“Couldst thou not watch with me?”: Queer Orientation and Unresponse in Swinburne’s ‘A Wasted Vigil’

Authors

  • VJ René University of East Anglia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2218/forum.1.10040

Abstract

In his 1866 review of A.C. Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads, John Morley expresses anxieties regarding the poet’s capacity for queer reorientation – his ability to bring transgressive erotic desires within his reader’s field of vision. The following year Swinburne published ‘A Wasted Vigil’, a lyric address to a beloved incapable of “watching with” the poem’s speaker. How does Swinburne address queer reorientation and the affective community between himself and his reader in his poetry? Using a phenomenological approach, this essay brings Swinburne into dialogue with Sara Ahmed’s work on affect studies and queer theory in order to examine the way in which ‘A Wasted Vigil’ articulates compulsory heterosexuality and queer possibility.

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Published

08-Oct-2024

How to Cite

“‘Couldst Thou Not Watch With me?’: Queer Orientation and Unresponse in Swinburne’s ‘A Wasted Vigil’”. 2024. FORUM: University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture & The Arts 35 (1). https://doi.org/10.2218/forum.1.10040.