Swinburne and the Möbius Strip: Circumvented Circularity in A Century of Roundels

Abstract

Although Algernon Charles Swinburne and his later works have begun to receive more critical attention, (1) his cycle Century of Roundels (1883) is frequently neglected. The strict, eleven line and topics poems discuss often cause them to be dismissed as uncharacteristically domestic and simplistic compared to his more bombastic, bawdy works: Edmund Gosse believed they were merely an exercise self-discipline ... to curb his Pegasus with rigidly-determined fixed form, (2) and Jean Fuller remarked they are a charming series of rather slight pieces. (3) Behind placid facade of poems, however, Swinburne's incorporation of medieval lyric forms reveals linguistic pyrotechnics aplenty. He created his roundel by appropriating elements of rondeau, rondel, and triolet, all forms he learned from studying one of his literary idols, fifteenth-century poet Francois Villon. Villon's influence can also be seen Swinburne's style, since both poets value puns, paradoxes, and oxymorons and structure their poems by circumventing expected meanings. Throughout this poem cycle, Swinburne consistently subverts circularity inherent both roundel and cyclical Century, playing on repetition with twist. Karen Alkalay-Gut has associated Swinburne's poetic subversion with M6bius strip, curious topological loop formed by band twisted and connected to itself. (4) This mathematical concept, first articulated by August Ferdinand M6bius 1858, has remarkable property that, although it appears to have two sides, it fact only has one. Starting on one and following loop results return to starting point, but on side of surface; what was becomes inside. Alkalay-Gut has shown this topological surface is perfect illustration of Swinburne's paradoxes and oxymorons, since both techniques involve two opposites uniting while simultaneously being separate, as well as of structure of some of his seemingly circular poems (p. 151). However, although she applies this illustration to some works from Poems and Ballads and Laus Veneris, she omits an examination of Century of Roundels, instead saying such poems, and A Roundel particular, are so circular they cannot be considered representative of Swinburne's work other than in sense that they acknowledge the significance of form (p. 142). fact, these works subvert expected circularity, and her suggestive mathematical parallel can also illuminate overall structure of Century of Roundels, structure of individual roundels themselves, and Swinburne's method of appropriating both medieval subject matter and lyric forms; each functions as Mobius strip, ending by returning to its beginning with an inverted perspective. The most intricate examples of circumvented cyclicality are individual roundels themselves. The refrain of roundel, drawn from first word or phrase of first line, repeats at end of first and last stanzas. This verbal pattern would seem to lead us circle, back to ideas of beginning. Instead, Swinburne alters refrain, using repetition subversively, characteristic second part of first poem volume, In Harbor, clearly demonstrates: Outside of port ye are moored in, lying Close from wind and at ease from tide, What sounds come swelling, what notes fall dying Outside? They will not cease, they will not abide: Voices of presage darkness crying Pass and return and relapse aside. Ye see not, but hear ye not wild wings flying To future wakes from past died? Is grief still sleeping, is joy not sighing Outside? (5) Since word outside, poem's refrain, delineates strict boundary, one might expect outside to be stable term. Instead, question mark follows refrain when it appears again at end of first stanza, making word change tone from confidence delineation to uncertainty. …