Author Archives

Dr Michael Craske researches transgressive poetics, music, aesthetics, and perhaps transgressive anything at Queen Mary, University of London (but mainly Swinburne, Wagner, and T. S. Eliot). He was once involved in diplomacy, of a Middle Eastern kind...

  • Ask Nothing More

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    Ask Nothing More, by the unconventional Theophilus Marzials (1850-1920), was a hugely successful song of the 1880s. The lyrics were taken from Swinburne’s ‘The Oblation‘ (Songs Before Sunrise, 1871). Marzials was also a poet, and wrote what has often been claimed as the… Read More ›

  • Atalanta in Calydon

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    This is the overture to the 1906 production of Swinburne’s play Atalanta in Calydon (1865), composed by Muriel Elliot, who published the full score in 1912. Originally performed at the Crystal Palace in South London and the (since demolished) Scala Theatre, it… Read More ›

  • Love Laid His Sleepless Head

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    Composed by Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) to lyrics commissioned from A. C. Swinburne, for John Hollingshead’s 1874 production of ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ at the Gaiety Theatre London. It was sung by the character Anne Page (and a chorus of… Read More ›

  • The Triumph of Time

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    Composed by Adela Maddison (a.k.a. Mrs Brunning Maddison, 1862-1929), from Twelve Songs (Op. 9, No. 3), 1895, London: Metzler & Co. This is a really terrific adaption, translation, or perhaps transmutation of Swinburne’s text. Moody, elemental, maybe it’s music that’s playing poetic and… Read More ›