著者

上村 盛人

出版者

奈良教育大学

雑誌

奈良教育大学紀要 人文・社会科学 (ISSN:05472393)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.35, no.1, pp.p29-42, 1986-11

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When Swinburne published his Poems and Ballads, Second Series in 1878, this new book of poems was received warmly with high estimation. Critics have for long regarded this book as 'the finest of his volumes of poems.' Most of the poems it contains had been composed and published previously, but Swinburne spent time on 'arranging them in proper order' and tried to give consistency to his new book of collected poems. "The Last Oracle," the first poem in the volume, is important because in this poem the poet states the idea of immortality of art. And Swinburne tries to express this idea throughout the whole volume. In the second poem, "In the Bay," the poet sings mainly about Marlowe and Shelley who `first clove the thought-unsounded sea' and joined and became the shining star that gives immortal light of art for the people to come. The whole theme, however, of the next poem, "A Forsaken Garden," is the mutability of human affections, the erosion of time and the destructive force of death. At this point, we know the two main themes of this volume, that is, immortality of Art (Poetry) and all-conquering Death (Time). Swinburne writes about Art (Poetry) and Death (Time) in the poems that follow, that is, "Relics," "At a Month's End," "Sestina," "The Year of the Rose," "A Wasted Vigil," "The Complaint of Lisa" and "For the Feast of Giordano Bruno." In "Ave atque Vale," an elegy for Charles Baudelaire, Swinburne contemplates the relation between Art and Death and recognizes that immortal Art survives Death and he reaches the understanding that though 'death cancels his (i. e., Baudelaire's) life for ever,... he is glorified in those that follow, and Apollo, the lord of all light and source of all lights (i.e., poets), lives only if men live.' A specific feature of the second series of Poems and Ballads is Swinburne's interest in Francois Villon. Swinburne found in this 'Poet, Pickpurse and Pimp' as well as 'Master Thief' 'the greatest singer' who sang a new immortal song emitting Apollo's shining light in the dark. To Swinburne, Villon was as great a tragic singer as Sappho. Poems and Ballads, Second Series contains many excellent poems in which Swinburne states dexterously his theory of l'art pour i'art.