Symons, Arthur
Symons, Arthur
(sĭm`ənz), 1865–1945, English poet and critic. A leader of the symbolistssymbolists,in literature, a school originating in France toward the end of the 19th cent. in reaction to the naturalism and realism of the period. Designed to convey impressions by suggestion rather than by direct statement, symbolism found its first expression in poetry but
..... Click the link for more information. in England, Symons interpreted French decadent poetry to the English through translations, criticism, and his own imitative poems. He was editor of the Savoy (1896) until a period of insanity, movingly described in his Confessions (1930), incapacitated him from 1908 to 1910. After that time he was forced to live very quietly. His chief critical work is The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899); others are The Romantic Movement in English Poetry (1909) and studies of Baudelaire, Blake, and Rossetti. His poetry includes Days and Nights (1889), Poems (1902), and Love's Cruelty (1923).
Bibliography
See biography by K. Beckson (1987); studies by J. M. Munro (1969) and L. W. Market (1987).