Arthur Symons

Arthur William Symons (28 February 1865 - 22 January 1945), was an English poet, literary critic, and magazine editor.

Life
Born in Milford Haven, Wales, of Cornish parents, Symons was educated privately, spending much of his time in France and Italy. In 1884–1886 he edited four of Bernard 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, but his major editorial feat was his work with the short-lived Savoy.

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 Charles Baudelaire, and especially of Paul Verlaine. He reflects French tendencies both in the subject-matter and style of his poems, in their eroticism and their vividness of description. Symons contributed poems and essays to the Yellow Book, including an important piece which was later expanded into The Symbolist Movement in Literature, which would have a major influence on William Butler Yeats and T.S. Eliot. From late 1895 through 1896 he edited The Savoy, a literary magazine which published both art and literature. Noteworthy contributors included Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, and Joseph Conrad.

In 1892, The Minister's Call, Symons's first play, was produced by the Independent Theatre Society – a private club – to avoid censorship by the Lord Chamberlain's Office.

In 1902 Symons made a selection from his earlier verse, published as Poems. He translated from the Italian of Gabriele D'Annunzio The Dead City (1900) and The Child of Pleasure (1898), and from the French of Émile Verhaeren The Dawn (1898). To The Poems of Ernest Dowson (1905) he prefixed an essay on the deceased poet, who was a kind of English Verlaine and had many attractions for Symons. In 1909 Symons suffered a psychotic breakdown, and published very little new work for a period of more than twenty years.

Poetry

 * Days and Nights. London, New York: Macmillan, 1889.
 * Silhouettes. London: Leonard Smithers, 1892.
 * Revised and enlarged. London: L.C. Smithers, 1896.
 * London Nights. London, L.C. Smithers, 1895.
 * Amoris victima. London: L.C. Smithers ; New York: G.H. Richmond, 1897.
 * Images of Good and Evil. London : W. Heinemann, 1899.
 * The Loom of Dreams. London: privately printed, 1901.
 * Poems (in 2 volumes). London: W. Heinemann, 1902; New York: John Lane, 1902. Volume 1, Volume 2.
 * A Book of Twenty Songs. London, J.M. Dent & Co., 1905.
 * The Fool of the World and other poems. London: W. Heinemann, 1906. New York: John Lane, 1907.
 * Lyrics. Portland, ME: T.B. Mosher, 1907.
 * Silhouettes. Portland, ME: T.B. Mosher, 1909.
 * Knave of Hearts 1894-1908. London, W. Heinemann, 1913.
 * Lesbia and other poems. New York, E.P. Dutton & Co., 1920.
 * Love's Cruelty. London, Martin Secker, 1923.
 * Poems, Volume Three. 1924.
 * Jezebel Mort, and other poems. London, W. Heinemann Ltd. 1931.

Plays

 * Tragedies. London: W. Heinemann, 1916.
 * Tristan and Iseult: a play in four acts. London: William Heinemann, 1917.
 * The Toy Cart: a play in five acts. Dublin: Maunsel & Co., 1919.
 * Outlaws of Life: a play. Two worlds Vol. 1, no. 1 (Sept., 1925)

Non-fiction

 * An Introduction to the Study of Browning. London, New York, Cassell, 1887.
 * Studies in Two Literatures. London: L.C. Smithers, 1897.
 * Portland, ME: T.B. Mosher, 1911.
 * Cities. London: J.M. Dent & Co.; New York, J. Pott & Co., 1903.
 * Plays, Acting and Music: a book of theory. London, Duckworth, 1903; New York, E.P. Dutton, 1909.
 * Stephane Mallarme. Portland, ME: T.B. Mosher, 1903.
 * Studies in Prose and Verse. London: J.M. Dent; New York: E.P. Dutton, 1904.
 * Spiritual Adventures. London: A. Constable, 1905.
 * Studies in Seven Arts (1906).
 * William Blake. London: A. Constable, 1907.
 * Cities of Italy. New York, E.P. Dutton, 1907.
 * The Symbolist Movement in Literature . London: A Constable, 1908.
 * New York; E.P. Dutton, 1919.
 * (introduction by Richard Ellman). New York: E.P. Dutton, 1958.
 * Maeterlinck as a Mystic. Portland, ME : T.B. Mosher, 1908.
 * Dante Gabriel Rossetti. New York, Paris: Brentanos, 1909.
 * The Romantic Movement in English poetry. New York: Dutton, 1909.
 * Figures of Several Centuries. London: Constable & Co., 1916.
 * Colour Studies in Paris. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1918.
 * The Art of Aubrey Beardsley. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1918.
 * Cities and Sea-coasts and Islands. New York: Brentano's, 1918.
 * Studies in the Elizabethan Drama. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1919.
 * Charles Baudelaire: A Study. London, E. Mathews, 1920.
 * Dramatis Personae. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1923.
 * The Cafe Royal and other essays. Westminster, The Beaumont Press, 1923.
 * A Study of Thomas Hardy. London, C.J. Sawyer, 1927.
 * Studies in Strange Souls. London, C.J. Sawyer, 1929.
 * Confessions: A Study in Pathology. New York, J. Cape & H. Smith, 1930.
 * Wanderings. London, Toronto: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1931.
 * A Study of Walter Pater. London, C.J. Sawyer, 1932.
 * The Collected Works of Arthur Symons. London, Martin Secker, 1924
 * Selected Writings (edited by R.V. Holdsworth). New York: Routledge, 2003.

Letters

 * Letters to W.B. Yeats, 1892-1902. Edinburgh: Tragara Press, 1989.
 * Arthur Symons: Selected Letters. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1989.

Edited

 * Essays by Leigh Hunt. London: Walter Scott, 1887.
 * The Savoy. London.
 * January 1896.
 * April 1896.
 * July 1896.
 * September-October 1896.
 * Poems by Coleridge, London: Methuen & Co., 1905.
 * The Poems of Ernest Dowson (illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley). London: John Lane; New York: Dodd, Mead, 1905.
 * A Sixteenth Century Anthology. London: Blackie & Son, 1905.
 * A Pageant of Elizabethan Poetry. London: Blackie, 1906.
 * The Hellenics, and Gebir. London: J.M. Dent, 1907.
 * Poems by John Clare. London: H. Frowde, 1908.
 * The Poems and Prose of Ernest Dowson. New York: Modern Library, 1919.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.