Thomas Burnett Swann

Thomas Burnett Swann (October 12, 1928 - May 5, 1976) was an American poet, critic and fantasy author.

His criticism includes works on the poetry of H.D. and Christina Rossetti.

Swann's poetry consists largely of short, whimsical pieces evoking a naive innocence. Many of them were later incorporated into his novels and placed in the mouths of his characters - sometimes the same poem is spoken by two or three different characters in novels set centuries and continents apart.

Poets also frequently appear as characters in his novels, always on the side of good: Sappho in Wolfwinter (1972); Robert Herrick in Will-o-the-Wisp (1977, serialized 1974); a fictionalized Charles Sorley in The Goat Without Horns (1971); and Thomas Chatterton in The Not-World (1975).

Swann began writing fiction in 1958 with "Winged Victory", a science fiction story based on the famous headless statue known as the Winged Victory of Samothrace. In Swann's story the statue's head is discovered and found to have been modeled upon an alien visitor whom the sculptor took for a goddess.

Extraterrestrials also feature in "The Painter", in which the painter Hieronymous Bosch is abducted by hideous aliens and forced to paint them, thereby providing the inspiration for the grotesque images in his painting The Garden of Earthly Delights. This and many other early stories appeared in the British magazine Science Fantasy. Some stories also appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (F&SF).

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