Arthur Symons

Arthur Symons , 1865-1945, English poet and critic. A leader of the symbolists 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).

Symons, Arthur William (1865–1945), poet and critic, became a friend of Yeats, G. A. Moore, and H. Ellis, and attended the Rhymers' Club; his early volumes of poetry (Days and Nights, 1889; London Nights, 1895) were very much of their time in their celebration of decadence and the demi-monde of stage, street, and Café Royal. He was editor of the Savoy, 1896, and published Beardsley, Conrad, Dowson, L. P. Johnson, etc. His The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899) was an attempt to introduce French Symbolism to England, and he wrote critical studies of Blake, Baudelaire, Pater, Wilde, and others. He is largely remembered as a leading spirit in the Decadent movement, a defender of ‘art for art's sake’.