John Addington Symonds was a pioneering homosexual writer. He chronicled his own sexuality
in love poems and
memoirs, as well as within "scientific"
genre of sexology. Symonds was also among the first to write about homosexuality both as a
historic phenomenon as well as a modern one.
I talk more about Symonds's "queer pioneer" role here.
Then there is Symonds the poet. One of his own biographers, Phyllis Grosskurth -- who let the cat out of the bag
in 1964 -- called his poetry "execrable"; the
Cambridge History of English and American Literature accused his work of
"mawkishness". Well, to be fair: they have
problems with Symonds's other work, as well. Despite this specific reaction, Symonds's voluminous production of
critical work has garnered him a fair share of praise. His poetry, however, has never earned a first-rate reputation
among scholars or readers.
As I mentioned, Symonds produced a large body of scholarly work. A good part of this work concerned classical
Greek and Italian renaissance culture, including translations of works by Sappho and Michelangelo. I will not concer
myself with these aspects of Symonds' career and identity, although they,too,are obviously important and interwoven into both
Symonds's roles of poet and homosexual. For information on Symonds as scholar (excluding his fascination with
Whitman, and his later work as pioneering quasi-scientist, which I will
explore here in the queer section), I recommend all of the books
listed in my bibliography; I would also recommend Rictor
Norton's site, which, impressive in
scope as it is, appears to be only a small part of the expansive amount of scholarship Norton has made
available online.
Therefore, I do not seek mine to be the definitive Symonds's site. I am primarily concerned with providing a sort of
union between Symonds the poet and Symonds the "pioneering homosexual". Although I have broken up the dynamic duo of
"poetry" and "homosexuality", and given them different destinations
on my site, I believe that one could not exist in his life with out the other: that Symonds would have never become so
interested in writing or studying poetry if it were not for his painfully vivid and needfully private homosexual
desire, and that with out the tool of poetry, Symonds would never have reached the point of self-acceptance needed to
participate in queer scholarship.
Missing the navigational panel? Go here.