Books: Arthur Symons, Leading Poet of the English Decadence
by Sebastian Hayes
If there was a single man who shaped the English Decadent Movement of the Eighteen Nineties, that man was Arthur Symons, editor of the “Savoy” magazine, poet, critic and translator and friend of Paul Verlaine whom he introduced to the English public. But he is now a forgotten figure. In this little book Sebastian Hayes argues that Symons amply deserves to be remembered for his musical and deeply felt verse, his enthusiastic espousal of the ideas of the French Symbolist movement and the way in which he anticipated, and in certain respects surpassed, the poets of the later Imagist movement led by Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell.
If there was a single man who shaped the English Decadent Movement of the Eighteen Nineties, that man was Arthur Symons, editor of the “Savoy” magazine, poet, critic and translator and friend of Paul Verlaine whom he introduced to the English public. But he is now a forgotten figure. In this little book Sebastian Hayes argues that Symons amply deserves to be remembered for his musical and deeply felt verse, his enthusiastic espousal of the ideas of the French Symbolist movement and the way in which he anticipated, and in certain respects surpassed, the poets of the later Imagist movement led by Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell.