William Blake

by Arthur Symons, Henry Crabb Robinson (Creator), Benjamin Heath Malkin (Creator)

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464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Born in Milford Haven, Wales, of Cornish parents, Symons was educated privately, spending much of his time in France and Italy. Between 1884 and 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, along with Aubrey Beardsley and Leonard Smithers, 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. His Confessions: A Study in Pathology (1930), has a moving description of his breakdown and treatment.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg

I made the proofing of this book for Free Literature and it will be published by Project Gutenberg.

page 430:
Though he was the companion of Flaxman and Fuseli, and sometimes their pupil, he never attained
that professional skill, without which all genius is bestowed in vain. He was his own teacher chiefly; and self-instruction, the parent occasionally of great beauties, seldom fails to produce great
deformities. He was a most splendid tinter, but no colourist, and his works were all of small
dimensions, and therefore confined to the cabinet and the portfolio.

[Phil Mc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating look a Blake's life by a man who is best described as a Dilettante who cares little for the opinions of others. However, to the detriment of this study, he spends a great deal of time presenting their ideas.

Symonds love of Blake and his pomposity shine from every page and serve to make this an enjoyable if flawed academic read.