Topic maps may provide context and focus to the extraordinary cultural broadness of Swinburne's work, a broadness which is often disguised by the inordinate fame of his early volume Poems and Ballads: "So shocking was the advent of this epochal book that it would come to obscure the range of Swinburne's work—a range so extensive that one can sometimes scarcely imagine how it came to be thought narrow or precious" (McGann).
Swinburne a difficult poet—intoxicating, hypnotic rhythms; difficult syntax; predominance of small, monosyllabic words that can give the misperception of simplicity of thought; abundance of sometimes obscure allusions to classical literature, the bible, history. Topic maps can help guide the reader through the turbulent sea of forward rushing rhythms and monosyllables.