Press, 1966.
---. The Complete Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Bonchurch Edition). Edited by Edmund Gosse & Thomas J. Wise. William Heinemann & Co, 1925-1929, vol I-XX.
Thomas, Donald. Swinburne. The Poet in His World. Oxford University Press, 1979.
Weir, David. Decadence and the Making of Modernism. University of Massachusetts Press, 1995.
Wilson, Edmund. “Swinburne of Capheaton and Eton.” Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Novels of A. C. Swinburne. Greenwood Press Publishers, 1978, pp. 13-34.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2017 Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
©Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai Philologia. Published by Babeș-Bolyai University.