THE POETRY AND CRITICISM OF MR. SWINBURNE
I
'atalanta in calydon'—'poems and ballads,' first series—essay on blake
Mr. Swinburne's poetical career really opens with the production of Atalanta in Calydon. In Chastelard was to be found the luxuriant, the over-luxuriant, promise of lyric and epic, but not of dramatic, power. It is true that Atalanta is modelled on the Greek and not on the English drama, and that the two dramas are so different in character, that a complete comparison is wellnigh outside the limits of technical art. At the same time the dramatic spirit, the intense feeling of perfect parts in a perfect whole, is to be found as much, if not more, in the Agamemnon than in the King Lear. The music in the one case is simple, in the other complex, but the motif is identical. This dramatic spirit is felt but faintly in not only Chastelard and Atalanta, but all Mr. Swinburne's plays. They have not got it, they have
