Between Musicality and Materiality: Harry Clarke’s Illustrations for 'Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne' (1928)
Between Musicality and Materiality: Harry Clarke’s Illustrations for 'Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne' (1928)

Author(s): Dorota Osińska
Subject(s): Cultural history, 18th Century, 19th Century
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Algernon Charles Swinburne; bitextuality; Harry Clarke; modernist illustration; Victorian poetry
Summary/Abstract: Nineteenth-century British culture is an intriguing example of how text and image co-exist. More so, early twentieth-century illustrations often provide a counterpoint to English poetry of the nineteenth century, emphasising that the relationship between the visual and the written is more nuanced than a straightforward semiotic transfer of meaning. In the present chapter, I focus on the dialogue between the illustrations created by Harry Clarke to Algernon Charles Swinburne’s poems, which were published in 'Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne' in 1928. The following discussion is informed by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra’s bitextual theory that considers the special relationship between the image and the text in the context of book illustrations. Clarke represents Swinburne’s works in a compelling way, as the illustrator’s interpretative process not only parallels but also diverges from the lyrical narratives. Clarke’s illustrations prove that Swinburne’s oeuvre is not only based on rhythm but on distinctive poetical imagery. As a result, the example of 'Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne' shows how a complex negotiation between the picture and the word produces new perspectives on how Victorian literature remains closely tied to early-twentieth-century art.

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