He reflects French tendencies both in the subject-matter and style of his poems, in their eroticism and their vividness of description.
Arthur Symons (1865-1945) was a Welsh poet, critic, and magazine editor. His first volume of verse, Days and Nights (1889), consisted of dramatic monologues. Later poems reflected French tendencies, both in the subject matter and style, with sensual themes and vivid descriptions. His finest books of verse (Silhouettes, 1892; London Nights, 1895; Amoris Victima, 1897; Images of Good and Evil, 1899) were collected in the two-volume Poems (1902). Born on Feb. 28th, 1865 at Milford Haven, Wales. Arthur Symons was the son of a Wesleyan minister. He was a noted Welsh poet and critic, considered a leader of the symbolists in England. In 1884-1886 he edited four of Quaritch`s Shakespeare Quarto Facsimiles, and in 1888-1889 seven plays of the "Henry Irving" Shakespeare. He became a member of the staff of the Athenaeum in 1891, and of the Saturday Review in 1894.
His first volume of verse, Days and Nights (1889), consisted of dramatic monologues. His later verse is influenced by a close study of modern French writers, of Baudelaire and especially of Verlaine. He reflects French tendencies both in the subject-matter and style of his poems, in their eroticism and their vividness of description.
Symons was married in 1901 to Rhoda Bowser, the daughter of a wealthy ship builder and shipowner. In 1908, he suffered a nervous breakdown while traveling with his wife in Venice.
His work was not always well received as seen in this quote:
"Mr Arthur Symons is a very dirty-minded man, and his mind is reflected in the puddle of his bad verses. It may be that there are other dirty-minded men who will rejoice in the jingle that records the squalid and inexpensive amours of Mr Symons, but our faith jumps to the hope that such men are not."
- Pall Mall Gazette : 2 Sep, 1895.
His verse books include
Silhouettes (1892)
London Nights (1895)
Amoris victima (1897)
Images of Good and Evil (1899)
A Book of Twenty Songs (1905).
In 1902 he made a selection from his earlier verse, published as Poems (2 vols.). He translated from the Italian of Gabriele d`Annunzio The Dead City (1900) and The Child of Pleasure (1898), and from the French of Emile Verhaeren The Dawn (1898). Among his volumes of collected essays are: Studies in Two Literatures (1897), The Symbolist School in Literature (1899), Cities (1903), Studies in Prose and Verse (1904), Spiritual Adventures (1905), Studies in Seven Arts (1906).
"Art begins when a man wishes to immortalize the most vivid moment he has ever lived."
- Arthur Symons
