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"The Garden of Proserpine" is a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne, written in 1866. Proserpine is the Latin spelling of Persephone, a goddess married to Hades, god of the underworld. According to some accounts, she had a garden of ever blooming flowers (poppies) in the underworld. The Greek and Roman festivals honoring her and her mother, Ceres, emphasized Proserpine's return to the upper world in spring. According to the myths which talk of Persophone's Pearls, bringing visitors for lonely Persephone, these poppies induce waking sleep if picked and travellers forget their purpose. Trapped wandering the underworld until they no longer are touching these flowers. In Swinburne's poems, however, the emphasis is on her role as goddess of death and eternal sleep. There are twelve stanzas in the poem. Each stanza has eight lines, or also know has an octave stanza, and all of the stanzas have the same internal pattern of rhymes. This rhyme scheme is recognized as a trimeter, with the pattern ABABCCCB, placing stress at the end of the poem where the three Cs rhyme and when Bs rhymes with the start of the poem. The rhyme scheme reflects Algernon Charles Swinburne's emphasis on the last line of each stanza, breaking it up from the rest of the poem, creating a harmonious ring to the feminine ending of each stanza. Diction is another crucial aspect to Swinburne's poem because it conveys the tone and feelings deeper than the writing. In "The Garden of Proserpine", the Victorian Crisis of Faith is an underlying issue that Swinburne uses strong, emphasizing diction and metaphors to convey Proserpine’s feelings challenging Christianity and asserting his values of paganism and masochism. Phrases such as "who gathers all things mortal; with cold immortal hands" and "Here life has death for neighbour" are examples of the specific diction used to portray a negative tone toward religion, linking directly to the theme of life and death of the poem, as Proserpine is a symbol of the threshold between life and death. “The Garden of Proserpine” was also written as part of his first series of ''Poems and Ballads'' in 1866, depicting the spirit and form of Greek tragedy, including more of his most popular poems such as “Dolores”. ==History== "The Garden of Proserpine" brings up various questions commonly accompanying the Crisis of Faith of the Victorian Era involving what happens after death. The Crisis of Faith was the response to new scientific evidence that contradicted the long-accepted claims of the Church of England. It resulted in a growing sense of secularism and a sense of vulnerability by the people. The question of what happens after death was one of the church’s biggest defenses to this growing secularity, as faith guaranteed immortality after death. Swinburne was a strong advocate of aestheticism, and believed that art should be able to exist independently of political and moral ideologies. This concept was often referred to as “art for art’s sake." Swinburne once announced that his poetic theory "insists upon the uninhibited exploration of all issues and experiences relevant to comprehensively prophetic treatment of the human condition." In Garden of Proserpine, we see elements of aestheticism and this applied poetic theory in the fact that it works to challenge Christianity and Pagan religions. "The Garden of Proserpine" works to challenge these religions by displaying a godless afterlife, tormented only by the blind will to live. This lyric expresses feelings validated by Swinburne’s pessimistic philosophy.〔 Proserpine is the goddess of eternal death, which by nature overpowers the other gods. However, she is not actively powerful considering she represents nothingness herself. The Garden of Proserpine represents a sense of harmony, calm, and oblivion that only truly exists in this realm of nothingness. It is said to symbolize "the brief total pause of passion and thought after tempestuous pleasures when the spirit, without fear or hope of good things or evil, hungers and thirsts only after the perfect sleep." This poem celebrates the finality of death and the nothingness that lies beyond Persephone’s welcoming arms, making a stark contrast to the beliefs of leading religions during this time.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Garden of Proserpine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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