Book Description

The Flogging-Block is Victorian poet Algernon Charles Swinburne's mock-heroic tribute to corporal punishment. In a prologue and twelve eclogues, Swinburne describes, with considerable vigour and black humour, the torment, anguish, and delights of the scholastic rod from the perspectives of beaten school boys, despotic masters, and joyous witnesses. It does not contain explicit sexual content. This edition of The Flogging-Block is a page by page transcription of the original manuscript, which is owned by the British Library. It does not reproduce Simeon Solomon's illustrations. A master of lyric, rhythm, and rhyme, Swinburne was one of the most brilliant poets of the Victorian era. He was also a life-long enthusiast of flagellation, weaving flagellant scenes and motifs into his poems, letters, novels, and dramatic works. He composed The Flogging-Block, which remained unpublished until now, between 1862 and 1881.