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Selected Writings

Arthur Symons

Edited by Roger Holdsworth

Cover Picture of Selected Writings
Categories: 19th Century, 20th Century, Welsh
Imprint: Fyfield Books
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Available as:
Paperback (100 pages)
(Pub. Aug 2003)
9781857547269
Out of Stock
  • Description
  • Excerpt
  • Author
  • Contents
  • My Paris is a land where twilight days
    Merge into violent nights of black and gold;
    Where, it may be, the flower of dawn is cold:
    Ah, but the gold nights, and the scented ways!
        from 'Paris'

    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.
    Table of Contents

    Introduction

    Further Reading

    Note on the Text



    POETRY

    from Days and Nights (1889)

    The Fisher's Widow

    Scenes de la Vie de Boheme: Episode of a Night of May

    The Street-Singer

    The Opium-Smoker



    from Silhouettes (1892; 2nd ed., 1896)

    At Dieppe

    After Sunset

    On the Beach

    Requies


    Pastel: Masks and Faces

    Morbidezza

    Maquillage

    Impression

    On the Heath

    At the Cavour

    In the Haymarket

    The Absinthe-Drinker

    Javanese Dancers

    April Midnight

    During Music

    Tears

    At Burgos

    For a Picture of Watteau



    from London Nights (1895; 2nd ed., 1897)

    Prologue

    Nora on the Pavement

    Violet

    Decor de Theatre

    Behind the Scenes: Empire

    The Primrose Dance: Tivoli

    La Melinite: Moulin Rouge


    Autumn Twilight

    Colour Studies

    At Dieppe

    At Glan-y-Wern


    Stella Maris

    Hallucination

    Hands

    White Heliotrope

    Nerves

    Celeste: The Prelude

    Song

    Clair de Lune

    Paris

    Biance: Presages

    Epilogue: Credo



    From Amoris Victima (1897)

    Amoris Exsul

    Moonrise

    In the Forest of Arques

    Twilight

    Arques: Night


    Amor Triumphans: The Dance



    From Images of Good and Evil (1899)

    from The Dance of the Daughters of Herodias

    Sould in the Balance: Mater Liliarum

    Opals

    In Ireland

    By the Pool at the Third Rosses

    In the Wood of Finvara


    Palm Sunday: Naples

    The Last Memory



    From The Loom of Dreams (1901)

    The Loom of Dreams

    Isolation



    From The Fool of the World (1906)

    Time and Beauty

    London

    For a Picture of Rossetti

    The Armenian Dancer

    The Andante of Snakes

    Song of the Sirens



    From Knave of Hearts 1894-1908 (1913)

    Venice

    Peau d'Espagne

    The Tarot Cards



    From Love's Cruelty (1923)

    Studies in Strange Sins (After Beardsley's Designs): The Woman in the Moon

    For Des Esseintes: Tragic Dawn



    TRANSLATIONS

    From Theophile Gautier

    Posthumous Coquetry (1889)



    From Paul Verlaine

    Fetes Galantes (1896)

    Pantomine

    L'Allee

    Fantoches

    Mandoline




    From Stephane Mallarmé

    Sea-Wind

    Anguish



    PROSE

    From 'The Decadent Movement in Literature' (1893)

    From 'Dancers and Dancing' (1897)

    From ' The World as Ballet' (1898)

    From The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899)

    From 'The Choice' (1900)

    From 'A Paradox on Art' (1900)

    From 'What is Poetry?' (1901)

    From 'Fact in Literature' (1902

    From 'A Prelude to Life' (1905)

    From London: A Book of Aspects (1909)

    From 'Impressionistic Writing' (1923)

    From 'Fantin-Latour and Whistler' (1925)

    From 'Aubrey Beardsley' (1929)

    From 'Unspiritual Adventures in Paris' (1931)

    Arthur Symons
    Arthur Symons was born in Milford Haven in 1865. He lived in London, where he frequented the Rhymers' Club, a group of writers who met at the Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street between 1891 and 1894. A friend of Ernest Dowson, Lionel Johnson and Wilde, he was an important influence on ... read more
    Roger Holdsworth
    Roger Holdsworth lectures in English at the University of Manchester. He has edited plays by Jonson and Middleton, and has been a general editor of the Malone Society. ... read more
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