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1919. Without symbolism there can be no literature; indeed, not even language. Words themselves are symbols. Symbolism began with the first words uttered by the first man as he named every living thing. In a symbol there is concealment, yet revelation. All of these have greatly contributed to our understanding of symbolism. Contents: Gerard de Nerval; Villiers de L'isle Adam; Arthur Rimbaud; Paul Verlaine; Jules Laforgue; Stephane Mallarme; The Later Huysmans; Maeterlinck as a Mystic. Essays by: Balzac; Prosper Merimee; Theophile Gautier; Gustave Flaubert; Charles Baudelaire; Edmond and Jules de Goncourt; Leon Cladel; A Note on Zola's Method. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The Definitive Primer of the Symbolist Period
In all of the critical fog & political baggage that has since attached itself to the Symbolists, it is refreshing to read a contemporary'saccount of this fascinating artistic period. Symons wasn't an ivory tower academic, (he lived the "art for art's sake" life championed by the Decadents & Symbolists to the point of mental collapse), but few critics were as close to the circle of important writers of the 1880s & '90s as he was.His criticisms were not the speculations of a reader, but more nearly reportage culled from his own associations & early championing of the milieu the Symbolists sprang from. Pick up his letters or Karl Beckson's excellent biography & you'll see what I mean.Symons was uniquely positioned to shine a light on a movement that consciously wrapped itself in mystery. This is a must-read introduction for anyone interested in the period.

A Literary Study
I enjoyed this author's poetic brilliance in discussing the relation between a symbol and the infinite.What I did not realize, when I purchased the book, is that it is substantially a collection of essays on particular authors:Balzac. Jusmans, Rimbaud, Maeterlinck,Flaubert, etc.

Wilde had his Pater and I my Symons.
Without this little gem, we may not have ever had T. S. Eliot emerge as fully as he has. When I first stumbled across this book, I went through one of my deepest awakenings and haven't stopped since. The Symbolist Movement in Literature is a must for any concerned with poetry and the poetic process. There is a common thread in poetry that has been carried from ancient Greece to the present (though deeply buried now) and one of its strongest showings occurs with the writers reported on in this book. Symons does not get super scholastic (partly because scholars and the modern scholarly anathema wasn't as menacing of a problem as it is now) but he treats the writers and their material as one with the wide-eyed wonder of a quiet witness to one of the most remarkable periods in ALL of literature.

Interesting, but unremarkable
Symons was a poet and critic of the Symbolist movement, and this book was meant to be a general introduction to the French Symbolists.As an introduction, it is superb--it familiarized me with the works, lives, and styles of many important Symbolist writers such as Nerval, Merimee,Villiers, Verlaine, etc.There is an appendix which includes writers thataren't really Symbolist, like Flaubert, Balzac, Goncourt, but even thisappendix is informative and interesting.

However, when the work tries togo beyond a mere descriptive primer, it fails.His attempts to defineSymbolism are muddled and contradictory.His "interpretations"of Rimbaud and Verlaine are just completely off base.Basically, this bookis a light, basic introduction to French Symbolist authors, and it losesits charms when it tries to be critical or definitive. ... Read more

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Arthur William Symons (1865-1945) is a haunting poet of the modern city, catching its dangerous, complex beauty in works that first introduced the imagery of the urban underworld into English poetry. He was a champion of the French Symbolists. Yeats, Pound and Eliot acknowledged their debt to him and were influenced by his sense of the city as the essential landscape of modernity. As a poet and critic, in his own right, though, Symons has come into his own in recent years. This selection is taken from the full range of Symons' poetry and prose, revealing an experimental writer exploring art, literature and music. Roger Holdsworth's introduction sets Symons in his context as both an 1890s Decadent and a precursor of Modernism. ... Read more

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This book is the literary and private biography of the man Yeats called 'the most important critic of his generation.' Arthur Symons' Memoirs combine material never before published with essays reprinted from scattered sources, arranged according to a plan that Symons outlined to his literary agent but that has remained unrealized until now. Author of The Symbolist Movement in Literature and founding editor of The Savoy, Symons reveals here his critical and personal impressions of the greatest artists and writers of his time as well as the leading theatrical personalities. Revealed also are the experiences of an 1890's man-about-London, including is love affairs with music hall girls. The potentially libelous nature of Symons' amorous confessions prevented publication of a large part of his Memoirs during his lifetime. They are now published in this volume.Following an informative introduction by Professor Beckson, the Memoirs begin with 'A Prelude to Life,' Symons' account of his early development and the start of his literary career in the 1880's. The Memoirs end with a harrowing account of Symons' mental breakdown in Italy in 1908. The entire text is annotated by the editor. Although Symons survived until 1945, he recognized--in planning his Memoirs--that his major achievement lay in guiding the student of literature and art through the transitional period between the Victorian and the modern world. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the text that can both be accessed online and used to create new print copies. This book and thousands of others can be found in the digital collections of the University of Michigan Library. The University Library also understands and values the utility of print, and makes reprints available through its Scholarly Publishing Office. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

When in Rome...read this book
D'Annuzio gives us the intimate details of thedecadent lifestyle of a ne'er-do-well Roman count and his social class.The facts of the story could be told in a few sentences, but (like his contemporary Henry James) its the way he tells the story not the story itself that is the mostappealing.His descriptions of Rome and the country villas of the richmake it a great book to take on a trip to Italy. ... Read more

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In this informative new biography of Arthur Symons (1865-1945), the first since 1963, Karl Beckson mines much previously unpublished material to reveal new dimensions of Symon's life and art. As a critic and poet, Symons was a important influence in the development of early Modernism in England, and the impact of his major work, The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899), and his personal relationships with such figures as Walter Pater, Paul Verlaine, W.B. Yeats, Joseph Conrad, and James Joyce, have assured him an important place in literary history.At the time of his mental breakdown in 1908--here told in harrowing detail--Yeats called him "the best critic of his generation." This stunning biography provides not only an account of Symons's career that confirms Yeats's judgment, but also the fullest record of his life to date. ... Read more

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Originally published in 1896.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"After Love" is worth the book!

In the early 1950s a friend gave me a (paperback) collection of poems, by many different authors. I still have the book, (coverless) and falling apart and I have no idea what the title was (I thought it was Best Loved Poems, but I can't seem to find it.) One of my favorite poems was on page 41, called "After Love." I only remembered the third stanza, and that the author was Arthur Symons; since page 41 is missing from my tattered book.I recently discovered that the poem was originally printed in Symons' book, "Silhouettes" published in 1892. I am very grateful that Amazon is offering a hardcover edition for $26. If you love poetry, you should read this British poet's book. Perhaps someone knows the name of this old book of poems: Some of the 'divisions listed in the index of this tiny 4 x 6 paperback are: INDEX OF FIRST LINES (p 255 & 256 Poems of Love, (p xi;) Poems of Inspiration, (p xiv Faith and Immortality (p.xv and xvi) Poems of Patriotism; Nature and Reflection (p xvi & xvii)
Maybe someone has reprinted it, too! ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1900.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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Originally published in ca. 1893.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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Arthur Symons s (1865-1945) prominence at the end of the nineteenth century and subsequent influence on early-twentieth-century literature is well established. His biographer Karl Beckson aptly calls hima major figure who helped stimulate the Modernist initiative. The breadth of his artistic interests and critical commentary remains extraordinary. In addition to writing short stories, poems, plays, travel sketches, and translations, Symons was a prolific critic and editor who wrote about literature and what he termedthe seven arts.Yeats famously offered him the laurelbest critic of his generation.Symons championed freedom of subject matter and literary style and thus influenced the work of Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Joyce, and others, particularly in introducing them to the evocative work of French symbolist writers.*Arthur Symons, Critic Among Critics: An Annotated Bibliography* documents the scholarly attention Symons continues to receive not only for his critical influence, but for his own creative work. This annotated bibliography captures over 1300 articles, books, reviews, dissertations, and other writings about Symons, revising and updating Carol Simpson Stern s 1974 bibliography published in *English Literature in Transition, 1880 1920*. Over 1000 new items appear, some of these from unsigned articles now identified as written by authors such as Virginia Woolf and John Middleton Murry.The book, arranged alphabetically by author with annotations in paraphrase style, includes a helpful index and provides a chronological list of works published from the1880s to early 2007 that will prove useful in tracing the evolution of criticism about Symons. *Arthur Symons, Critic Among Critics* joins ELT Press s *Arthur Symons: A Bibliography* (1990), which covers the primary works, to give scholars a comprehensive view of his writings. ... Read more

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This anthology is more correctly a compilation of translations selected primarily for those who have no means of enjoying French poetry in the original.Expanded from a collection gathered originally for personal pleasure, it is my belief that most of the selections here included are of high poetical merit, fully capable of standing squarely on their own feet as adequate renderings of the original....

Originally published in 1920 when World War I had just ended and relations between America and France were at a political and cultural peak. ... Read more

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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more