At the end of A Problem in Greek Ethics, John Addington Symonds maps out a timeline that describes how different ideas of love were favored across time in the Mediterranean (and western Europe). What he called “Greek love” (or, in Ancient Greek, paiderastia) flourished in the Greek world. Republican and early Imperial Rome shared the notion of the “boy-lover” but filtered out the specific customs of paiderastia, while the Christians of the Late Roman Empire sought to suppress the “sensuality” of its contemporaries (Symonds, A Problem in Greek Ethics XX). Finally, the Christians of medieval Europe brought chivalry, or courtly love, into prominence:

“The mythology of Mary gave religious sanction to the chivalrous enthusiasm; and a cult of woman sprang into being which, although it was romantic and visionary, we owe the spiritual basis of our domestic and civil life. The modus vivendi of the modern world was found” (Symonds, A Problem in Greek Ethics XX).

That passage consists of the final words of the essay. When I first read A Problem in Greek Ethics, I found this ending to be peculiar. It’s a sudden ending, one that at first seems to merely rush some vague notion of futurity into an essay that is otherwise firmly fixed in Ancient Greece. However, having considered this ending further, I believe that it suggests profound revelations about how Symonds explored the matter of love.

By placing Greek love at the beginning of the “timeline” and medieval chivalry at the end, Symonds implictly places the two in dialogue (though he does not necessarily argue for a causal relationship). Both involve a form of love that follows very specific social customs: in short, they are systems of love, which are bound to the societal mores of their time and place.

On one hand, as described by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, the patriarchal structure (and homosocial structure, reinforcing said patriarchal structures) of Classical Greek city-states heavily shaped Greek paiderastia: the erastes (“lover”) must be an adult male citizen, while the eromenos (“beloved”) must be an adolescent male who temporarily assumes a lower social position (i.e. positions of women, enslaved persons) (Sedgwick, Between Men 4).

On the other hand, the worship of Mary in medieval Christianity heavily shaped medieval European chivalry, or courtly love: the loving knight exalts the loving lady as the Christian exalts Mary, and this love cannot coexist with marriage, as the lady “might be a maiden or a married woman” (Symonds, “Ideals of Love” 75).

Thus, Symonds has established a comparative link between Greek love and medieval chivalry: they are systems of love that are shaped and enforced by societal norms. I found this to be an interesting comparison by itself when I first noticed it, but I believe that Symonds goes further than mere comparison.

By placing Greek love and medieval chivalry together, Symonds posits a particular question about the nature of “love”: how does love—as a broadly-defined, yet profound attachment to someone else—manifest outside of the societal norms of marriage (as a legal and/or social binding between people) and sexuality (as including but not limited to sexual acts, attraction, and/or reproduction)?

Symonds’s answer is that passion, as a form of “raw” emotional affection for another that is not bound to those particular societal norms, does not require the permission of said norms to manifest itself.

Ultimately, Symonds posits that passion can exist separately from and/or in direct conflict with societal norms of marriage and sexuality and that, as a result, forms of love end up being excluded from social structures built around love. In “The Dantesque and the Platonic Ideals of Love,” Symonds discusses how passion collides with societal norms of marriage and sexuality in the respective historical contexts of Greek love and medieval chivalry:

“In theory, then, chivalrous love of both types, the Greek and the mediaeval, existed independently of the marriage tie and free from sensual affections. It was, in each case, the source of exhilarating passion; a durable ecstasy which removed the lover to a higher region, rendering him capable of haughty thoughts and valiant deeds” (Symonds, “Ideals of Love” 77).

For Symonds, the role of chivalry in exemplifying passion highlights certain limitations in systems of love. On one hand, love is not inherent to marriage, and passion is not inherent to sex. On the other hand, forms of passion such as Greek love and medieval chivalry are excluded from socially stable institutions of marriage.

Throughout “The Dantesque and the Platonic Ideals of Love,” Symonds utilizes this complication in order to discuss how chivalry affects the interpretation of Dante and his love for Beatrice. He argues that Dante’s extraordinary, almost unreal love for Beatrice can be better understood as the elevated passion that marked chivalry (and can be compared to Greek love).

“By comparing [Greek love and chivalrous love], we may come to understand more of that peculiar enthusiasm which they possessed in common, which made love in either case a ladder for scaling the higher fortresses of intellectual truth, and which it is now well-nigh impossible for us to realise as actual” (ibid. 60).

In the face of disbelief of Dante’s love for Beatrice and doubt of Beatrice’s very existence, Symonds argues that models of chivalry and Greek love can supplement the notions of passion necessary to understand Dante. By adding passion back into reading, he is able to reconcile Dante’s intellectual, truth-seeking mind and his seemingly unreal love for Beatrice. Symonds posits that for Dante, his powerful mind derives from his passion for Beatrice, not the other way around.

Searching through Symonds’s “lost library,” we can find another potential key to his research on systems of love: Richard Hovey‘s Launcelot and Guenevere, a Poem in Dramas (New York, 1891). Hovey’s work, a retelling of parts of the Arthurian legend, engages heavily with the dissonance between marriage and passion which Symonds discusses in both A Problem in Greek Ethics and “Ideals of Love.” Deeply embedded within the historical context of chivalrous love, Hovey’s Guinevere (“Guenevere,” in Hovey) brings the separation of marriage and passion into palpable view:

Life and custom close us in
Between such granite walls of circumstance
That, when we choose, it is not as we would
But between courses where each likes us not
I shall not love. But sometime I must wed.
It is the law for women that they marry;
Else they endure a scorned inactive fate…
As for Arthur, he is a very princely gentleman,
One whom at least I never shall despise
(Hovey 128).

Guinevere elucidates how, in the matter of love, institutions of marriage can very much fail the desires of individuals. She speaks in the context of her looming marriage to King Arthur, but the institutions of marriage and religion of Symonds’s time and place most certainly failed queer individuals, as well. Thus, Guinevere’s lament may have proven helpful to Symonds in conceptualizing a system of love in dialogue with, yet distinct from those of the Greeks and the medieval Europeans—a system with room for homosexuality in the institutions of society.

Further, I believe that there is a certain character from the Arthurian legend who can help to elaborate how chivalry in medieval literature defines systems of love. This character, who features in Hovey’s Launcelot and Guenevere, but not to the same extent as in the Prose Lancelot, is Galehaut (“Galahault,” in Hovey; “Galehot,” in Mieszkowski), the half-giant knight and chivalrous partner of Lancelot. Gretchen Mieszkowski argues throughout “The Prose Lancelot‘s Galehot, Malory’s Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature” for a queer reading of Galehaut’s love for Lancelot through the context of chivalrous love—a methodology similar to Symonds’s reading of Dante.

Symonds likely knew who Galehaut was, as the latter is mentioned in Canto V of Dante’s Inferno as a simile for the story of Lancelot that inspired Francesca and Paolo’s affair (Dante, Inferno V:137). Further, I.C. Wright’s translation of the Inferno, which points out this simile in a footnote (Wright, Dante 23), was one of the books in Symonds’s personal library. Although it is uncertain if Symonds encountered Galehaut’s love for Lancelot (based on what we know of the Arthurian works in his personal library), Galehaut’s story nevertheless serves as a meaningful companion to a discussion of how chivalry manifests in Symonds’ study of love.

Mieszkowski notes how Galehaut’s instant, absolute devotion for Lancelot, his willingness to abandon everything for him, and his longing for him, despite him never being able to match Guinevere as Lancelot’s lover, all exemplify the values of chivalry relevant during the medieval time during which the Prose Lancelot was written:

“Galehot expresses his love of Lancelot by renouncing on his account the most important conquest of his own professional life… Like a traditional courtly lover, Galehot falls in love at first sight of Lancelot, and Galehot the conquerer is overcome by Galehot the lover… Galehot’s love story is a tragedy… the only love in the story that matches Galehot’s for Lancelot is Lancelot’s for Guinevere…” (Mieszkowski 28, 34).

In this way, Mieszkowski’s description of Lancelot and Galehaut’s chivalrous partnership resembles Symonds’s description of the social positions of courtly lovers in “Ideals of Love”:

“The lady whom the knight adored and served, who received his service and rewarded his devotion, could never be his wife” (Symonds, “Ideals of Love” 75).

Galehaut’s love for Lancelot manifests as courtly love through his undying devotion to someone out of his league. Thus, Mieszkowski elucidates how the institution of marriage fails Galehaut’s own passion. Guinevere asks Galehaut to marry the Lady of Malohaut, and he obliges, but this marriage fails to satisfy or supplant his love for Lancelot:

“It is at Guinevere’s request that he consents to become the lover of her confidante, the Lady of Malohaut… when [Galehaut and the Lady of Malohaut] are portrayed as a couple, they are always a kind of faint, passionless echo of Lancelot and Guinevere. Lancelot is Galehot’s one real love” (ibid. 40-41).

As Hovey depicts Guinevere, marriage does not presuppose passion for Galehaut in the Prose Lancelot. Further, although Galehaut’s marriage fails to satisfy his love for Lancelot, it cannot prevent it, either. Thus, the tragedy of Galehaut’s marriage exemplifies the dissonance between marriage and passion.

Ultimately, medieval chivalry afforded Symonds (in tandem with his research on Greek love) an avenue to reconstruct a system of love—to explore what he called l’amour de l’impossible (“love of the impossible”). Although chivalry could not function as that system, it helped define the meaning of passion, and it demonstrated how societal institutions can fail love.

Works Cited

Alighieri, Dante. Dante. Translated by I.C. Wright, London, 1855.

Hovey, Richard. Launcelot and Guenevere, a Poem in Dramas. New York, 1891.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. “The Prose “Lancelot’s” Galehot, Malory’s Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature,” Arthuriana. Scriptorium Press, 1995.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2015.

Symonds, John Addington. A Problem in Greek Ethics. London, 1897-1901.

Symonds, John Addington. “The Dantesque and the Platonic Ideals of Love.” In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays. London, 1893.

When I first learned about John Addington Symonds and his studies of homosexuality in the Classical era, one figure came to my mind: Sappho. Sappho is often known as a female Greek poet considered homosexual. After all, the term lesbian came from the island Sappho lived on: Lesbos. Because of this, I thought Symonds would have studied the life of Sappho and probably left some comments about her in his work.

Indeed, in the Lost Library of Symonds, I found Sappho: Memoir, Text, Selected Renderings, and a Literal Translation by Henry Thornton Wharton. Symonds received this book as a gift copy from the author. In this book, Wharton cites Studies of the Greek Poets by Symonds. He even gives thanks to Symonds in his preface to the first edition of this book:

The translations by Mr. John Addington Symonds, dated 1883, were all made especially for this work in the early part of that year and have not been elsewhere published. My thanks are also due to Mr. Symonds for much valuable criticism.

Wharton Sappho xvi

Looking at Symonds’s contribution to this book, I realized how much he was interested in Sappho. Thus, I thought it would be a good starting point for Symonds’s thoughts on Sappho.

Wharton’s Sappho is a collection of Sappho’s poems and fragments with English translation, but he devotes one chapter to the life of Sappho. Though Sappho’s life is generally unknown due to a lack of records, Wharton provides details. Sappho was native to an island in the Aegean Sea called Lesbos. According to Herodotus, Sappho’s father was Scamandrymus, and her mother was Cleis. She also had a brother called Charaxus and Larichus. Suidas says Sappho was married to Cercolas and had a daughter named Cleis. Though the exact date is unknown, Sappho lived in the late 7th century BCE and early 6th century BCE. It is also unclear how long she lived, but Sappho describes herself as γεραιτέρα, somewhat old in fragment 75.

Wharton then cites Symonds’s Studies of Greek Poets to talk about the unique social condition of Lesbian poets. Symonds claims that Aeolian custom allowed women more social and domestic freedoms than the rest of Greece. This allowed women to be highly educated, interact freely with male society, and express their sentiments. This social condition of Lesbian women, Symonds suggests, allowed them to form clubs of poetry and music and develop their unique art. Sappho was at the center of this artistic society.

Meanwhile, Wharton examines Sappho’s pursuit of the beautiful young man named Phaon and her leap from Leucadian rock after she was rejected. Despite the uncertainty of whether it really happened, many ancient writers, including Ovid, mention this story. When I first looked at Sappho’s love for Phaon, I thought this would have been a potential counterexample of Greek male love proposed in Symonds’s A Problem in Greek Ethics, mainly Greek pederasty. Usually, the erastes, the lover, is limited to adult males, while eromenos, the loved, can be young males, females, or enslaved persons of either gender. However, in Sappho’s pursuit of Phaon, though she was unhappy and unsuccessful, she represents the adult woman acting as an erastes, which breaks the rule. I was interested in seeing Symonds’s response to this outlier.

However, Wharton states the story does not have a firm historical basis, since unlike the story of Sappho’s leap toward the sea, there are ancient records that she was buried in a grave (Wharton, 15). He also suggests that the entire story was derived from the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis, since Adonis is called Phaon in Greek (Wharton, 20). Also, the legend does not appear until Attic Comedy in 395 BCE, which is 2 centuries after Sappho’s death.

Symonds does not seem to consider Sappho’s pursuit of Phaon significant, but for a different reason. He briefly mentions the story of Sappho and Phaon in his Studies of Greek Poets:

About her life— her brother Charaxus, her daughter Cleis, her rejection of Alcæus and her suit to Phaon, her love for Atthis and Anactoria, her leap from the Leucadian cliff— we know so very little, and that little is so confused with mythology and turbid with the scandal of the comic poets, that it is not worthwhile to rake up once again the old materials for hypothetical conclusions. There is enough of heart-devouring passion in Sappho’s own verse without the legends of Phaon and the cliff of Leucas.

Symonds Studies of the Greek Poets 310

Symonds argues that the story of Sappho and Phaon and other stories of her pursuit are confused with mythology, as Wharton thinks. Then, he goes beyond by saying Sappho’s own verse is enough to show her passion. This shows that his interest was in Sappho’s own verse, on the assumption that it represents her actual voice.

Meanwhile, some fragments of Sappho’s poems describe female beauty and her love for another woman. Among many fragments, I found fragment 1 of Sappho, also known as “Hymn to Aphrodite”, worth discussing. This is the fragment that Symonds translated twice: once in his Studies of Greek Poets in 1877 and another time for Wharton’s Sappho in 1883.

Glittering-throned, undying Aphrodite, 
Wile-weaving daughter of high Zeus, I pray thee.
Tame not my soul with heavy woe, dread mistress,
Nay, nor with anguish!

But hither come, if ever erst of old time
Thou didst incline, and listenedst to my crying.
And from thy father’s palace down descending,
Camest with golden

Chariot yoked: thee fair swift-flying sparrows
Over dark earth with multitudinous fluttering,
Pinion on pinion, thorough middle ether
Down from heaven hurried.

Quickly they came like light, and thou, blest lady,
Smiling with clear undying eyes didst ask me
What was the woe that troubled me, and
wherefore I had cried to thee:

What thing I longed for to appease my frantic
Soul; and whom now must I persuade, thou askedst,
Whom must entangle to thy love, and who now,
Sappho, hath wronged thee?

Yea, for if now he shun, he soon shall chase thee;
Yea, if he take not gifts, he soon shall give them;
Yea, if he love not, soon shall he begin to
Love thee, unwilling.

Come to me now too, and from tyrannous sorrow
Free me, and all things that my soul desires to
Have done, do for me, queen, and let thyself too
Be my great ally!

Symonds, 1877

Star-throned incorruptible Aphrodite,
Child of Zeus, wile-weaving, I supplicate thee,
Tame not me with pangs of the heart, dread mistress,
Nay, nor with anguish.

But come thou, if erst in the days departed
Thou didst lend thine ear to my lamentation,
And from far, the house of thy sire deserting,
Camest with golden

Car yoked: thee thy beautiful sparrows hurried
Swift with multitudinous pinions fluttering
Round black earth, adown from the height of heaven
Through middle ether:

Quickly journey they; and, O thou, blest Lady,
Smiling with those brows of undying lustre,
Asked me what new grief at my heart lay, wherefore
Now I had called thee,

What I fain would have to assuage the torment
Of my frenzied soul; and whom now, to please thee,
Must persuasion lure to thy love, and who now,
Sappho, hath wronged thee?

Yea, for though she flies, she shall quickly chase thee;
Yea, though gifts she spurns, she shall soon bestow them;
Yea, though now she loves not, she soon shall  love thee,
Yea, though she will not!

Come, come now too! Come, and from heavy heart-ache
Free my soul, and all that my longing yearns to
Have done, do thou; be thou for me thyself too
Help in the battle.

Symonds, 1883

In general, this poem shows Sappho’s prayer to Aphrodite for her love toward another woman, along with Aphrodite’s response. The 6^th stanza of the poem, which I highlighted, is Aphrodite’s respond to Sappho saying her love shall be accomplished. In the 1877 translation, the pronoun is “he,” or masculine, while in the 1883 translation, the pronoun is “she,” or feminine.

What does this change mean? To begin with, the gender of the pronoun (αί) is feminine. However, many scholars translated this pronoun as masculine. This can be also seen in Wharton’s Sappho, where every translator who translated this fragment used masculine pronoun in 6^th stanza. It was only Symonds, in his 1883 edition, who followed the gender of original poem.

Meanwhile, this change of pronoun suggests that Symonds is also viewing Sappho’s love as homosexual. At first he also followed others and used masculine pronoun in 6^th stanza, stating Sappho’s lover as male. However, by changing pronoun to feminine, he boldly stated that Sappho’s lover is female, and that she is expressing homosexual love.

Indeed, in his famous A Problem in Greek Ethics Symonds also mentions Sappho and Lesbian poets:

“It is true that Sappho and the Lesbian poetesses gave this female passion an eminent place in Greek literature. But the Aeolian women did not found a glorious tradition corresponding to that of the Dorian men. If homosexual love between females assumed the form of an institution at one moment in Aeolia, this failed to strike roots deep into the subsoil of the nation.”

Symonds A Problem in Greek Ethics 78

Here, Symonds views Sappho and her companions as potentially an example of female homosexuality. While he admits that female homosexual love was not as developed as male homosexual love in Greek, as its tradition did not continue, Symonds indeed considers Sappho and her Lesbian poets as outliers in the general trend of Greek love.

Finally, both Wharton and Symonds express their interest in Sappho’s talent in her poems. In his book, Wharton describes how ancient people appreciated Sappho’s poems. Many writers use the epithet “beautiful” for the sweetness of her songs (Wharton, 20). Likewise, Symonds expresses his pleasure of Lesbian poets in his Studies of the Greek Poets:

When we read their poems, we seem to have the perfumes, colours, sounds and lights of that luxurious land distilled in verse. […] The voluptuousness of Aeolian poetry is not like that of Persian or Arabian art. It is Greek in its self-restraint, proportion , tact. We find nothing burdensome in its sweetness.

Symonds Studies of the Greek Poets 138

Then Symonds especially comments on Sappho in:

All is so rhythmically and sublimely ordered in the poems of Sappho that supreme art lends solemnity and grandeur to the expression of unmitigated passion. The world has suffered no greater literary loss than the loss of Sappho’s poems. […] Of all the poets of the world, of all the illustrious artists of all literatures, Sappho is the one whose every word has a peculiar and unmistakable perfume, a seal of absolute perfection and inimitable grace. In her art she was unerring.

Symonds Studies of the Greek Poets 138-139

Ultimately, both Wharton and Symonds state that Sappho was called “The Poetess,” like Homer was “The Poet” (Wharton, 27 and Symonds, 138). By comparing Sappho to Homer, one of the most influential poets in Greek poetry, both Wharton and Symonds are stressing the importance of Sappho.

Among many aspects of Sappho, the one I find most significant is her usage of the Sapphic meter, which though Sappho probably did not invent it, gained its name from her frequent usage. Wharton also describes the strophe of the meter:

Wharton, Sappho 45

            He then gives fragments of contemporary poet Algernon Swinburne’s Sapphics that follow Sapphic meter in English.

            All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,

Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,

Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron

Stood and beheld me.

Swinburne Sapphics 1866

While presenting Swinburne’s Sapphics, Wharton comments that these lines ring in the reader’s ear, and he can almost hear Sappho herself singing (Wharton, 46). Here, Wharton suggests a sense of her voice preserved in another person’s poem in another language by following her meter.

This was the part where I was fascinated because, indeed, a poem is not only about words but also rhythm. Considering this, reintroducing Sappho’s poem in English is introducing content and the rhythem at the same time which, in sum, reconstructs her memory.

Symonds also uses the Sapphic meter in his translation of Sappho’s fragment. One example would be Sappho’s fragment 1, which I presented earlier. With this, Symonds also attempted to maintain Sappho’s memory, just as he preserved Cellini and Gozzi’s memory by translating their memoirs.

In his Memoirs, Symonds said his work with Cellini and Gozzi motivated him to write his own memoir (Memoir, 1). Though Symonds only credits Cellini and Gozzi, it is possible that Sappho could be seen as another motivator.

Works Cited

Sappho., Wharton, H. Thornton. (1887). Sappho: memoir, text, selected renderings and a literal translation. 2nd ed. London: D. Stott.

Symonds, John Addington. (1877). Studies of the Greek poets. 2d ed. London: Smith Elder.

Symonds, John Addington. (1883). A Problem in Greek Ethics.

Symonds, John Addington. (2016). The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition, (Amber K. Regis, Ed.). Palgrave Macmillan Publishing. London.

Swinburne, A. Charles. (1866). Poems and ballads.. London: John Camden Hotten, Piccadilly.

We’ve all probably faced many “accidents” in life, whether it’s Hurricane Helene or a chance encounter. In fact, even being born into this world can be considered an accident, just as George Moore writes in his semi-fictitious memoir The Confessions of a Young Man, “The accident of birth rather stimulated than calmed my erubescent admiration” (25). An accident as grand as birth can have an impact as big as life, but if not, it can at least lead to a story, serving as a natural “inciting incident,” which, you’ll know if you’re familiar with Freytag’s Pyramid, marks the beginning of a story.

That said, let’s take a step back because the following story begins with the accident of me coming across The Confessions of a Young Man in John Addington Symonds’s virtual library. What would you find in Symonds’s library? Naturally, as a classicist, poet, and literary critic, Symonds would have read many books on poetry, literature, and ancient Greece and Rome. But he also wrote a memoir in the final years of his life. So, I thought, he must have read other memoirs too, and I wanted to read a memoir that Symonds had read, other than the two of great importance to him, the memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini and those of Carlo Gozzi… Then, among the hundreds of books in his library, I came across The Confessions of a Young Man, which is a memoir written in the name of a first-person narrator named Dayne. And the narrator is a struggling artist, like me! So I decided to read this book.

The plot is simple: Dayne, a defiant, spoiled young man from a wealthy Irish family, goes to Paris to study art, only to realize he lacks talent. But what makes him want to study art in the first place is just a brief exchange with a stranger he meets in a studio in London.

“‘How jolly it would be to be a painter,’ I once said, quite involuntarily. ‘Why, would you like to be a painter? ‘ he asked abruptly. I laughed, not suspecting that I had the slightest gift, as indeed was the case, but the idea remained in my mind, and soon after I began to make sketches in the streets and theatres” (Moore, 9).

The idea is planted in Dayne’s mind, though he’s slow to act, being quite incompetent—even his father’s death isn’t an accident significant enough to prompt an immediate change in his idle, good-for-nothing lifestyle. And such is the logic of Dayne’s life: full of chance encounters. When he finally makes it to Paris, he runs into the same man he met in London again—who, by coincidence, joins the same studio where Dayne’s been studying. His name is Marshall, whom Dayne befriends. And the chance encounter doesn’t have to be with a person—it could just as easily be with a new idea. While waiting at a café for his writer friend, Dayne picks up the newspaper Le Voltaire, where he reads an article by M. Zola on naturalism, an approach to writing that challenges what he’s always believed.

“Hardly able to believe my eyes, I read that you should write, with as little imagination as possible, that plot in a novel or in a play was illiterate and puerile, and that the art of M. Scribe was an art of strings and wires, etc. I rose up from breakfast, ordered my coffee, and stirred the sugar, a little dizzy, like one who has received a violent blow on the head” (Moore, 112-113).

The thing is, Symonds experiences a similar awakening! On a trip to London during his last year at Harrow, he took his required reading—Cary’s Plato—with him, but instead of reading the Apology as assigned, he “stumbled on the Phaedrus […] read on and on [and] began the Symposium” (JAS, Memoirs, 152). Through these two texts, Symonds starts to understand and come to terms with the confusion of his feelings—his love for “a handsome, powerful boy called Huyshe,” “Eliot Yorke,” and many others (151). He describes this unexpected discovery of Plato as something “of great gravity […] as though the voice of [his] own soul spoke to [him] through Plato, as though in some antenatal experience [he] had lived the life of a philosophical Greek lover” (152).

But is it really a chance discovery? Apology and Symposium aren’t in the same volume of the edition he describes, so unless Symonds purposefully brought both volumes with him, how could he read the Symposium if he only had the volume containing the required Apology (Butler, 214)?

Symonds probably did read George Moore, as it’s in his library. I’m not suggesting that Symonds plagiarizes or borrows from Moore; maybe he does, but that’s not the point here because using an accident as a plot device is nothing new in literature. The real question is, why does the writer make this creative choice? For George Moore, accidents are a recurring motif that aligns with the characterization of a tragic hero who fails to take responsibility for his life. Slow to realize that he lacks talent in both painting and writing, Dayne ultimately acknowledges this truth but doesn’t give up. Instead, he contemplates “[shooting] a man for the sake of the notoriety it would bring,” because if he can’t achieve fame and success positively, he’ll seek a destructive way to achieve something similar (Moore, 350).

Symonds isn’t as unreliable a narrator as Dayne, but he does recount an event that isn’t logistically possible, which could just be a case of misremembering. Perhaps he brings both volumes of Plato’s works. Perhaps he reads the Symposium in a different context. Or perhaps his discovery of Greek love isn’t entirely accidental. Instead, he may have been wanting—and even plotting—to read Phaedrus and Symposium, but the particular social and political context forces him to lie. We can never know for sure. What we do know is that Symonds chooses to frame his discovery as a chance encounter, something that simply happens to him, and he embraces it, even becoming fascinated by it.

Imagine a version of the story where this plot point happens later in Symonds’s life, when he has a clearer awareness of his desires and actively seeks to understand them through literature, from classical to modern, in hopes of finding someone who shares his experiences. In this version, Symonds, as the speaker in his memoir, would have more control over what he reads. However, Symonds, the writer of the memoir, chooses to present it all as an accident, framing the discovery as something beyond the control of the constructed self on the page. By doing so, Symonds, the writer, manages to create an interesting tension between having and not having agency at the same time. As the writer, he has the power to decide which version of the story to tell but ultimately chooses the one where the speaker lacks much agency.

And homosexuality, for a long time, has been like this: the need to hide one’s identity and contain desire while still being driven to act on it—whether through cruising, where one has to deliberately go to a certain area, or through more intellectual exchanges to feel out a potential connection. In fact, Symonds did both, as his memoirs mention hooking up with a sailor, and his letters reveal how he would ask others about their thoughts on queer literature to see if they might be queer like him.

Works Cited

Butler, Shane. The Passions of John Addington Symonds. Oxford University Press, 2022.

Moore, George, 1852-1933. Confessions of a Young Man. London: Swan Sonnenschein & co., 1888.

Symonds, John Addington, and Amber K Regis. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Almost everyone has thought, at one point in their life, that they’ve been gifted with the art of literacy, and has wanted to rush to bring their story into the world. For some, the hardest part is actually writing the story down, in all its completeness. For others, it’s trying not to write too much, having too many plot points for any reasonable tale. However, the final hurdle is trying to get published in order to bring your book to the general public. Sure, your dad might say your book is interesting, but he’s not a publishing company.

Now imagine a world where the most difficult part of getting published wasn’t whether your book was boring, or poorly written, or simply didn’t suit the publisher’s image. Imagine the content was downright illegal. Imagine that going through the usual channels would put you in jail, so you’re forced to seek out a personal printer, fund the publishing endeavor yourself with patron donations, and publish the story under a pseudonym, even claim a fake address for your fake publishing company.

That was the case for men like John Addington Symonds and Richard Francis Burton, one trying to print the story of his life, living semi-secretly as a homosexual (importing the term in German in A Problem in Modern Ethics), the other being a little too interested in Latin erotica. Both men died before or soon after their books were published, so they couldn’t be arrested anyway. But Burton put a lot of effort into circumventing the law to get the dirty poems of the Priapeia into the hands of his friends and patrons in a fully translated book.

The Priapeia was a collection of 80 erotic Latin poems credited to the god Priapus, whose statues were placed in gardens as a protective measure against theft. He couldn’t strike a thief down with lightning, like Zeus, but he could make them his next sexual pursuit, and with his statues being inhumanly endowed, that was threat enough (as explained in poem XVI). Though the poems are in the voice of the god himself, some people believe they were likely composed by a single poet, but others think a group of people may have composed the poems. Some of these possible authors include Ovid, known for works such as Metamorphoses and Amores, and Catullus, whose many poems vacillate between ridiculous lamenting and threats of sodomy, such as in poem 16, where he threatens to have sex with two men, Aurelius and Furius, for questioning his manhood.

I will make you my boys and bone you, sexually submissive Aurelius and Furius the sodomite, who think, because my verses are voluptuous, that I am not chaste enough. For it is right that a poet be chaste himself; it is not at all necessary for his verses to be. My verses, in a word, may have a spice and charm, if they are voluptuous and not chaste enough, and because they are sexy and can arouse—I do not say boys—but this hairy pair who can’t shake their stiffies. Because you have read of many thousand kisses, do you think me less a man? I will make you my boys and bone you!

“C. Valerius Catullus, Carmina, Poem 16.” n.d. Perseus Project. Accessed April 18, 2023.

Many of these poems are obviously obscene, containing subjects such as sexual assault, unreasonably large phalluses, public indecency, and many more sexually explicit and violent behaviors. For example, poem V, where a wooden Priapus claims his inanimate status won’t stop him from chasing and catching a girl.

Another example is in poem VIII, where Priapus defends his blatant public indecency, by comparing his nether regions to Poseidon’s trident and Zeus’ thunderbolts—if they can have their weapons out why can’t he?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there, he proceeds to threaten yet another person with sodomy in poem X, this time claiming to have 12 impractical inches to his name.

Others are slightly more “censored,” less like pornographic poems and more like dirty jokes, such as Priapus complaining about thieves being kept from his garden, and thus his retribution in poem XVI.

Similarly, he brags about his endowment in poem XVII.

Finally there is the example of a poor thief lamenting his punishment over stealing a cabbage in poem XXXIII.

Among these poems there are even stranger subjects that can only be loosely tied to the overall theme, such as the begging of an old woman in XI:

What does it mean that these ancient poems of unclear authorship, ranging from pornographic to humorous, found new life in a London printing press centuries later? Even more, what does it mean that a man like Burton went to the most extreme of lengths to get these ancient dirty jokes to his friends, even if he’d passed away by the time they were distributed? At the very least, both Ancient roman and Victorian British men enjoyed being vulgar in the safety of ink and paper (papyrus).

Even more than that, why would someone have to sneak around in the shadows to get their Latin erotica printed? Especially one that didn’t even include pictures? That answer lies in 19th century Britain, a country swamped in unhealthy levels of sexual repression. From about 1820 to 1900, Britain was in its Victorian phase, where the upper class turned their noses up to such things as “pornography” and “sexual intimacy,” but everyone was secretly really interested. Women were expected to be innocent, doe-eyed creatures who’d never even heard of intercourse, yet men were expected to be experienced, the classic double standard that not only still exists today, but also continues to create strife among men and women. So you’re presented with a newly bolstered middle class, hailing themselves as morally upright citizens, while someone’s brother has a copy of the Priapeia hidden away in their bookcase.

Burton specifically was a man who took Victorian Britain’s prudishness as a personal challenge, venturing out into the world to not only experience what he thought was a healthier relationship with sex, but also going out of his way to translate erotica and bring it from the Mediterranean to Britain’s scandalized shores.

Bibliography

Brodie, Fawn McKay. 1967. The Devil Drives; a Life of Sir Richard Burton. New York: W. W. Norton.

Elomaa, Heather Elaine. n.d. “The Poetics of the ‘Carmina Priapea.’”http://archive.org/details/devildriveslifeo0000brod.

Fuente, Ariel de la. 2018. “Sir Richard Burton’s Orientalist Erotica: The Thousand Nights and a Night and The Perfumed Garden.” In Borges, Desire, and Sex, 84–108. Liverpool University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvhn09p9.9.

Kenney, E. J. 1963. “Corpvs Non Ita Vile.” Edited by Vinzenz Buchheit. The Classical Review 13 (1): 72–74.

Priapeia Or the Sportive Epigrams of Divers Poets On Priapus: the Latin Text Now for the First Time Englished In Verse and Prose (the Metrical Version by “outidanos”) with Introduction, Notes Explanatory and Illustrative, and Excursus by “neaniskos.”. Cosmopoli: Printed by the Translators … for Private Subscribers Only, 1890. (physical copy consulted from the Johns Hopkins special collections of Sheriden Libraries)

Priapeia, or the Sportive epigrams of divers poets on Priapus: the Latin text now for the first time Englished in verse and prose-the metrical version by “Outidanos” [i.e. Sir Richard F. Burton]-with introduction, notes explanatory and illustrative, and excursus, by “Neaniskcs” [i.e. Leonard C. Smithers]. [The prose versions also by L. C. Smithers.]. N.p., 1890. Archives of Sexuality and Gender, link.gale.com/apps/doc/IKYEAF496689898/AHSI?u=balt85423&sid=gale_marc&xid=243378e5&pg=57. Accessed 18 Apr. 2023.

Robert Needham Cust. 1895. Linguistic and Oriental Essays Written from the Year 1870 to 1901. Trübner & Company. http://archive.org/details/bub_gb_RhYYAAAAYAAJ.

A large part of who we are comes from the influence of our environment, and this environment includes the media we consume. While we may have the internet and social media today, some of the main forms of media back in the day of John Addington Symonds were newspapers, letters, and, of course, books. As a wealthier member of society, he had both the time and the resources to access and read many books, and that he did. Thus, I thought it would be interesting to try to dive into some of the books we know passed through his collection to try to understand a little of how these media impacted him.

To a degree, we already know how some of the media Symonds consumed impacted him. In his Memoirs, he notes how stories of male heroes as well as Greek sculptures helped to open his eyes to the reality that he didn’t share the heterosexual attractions and desires of many of his peers, but that his attractions were a little more taboo. He also turned to books to help him understand and explain these desires as he got older, especially returning to the Greeks and their stories. And, of course, even besides helping him understand himself and his sexuality, books were important for Symonds in that he was also a prolific author.

With the transition of Symonds’ collection to Hathi Trust comes the ability to search for keywords within the texts he owned that are available here. This enables me to investigate his collection using keywords to get a general sense of the books that he was reading and the effect they may in turn have had on his thinking and writing. I thought it would be informative to look up antithetical words and see how many of the books in his collection contain them at least once.

The pair of opposites I looked up were “hopeless” and “hopeful,” which, of the 535 works in the collection when I searched for the words, brought up 293 and 154 results respectively, or in percentages, 54.8% and 28.8% respectively. I think it’s fascinating to see that “hopeless” appears in almost twice as many works as “hopeful” and is in fact present in a little over half of the collection. I think this is a very interesting find, and I wonder how much this influenced any actual negative, or even hopeless, feelings in his life.

One concern in this search is that some of the findings for the terms may just be for common things like “I’m hopeful you get better soon,” whereas hopeless is more likely to be used in texts suiting its definition. Thus, I randomly selected ten of the texts generated by each of the searches to see how the terms were generally used.

Although it is true that “hopeful” was often used in relatively mundane contexts, there were still a couple of examples of it being used a little more fittingly, including in one place in Frederic William Farrar’s Seekers After God. Although the quote is describing the legacy of Marcus Aurelius to the people of Rome after his death, its use of “hopeful” is one of the few truer uses of the word.

We are not surprised that all…felt themselves more hopeful and more happy from the glorious sense of possibility which was inspired by the memory of one who…showed himself so wise, so great, so good a man.

Frederic William Farrar, Seekers After God, 275

Conversely, however, I also found usages of “hopeful” in contexts that were actually more hopeless. Towards the end of The Life of Sir Philip Sidney, the book uses “hopeful” in a scene where there is little to be found, as it’s used in reference to his wife’s vain hope of his prevailing over his illness at the end of his life.

His wife, almost exhausted with anxious watching, looked vainly for any hopeful symptom. One day his fine sense perceived that mortification had set in…and [he] spoke of his approaching end with composure, saying ‘he feared not to die, but he was afraid lest the pangs of death should be so grievous that he might lose his understanding.’

Julius Lloyd, The Life of Sir Philip Sidney, 216

When looking through the works containing usages of “hopeless,” although I also found a few instances of more mundane usage, it much more often carried a negative tone more true to its meaning than the usages of “hopeful” did a positive one.

Thus, at least in terms of the contrast of these two words, it could be said that the books in Symonds’ library were more negative than positive, although it’s still uncertain whether this itself influenced any “hopeless” feelings in him, or if maybe he bought and read them because he was simply already feeling this way (or maybe neither).

I think an interesting further analysis would be to go through the works that these words occur in and see when Symonds read and/or owned them. This might tell us if, for example, the larger prevalence of “hopeless” in his collection compared to “hopeful” was true of maybe his earlier collection but maybe not so much his collection closer to his death. Either way, I think this is a fascinating way to dive deeper into his literary influences in a way that was pretty much impossible until now, and hopefully it reveals new insights into Symonds and his work.

Works Cited

Farrar, Frederic William. Seekers After God. Macmillan, 1884.

Lloyd, Julius. The Life of Sir Philip Sidney. Longman, 1862.

This semester in the lab, we have been working on putting a collection of books owned/read by John Addington Symonds together in HathiTrust. At the time of writing this, our current collection is 427 books. Something so amazing about having these books together in one place is that you can search for a word or phrase in all of the books at the same time. While playing around with this feature, I decided to plug in the word religion and was rather surprised to find out that out of the 427 books, 341 of them mention religion. 

From there I wanted to know more so I dived into both The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds, edited by Amber K. Regis, as well as John Addington Symonds: A Biography Compiled from His Papers and Correspondence, edited by Horatio F. Brown. As well as learning more about the Crisis of Faith that occurred in the 19th century, I stumbled across an episode that had Symonds contemplating suicide. In fact, he called this the worst night of his whole life, his last night in Cannes in 1868.

I hope to answer one question: how did this night transform his views on religion? 

The last night I spent in Cannes was the worst of my whole life. I lay awake motionless, my soul stagnant, feeling what is meant by spiritual blackness and darkness. If it should last forever! As I lay, a tightening approached my heart. It came nearer, the grasp grew firmer, I was cold and lifeless in the clutch of a great agony. If this were death? Catherine, who kept hold of me, seemed far away. I was alone, so utterly desolate that I drank the very cup of the terror of the grave. The Valley of the Shadow was opened, and the shadow lies still upon my soul.

– Memiors, 342

What drew me in is that this seems to be a turning point in Symonds’ life, especially when it comes to religion. 

Symonds later wrote when reflecting on this night,

I emerged at last into Stoical acceptance of my place in the world, combined with Epicurean indulgence of my ruling passion for the male. Together, these two motives restored me to comparative health, gave me religion, and enabled me, in spite of broken nerves and diseased lungs, to do what I have done in literature. I am certain of this fact; and I regard the utter blackness of despair at Cannes as the midnight in which there lay a budding spiritual morrow.

– Memiors, 341

Here is Brown’s edited version,

I emerged at last into stoical acceptance of my place in the world, combined with epicurean indulgence. Together, these two motivates restored me to comparative health, gave me religion, and enabled me, in spite of broken nerves and diseased lungs, to do what I have done in literature. I am certain of this face, and I regard the utter blackness of despair at Cannes as the midnight in which there lay a budding spiritual morrow.

–John Addington Symonds: a Biography, 245

One thing about the above quote that is important to note is that Brown’s version removes the line “of my ruling passion for the male,” which in a way exaggerates Symonds’ crisis as being only religious, when in fact it is one due to the coexistence of his sexual and religious dilemmas. But though Brown imposes this interpretation, religion seems to have been important to Symonds regardless. For example, he had his mother’s prayer book by him on his deathbed in 1893, though of course, this could have been for sentimental reasons or religious ones.

This horrible experience was compensated with a newfound belief. A “budding spiritual morrow” is the result of his acceptance of this sexual desire, which contributed to a more positive religious state. It was a night that led him to a freer form of religion, unlike the evangelical Protestantism in which his family raised him (a religion he said suffocated his soul). He wrote,

[Later on, I found the affirmation of religion and contentment in love—not the human kindly friendly love which I had given liberally to my beloved wife and children, my father and my sister and my companions, but in the passionate sexual love of comrades.] Through the whole of my malady and my discourses on it, I had omitted the word Love. That was because I judged my own sort of love to be sin. But when, in the stage of indifference, I became careless about sinning, then, and not until then, I discovered love, the keystone of all the rest of my less tortured life.

– Memiors, 344 (the bracketed portion was marked for deletion in the manuscript, Brown did not reproduce it)

Another important factor that I believe influenced Symonds’ spiritual identity is the 19th-century Crisis of Faith. There was a rise of Biblical criticism, expansion of scientific knowledge (for example, the rise in popularity of Darwin, about whom Symonds’ wrote), and increased exposure of Europeans to other religions. Symonds was also in a very delicate time in his life at this point: he was in his twenties and finding his way. In a letter to his friend W. R. W. Stephens in 1867, he gives some reasons he is not a believer. Two of these are that he can’t acknowledge any principles from which God’s presence can be proved and he is incapable of ascending to ideals as he believes in facts and evidence. As he studied different religions like Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism, he came to believe that the deities of all races are the ideal of the people that worship them. Pretty clearly, as a human of the 19th century, these ideals influenced Symonds tremendously, and his night at Cannes pushed him over the edge. 

Once he became indifferent to his old beliefs, he was able to be himself freely (as freely as he could) and live a better version of his life. Here is how Symonds’ biographer, Phyllis Grosskurth, summarizes what he learned from this night at Cannes,

The experience at Cannes has tellingly revealed to him that peace would elude him as long as he resisted his own nature.

–John Addington Symonds: a Biography, 127

Citations:

Symonds, John Addington, and Amber K Regis. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds : a Critical Edition.London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Symonds, John Addington, and Horatio F Brown. John Addington Symonds: a Biography. London: J. C. Nimmo, 1895.

Bradstock, Andrew. Masculinity and Spirituality In Victorian Culture. Houndmills, Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan Press , 2000.

Meyer, D. H. “American Intellectuals and the Victorian Crisis of Faith.” American Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 5, 1975, pp. 585–603.

Grosskurth, Phyllis. John Addington Symonds: a Biography. [London]: Longmans, 1964.

Throughout the first volume of Symonds’s Letters, Symonds rarely writes about leaving a book unfinished. Often, Symonds discusses how engaged he is in his reading, from describing how “enchanted” he was with Berkeley’s Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge to how he “devoured” Collins’s Woman in White (Letters, 158, 242). There are moments when Symonds describes a book as difficult, with one example being Spinoza’s infamously incomprehensible Ethics, but even then, he says that he reads it with “great labour, interest, & profit” (Letters, 296). The picture that the Letters paint of Symonds is a man deeply in love with his books.

This tone is somewhat to be expected. After all, these are the letters that Symonds sent to his friends and family; why would he talk about the books that bored him? Given how prolific Symonds was as a reader, many of the books he did not finish most likely would not have made their way into his Letters. So when Symonds mentions a book in his Letters that was so terrifying that he had to stop reading it, that book merits some attention.

That book is The Life and Death of Silas Barnstake by Talbot Gwynne¹, which Symonds writes about in a letter to his father. Of the book, Symonds writes the following:

In the evening we had a great fright. We had got a book called Silas Barnstake by Gwynne from the Library, & I began to read it out. It was the most horrible beginning all about dying people, & winter’s nights, & diabolically hard hearted little boys, so that we had to relinquish it. But its lugubrious influence remained, & we fell to talking “ghosts,” robbers, etc. At last Edith was worked up to a climax, & said she could not sleep in her room (which was the best room, on the drawing room floor, with no one beneath her), & that she & I must exchange.   

Letters, 162

In this letter, Symonds recalls a night of reading with his oldest sister Edith while staying in Edinburgh. According to the story, Symonds borrowed the book (presumably from the house library), read the book out loud, and stopped after he and Edith were frightened by the beginning of the book and its talk of “dying people, winter’s nights, & diabolically hard hearted little boys.” However, after they stopped and returned the book, they could not stop thinking about it, leading them to discuss it and other “scary” topics such as ghosts and robbers until, at some point, Edith was so scared that she could no longer sleep in her room and asked a young Symonds to swap rooms with her for the night.

At first glance, Symonds’s and Edith’s experience in this letter feels like a common childhood response to reading a scary story: they read it, they were scared by it, and they were unable to stop thinking about it to the point that it prevented them from sleeping normally. If Symonds and his sister were children at the time of this letter, then this would seem to be a normal response. However, this letter was written on September 28^th, 1858. For reference, Symonds was born in 1840 and started at Oxford in 1858, close to the time that this letter was written (Memoirs, 169). Meanwhile, we know that Edith, Symonds’s “eldest sister,” is at least 20 at the time of this letter² (Memoirs, 181). Rather than a story of two young children responding to a scary book, the incident described in the letter involves an Oxford student and his 20-odd-year-old sister being so terrified of a book that the older sister had to ask her 18-year-old brother to swap rooms with her. While such an event is not impossible by any means, it is undoubtedly strange.

What about The Life and Death of Silas Barnstake managed to scare the two of them so much? And how should we interpret their fear? Just from the letter, it is impossible to tell exactly how far into the book Symonds read that night. However, the three aspects he mentions, “dying people, winter’s nights, & diabolically hard hearted little boys,” all appear within the first twenty pages of the book, which detail Silas’s mother dying from childbirth, his father dying from grief, and Silas’s separation from his little brother Walter (Gwynne, 1-20). What is strange about these first twenty pages in relation to Symonds’s story is that they do not seem to be scary in a traditional sense. For example, the description of a winter’s night starts off the book, as Gwynne writes, “The night was dark – dark with the melancholy, mysterious blackness of a winter midnight, and so still that distant sounds seemed near at hand” (Gwynne, 1). The note about diabolically hard-hearted little boys seems to reference Silas’s cold character, especially in relation to his grieving father and Silas’s “thoughtless questions and remarks” (Gwynne, 7). Finally, there are two descriptions of death within the first twenty pages, one being Silas’s mother’s death and the other his father’s. However, these descriptions seem grim and sad, as opposed to something that would inspire fear or terror. Consider the following passages:

[Edmund Barnstake] stept [sic] up to the bed where lay his wife: she feebly put forth her hand. He took it in his, which were cold and trembling. His words choked him: to speak was, to him, impossible.

The night was over, day was breaking, and the snow still fell from the clouds; the clouds that hung so low, that were so sad-looking, grey, dark, and heavy.

The light still burned in the room where throughout the night Barnstake had watched, or wearily slept. The cull light of morning struggled with that of the candle, giving a melancholy air to the large low room, and seeming to add to the chilly cold of the now fireless chamber.

Barnstake sat before his table, his arms folded and resting on it, whilst his face was buried in his arms.

He remained motionless for hours, with teeth tight set, and brows knit closely together; whilst a mown burst from him at rare intervals.

In the room above, behind the closed curtains of the ponderous, dark bed, lay the clay-cold body of his wife.

A sound rang through the still air and smote his ear.

It was the tolling of the church bell, announcing that a soul had passed away.

Gwynne, 4-5

Delirium soon seized him, during which he raved of the happy days of his love, nor seemed once to dream of his loss and sorrow. For many days, for many nights, he raved, muttered, and wearily tossed in his burning bed.

A fortnight after the burial of his wife, [Edmund] Barnstake, an unconscious corpse, was placed beside her. He had died without recovering the senses which pain and fever had scared away. Thus, within but a brief space of time, were Silas and his little brother left orphans.

Gwynne, 17

Examining the prose, none of it fits what today would be considered “scary.” The descriptions of the sky and Silas’s uncompassionate nature are not only strange candidates for something “scary,” especially for two people eighteen and above, but are also extremely short, to the point that it would be difficult to imagine them inducing terror. Meanwhile, the descriptions of death are undoubtedly saddening (which explains Symonds’s use of the term “lugubrious”), but not fear-inducing. So why does Symonds express his night reading The Life and Death of Silas Barnstake as “a great fright?”

What makes slightly more sense here is to interpret Symonds’s fear not as terror, but as a sort of existential dread. After all, Symonds’s mother died of scarlet fever when he was only four (Memoirs, 63). Maybe Gwynne’s descriptions of death were a little too familiar, either raising memories of their mother or worries about the possible death of their father. Symonds also acknowledges that talk of his mother was scant during his childhood and that his father “showed no outward sign of grief, and said nothing” about his mother’s death (Memoirs, 63-64). This reluctance might have represented a taboo regarding discussions of mourning and familial death. Gwynne’s descriptions would then have personally resonated for Symonds and his sister, on a topic that they had for a long time avoided.

While this interpretation is stronger, it does not yet account for Symonds’s own feelings about his mother’s death. Symonds notes in the Memoirs that he has no “distinct memory” of his mother and that he had not “exactly felt the loss of her” (Memoirs, 63-64). Instead, Symonds describes his feelings around his mother’s death as a sort of “vague awe” at the “mystery” of death (Memoirs, 64). With his mother’s death occurring so early in Symonds’s life, Symonds’s impassionate tone here makes some sense. However, Symonds’s feelings are not completely opposed to this interpretation. For example, Symonds’s lack of connection with his own mother explains why Edith’s response to reading Silas Barnstake was much more powerful than his, as she almost certainly had more experience with their mother due to her elder status. Nevertheless, the question of why Symonds was affected so much despite that lack of connection remains unanswered.

One interesting possibility is that it is precisely that lack of connection that led Symonds to resonate with Silas Barnstake to such an extent. In the Memoirs, Symonds himself laments that he lacked that connection with his mother, worrying that he was “heartless and sinful” because he did not feel more (Memoirs, 64). Even though Symonds admits that those feelings were irrational due to that lack of physical connection, it is apparent that, when it came to writing the Memoirs, some of those thoughts stuck with him. These thoughts might explain why he found Gwynne’s “hard hearted little boys” so troubling. He might have seen a reflection of himself in the character of Silas Barnstake, a young boy, uncaring and dispassionate despite the death of someone close to him. It most certainly was not a positive reflection of Symonds’s character, which might have been why he decided to stop.

There are some parts of the story that are still unexplained. For example, why does Symonds makes note explicitly of the descriptions of night –which, while vivid, do not evoke the same sense of dread that the descriptions of death do? Why did Symonds and Edith, after being reminded of the death of their mother and facing a feeling of existential dread, choose to discuss “robbers” and “ghosts” (Letters, 162)? These questions are left unanswered. So, for a reader as prolific as Symonds, the reason why he stopped reading The Life and Death of Silas Barnstake is still up for interpretation.

It is very possible that Symonds’s story in this letter and The Life and Death of Silas Barnstake are insignificant blips in the story of Symonds’s life. However, to note a book in a letter, especially one to a parental figure, implies that the book held some significance, and, for a reader like Symonds who writes prolifically about how engaged he becomes with the texts that he reads, the one text that he not only drops within a night but notes to his father raises a few questions. The possibility that the reason he stopped was that the book and its rather mild prose evoked an overwhelming sense of terror or dread while he and his sister were both above the age of 18 raises a few more.

¹ Talbot Gwynne is a masculine pseudonym used by Josepha Heath Gulston. As the gender of Talbot Gwynne/Josepha Heath Gulston is unclear, for the purposes of this blog post, I have avoided using any gendered pronouns in describing them.

² Symonds notes that another one of his elder sisters, Mary Isabella (Maribella), was born in 1837 (Memoirs, 68). As Symonds describes Edith as his eldest sister, we know that Edith was born at earliest in 1837, meaning that she was around 20 in 1858 when this letter was written.

Gwynne, Talbot. The Life and Death of Silas Barnstake: A Story of the Seventeenth Century. Smith, Elder, & Co. London, 1853. Accessed https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiuo.ark:/13960/t77t0ww4h

Symonds, John Addington. The Letters of John Addington Symonds, edited by Herbert M. Schueller and Robert L. Peters, vol. 1, Wayne State University Press, 1967.

Symonds, John Addington. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition, edited by Amber K. Regis, Palgrave Macmillan Publishing. London, 2016.

Network theory, also commonly referred to as graph theory, uses graphs to represent relations between distinct objects, whether those be people, neurons, companies, or even abstract concepts. Due to its versatility, network theory can be applied to a variety of fields such as sociology, neuroscience, operations research, and public health, and offers an efficient way for researchers to visualize and analyze all the connections among one’s objects of interest.

As part of the John Addington Symonds Project, I have been working with one of my peers, Kendra Brewer, on building a network of people surrounding John Addington Symonds. We used The Memoirs to compile a list of people who had an impact on Symonds’s life, both directly and indirectly. We included the people that he interacted with in real life, but we also included those who he never met but who still inspired him and influenced his work, such as authors, ancient philosophers, and mythological figures.

We grouped the people based on their relationships with Symonds, using the categories “Family,” “Ancestor,” “Friend / Colleague,” “Amour / Comrade,” “The Stranger,” “General Acquaintance,” “Inspiration,” and “Other.” “Family” includes relatives of Symonds by blood or marriage with whom Symonds had in-person contact, “Ancestor” includes relatives of Symonds who were dead before his time, “Friend / Colleague” includes people that Symonds was close to, “Amour / Comrade” includes people who had a romantic and/or sexual relationship with Symonds, “The Stranger” includes people with whom Symonds did not have a romantic or sexual relationship but about whom he fantasized, “Inspiration” includes those whose work inspired Symonds, and the “Other” category includes anyone who did not fit into any of the above-mentioned categories. The following figure depicts a breakdown of the different groups shown in the data we collected from The Memoirs.

In basic network theory, a graph is defined as a collection of nodes and edges, where an edge represents a connection between two nodes. In this case, we defined the nodes as people, and every edge signified the existence of a relationship between people. The original dataset focused mostly on the relationship each person had with Symonds and not necessarily on the relationships they had with each other, so we arbitrarily sub-sampled a few notable figures from The Memoirs and Symonds’s Letters to construct a preliminary graph representation of Symonds’s network. We chose people whose relationships with one another can be clearly inferred from our sources, and we used Palladio [1], a web-based data visualization tool developed by the Humanities + Design Lab at Stanford University.

Our sub-sampled graph provides a good partial visualization of Symonds’s network, but there is much room for improvement. Palladio does not allow for much manipulation of network features such as node color, edge color, or edge thickness, which would be a very effective visual aid to the user. The nodes could be colored based on location or profession, the edges could be colored based on the relationship categories as defined above, and edge thickness could represent how close two people were. There are several ways we could quantify closeness, such as the number of mentions in The Memoirs or the number of letters sent between two people. It may be necessary to create a scale with bins, where a certain thickness corresponds to a range of the number of mentions/letters. For example, we could define the transformation such that 10 to 20 mentions correspond to a “closeness” value of 2, 20 to 30 mentions correspond to a “closeness” value of 3, and so on. Thus, it would be interesting to see if we could add any extensions or make any modifications to the program that would allow the user to change various network features as they see fit, making the program more interactive and flexible.

Once we have a more robust graph that can represent a larger dataset effectively, there are several ways we could characterize the network, such as finding the largest connected component, which is defined as the largest subgraph where the nodes are all connected to one another; this component would represent the largest community in which everyone was connected to one another. Or we could find triangle subgraphs in the network, which would tell us if there were any trios that maintained strong communication. We could also try clustering the nodes in the network based on various metrics, to see whether they would cluster differently from their original categories.

There are many creative methods we could use to analyze the network once it has more visually identifiable features as well as more information on not just how the people are related to Symonds but how they are related to each other. The results might act as additional evidence to simply reinforce the knowledge we already have about Symonds’s network or they could shed light on some new connections and communities. I hope future cohorts will be able to build on the basic network that we have created, to unveil novel information from a new, more mathematical perspective.

Works Cited

[1] Stanford University Digital Humanities, “Palladio,” https://digitalhumanities.stanford.edu/palladio.

After spending time thinking about Symonds’s name and family history in my previous post (entitled “What’s in a name?”), I decided to continue along the same theme with this one. Within the Johns Hopkins University Special Collections Library appears a copy of Agamemnon: A Tragedy taken from Aeschylus that was translated by Edward FitzGerald and owned by both Symonds and William W. Gay, as evidenced by their bookplates in this copy. This book and the bookplates found within it offer several branches of research. One is Symonds’s relationship to the text itself, which has already been explored in a post by another student (visible here). Another branch explores which of these men owned this book first and thus who was given it “With the publisher’s compliments”–a manuscript inscription that appears on the front endpaper. This mystery was solved after I had the chance to read a letter, laid into this copy, from the publisher, Bernard Quaritch, to William W. Gay, dated November 5, 1912. In this letter, Quaritch explains the differences between the edition of FitzGerald’s Agamemnon that was privately printed in 1865 and the one Quaritch himself published in 1876. The fact that this letter was written nearly two decades after Symonds’s death and Gay’s need for this explanation suggest that Symonds was the original owner of this book. While this is fascinating information, as a student of art history, I was most interested in studying the bookplate itself.

The first step to deciphering this heraldic symbol was to understand the different elements represented on the bookplate. The Handbook to English Heraldry by Charles Boutell served as a resource for this research. Using this book, I learned not only the different colors and metals present on Symonds’s coat of arms but also the terms and some histories for the different heraldic symbols. To give a brief overview of terminology, coat of arms refers to “a complete armorial composition” (Boutell 1914, 109). This encompasses not only the shield of arms or shield, which derives its name from the battle-shields that would have once been decorated, but also the helm or helmet and the crest both of which are found atop the shield (Boutell 1914, 32, 133, 128-129). Any supporters, or figures that appear alongside the shield, that might exist are also considered part of the coat of arms (Boutell 1914, 152-153).

Figure 1

With this information, we can begin to decipher the coat of arms present on the bookplate within Agamemnon (Figure 1). The animal present in the Symonds family crest is identified as an ermine by Symonds (1894, 28-29). This ermine is standing on four paws, looking forward, a position termed statant in heraldry (Boutell 1914, 85). In its mouth appears a rose that, according to Symonds (1894, 29), should be red and have green leaves. The crown supporting this crest is called a crest-coronet in heraldry (Boutell 1914, 113). This sits atop the helm of a gentleman, which is always steel-colored and which appears with “the vizor closed, and set in profile” (Boutell 1914, 129). The next element of the coat of arms is the shield. When using proper heraldic terminology, the shield depicted in Figure 1 can be described in the following terms: per pale; sable and or counterchanged, three trefoils slipped of the second on the dexter side; azure, three fleurs-de-lys argent, passant lion or on the sinister side. In layman’s terms, that means that the shield is split down the middle into two parts. On the left-hand side, there is a black and gold checker-board-like pattern on which three, gold trefoils appear in a specific design. On the right-hand side, the background is blue and three, silver fleurs-de-lys appear alongside a gold lion. To assist in visualizing this colorful coat of arms, see Figure 2. Any heraldic symbol lacking a described color (e.g., the ermine and the crest-coronet) is meant to appear as it would in real life. Given that a stoat is only called an ermine when wearing its winter coat, its coloring is white with a tail terminating in black (“Ermine”). The crest-coronet, however, can have many color variations. Also note that the artistic flourishes to the coat of arms do not appear in color in this depiction.

Figure 2

Another element generally included in a coat of arms is a motto, which oftentimes in heraldry serves as a pun on the family name (Boutell 1914, 138). For example, while the family motto on Symonds’s bookplate is “Humi tutus,”² Symonds wrote in On The English Family of Symonds the following:

My father invented a motto: ‘In mundo immundo sim mundus³,’ which plays upon the family name as we pronounce it. A friend of mine suggested that this might be improved into: ‘Si mundus immundus sim mundus,’ which plays upon the two pronunciations of the name.”

John Addington Symonds, On The English Family of Symonds (1894, 30)

This play on names is quite common in heraldry according to Boutell (1914, 138). Interestingly, in his adulthood, Symonds (1894, 30) “ha[d] little to say” about his family’s motto only touching upon the suggestions of his father and his friend; however, the same can not be said for a much younger Symonds. As a teenager, Symonds became interested in his family genealogy and heraldry. Symonds’s own assessment of this research and of his family motto appear in a letter to his sister, Charlotte. Symonds wrote:

My inner life has been much perturbed on genealogical subjects, owing to the booklabel which Bosanquet bought me. It is a regular heraldic enigma. How cruel our Ancestors were not to pay more attention to their colours & metals! One thing settled is that our crest is correct with the substitution of a red rose for the cinquefoil. Joshua S. the surgeon of London must have been an unaspiring individual as his motto is “Humi tutus.” I wonder whether he wished to transmit this grovelling sentiment to his descendants! If so, he has been frustrated as we have certainly made a change for the better.”

Letters 1:131 (58) to Charlotte Symonds (Harrow January 17, [1858])

This excerpt is interesting for several reasons. Not only does he mention his bookplate, or at least this very first one, as being a gift—most likely from his “bosom-friend at Harrow,” Gustavus Bosanquet (Symonds 2016, 140)—Symonds also mentions that it was this bookplate that, in part, led to his interest in his family genealogy and heraldry. Further, Symonds’s early assessment of “Humi tutus” as both “unaspiring” and “grovelling” greatly contrasts with his later, seemingly disinterested stance on the subject.

Now that all the elements of Symonds’s coat of arms have been discussed, there is an interesting twist to this story: Symonds believed the coat of arms present on the bookplate to be inaccurate. In fact, Symonds (1894) dedicates a significant portion of On The English Family of Symonds not only to the history of the family coat of arms but also to a series of corrections the shield should have. In his opinion, “the proper arms and crest of my own immediate family” would have a shield designed with the following specifications:

Quarterly 1 and 4: per fess sable and or, a pale counterchanged, three trefoils slipped of the second: 2 and 3 azure three trefoils or. […] Crest, on a ducal coronet an ermine statant holding in his mouth a rose gules stalked and leaved vert.”

Symonds 1894, 28-29

According to Symonds, while the crest is accurate, the shield that appears on the bookplate would need several corrections. First, the shield should be split into four separate parts with each diagonal pair sharing the same characteristics. The top-left and bottom-right sections of the shield should have the same black and gold pattern that appears on his bookplate as well as the same three, gold trefoil designs. The top-right and bottom-left sections should have a blue background and three, gold trefoils rather than three, silver fleurs-de-lys. There is no mention of a lion in this design. Figure 3 creates one possible rendition of this “proper” coat of arms, though positioning for the gold trefoils on the blue background can be varied. Note again that the colors chosen for the crest-coronet can also vary.

Figure 3

The differences between the coat of arms on the bookplate in the Johns Hopkins University collection and the one that Symonds considered correct carry with them one important question: did Symonds ever change his bookplate to match the proper coat of arms? While I have only come across this one design in my own research, it does appear that at least two versions of his bookplate might exist. After all, as a teenager, Symonds wrote that there was a “cinquefoil” present on the crest of the coat of arms that should be replaced by a “red rose” (Letters 1:131 (58) to Charlotte Symonds (Harrow January 17, [1858])). The bookplate in Agamemnon: A Tragedy taken from Aeschylus and in other works I have seen (e.g., The Life and Death of Jason: A Poem, in the Sheridan Libraries collection) includes this adaptation, so it is not impossible to imagine other changes occurring. Additionally, if there is not and never was a bookplate with Symonds’s corrections, that begs the question as to why the changes were never made. These questions are worth exploring in future attempts to understand Symonds’s relationship with his past and how it affected his present. 

Endnotes:
^1. My own description from heraldic information in Boutell.
^2. Translated by Herbert M. Schueller and Robert L. Peters as “Safe on the ground” (Letters 1:132 (58) n4 to Charlotte Symonds (Harrow January 17, [1858])).
^3. Translated by author as “In an unclean world, I am clean” using Harper’s Latin Dictionary (1907) edited by Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, pp. 895, 911, and 1175.
^4. Translated by author as “If the world is unclean, I will be clean” using Harper’s Latin Dictionary (1907) edited by Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, pp. 895, 1175, and 1688-9.

References:
Boutell, Charles. 1914. The Handbook to English Heraldry. Edited by A. C. Fox-Davies. London: Reeves & Turner. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23186/23186-h/23186-h.htm.

“Ermine.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Last modified June 6, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/animal/ermine-mammal.

Harper’s Latin Dicitonary, ed. Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short. `1907. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago: American Book Company.

Morris, William. 1868. The Life and Death of Jason: A Poem. London: Bell and Daldy. From Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University.

Quaritch, Bernard. Bernard Quaritch to William W. Gay, November 5, 1912. Letter. From Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University.

Symonds, John Addington. 1894. On The English Family of Symonds. Oxford: Privately printed. Google Books. https://www.google.com/books/edition/On_the_English_Family_of_Symonds/sQMPAAAAQAAJ

Symonds, John Addington. 1967. The Letters of John Addington Symonds. Edited by Herbert M. Schueller and Robert L. Peters. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Symonds, John Addington. 2016. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. Edited by Amber K. Regis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

The commonplace book developed in the hands of sixteenth- through nineteenth-century European women as a form of privatized intellectual engagement. A dearth of formal women’s education and an emphasis, rather, on domestic skills both necessitated the search for academic outlets and provided women with ample time to find them. Women turned to commonplace books to fulfill their intellectual needs by engaging meticulously with contemporary literature, drawing or cutting out illustrations, and filling pages with their reflections and musings.

Sophia Elers was one such woman. Although we do not know much about her as a person besides her likely residence in the Bickenhill Vicarage, and, based upon this residence, her being in an elite, educated family of clergymen,¹ we do know that she traveled intellectually in her Victorian-era commonplace book, beginning with her transcription of a lengthy passage from William Edward Parry’s 1824 Journal of a Second Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific.² Elers supplemented the passage with her own painstakingly detailed illustrations, which depict the “Snow Village of the Eskimaux”³ and “Eskimaux Man & Woman of Savage Island.”⁴ In this brief foray into Parry’s writings, Elers established herself as his colleague – adding and eliding words and visual representations – and entered into the literary tradition characterized by and filled with her male peers.

So, too, did Elers venture into France with clippings from a book of French women’s clothing⁵ and into Asia with an imagined, silhouetted scene cut from thick black paper and a meticulously carved fan.⁶ These intellectual travels, however, appear not to be associated with any specific text, but rather exist as mere longings for exploration or otherness that was unsupported by the little education Elers likely did receive, which Elers intimates once again by randomly populating the bottom third of a page filled with arithmetic with a cut-out rabbit sitting in the grass:⁷ even the illustrations seem to be hoping to be removed from the dull arena in which she was situated.

Particularly striking in Elers’ work, though, is the series of questions she posed. Whether they are philosophical ones, riddles, or jokes missing their punchlines is unclear, but these questions do work to express Elers’ unanswered desire to engage intellectually with someone other than herself. She asks,

Why is a large E like London?

Can you look at In till you make it a word of four syllables?

What Island is the lightest colour?

When are eggs like a stolen game?

and many more.⁸

British women in the mid nineteenth century had few opportunities to receive an advanced education. Although some feminist debate sparked around this period surrounding the fitness of women to enter academic settings and universities, nearly a century remained before these feminist longings were properly addressed and women were incorporated into a coeducational scholarly arena. Elers’ attempt to liberate herself and travel through the work in her book helps, though, to emphasize the important self-educations that took place and paints education during this time as “fundamentally identified with women’s personal, intellectual, emotional and spiritual emancipation.”⁹ Formal women’s education during this period, however, fell prey to patriarchal structures, enforced largely by the Miltonic and adjacently influential structures of male dominance and “benevolent patriarchs.”¹⁰

And so, the book of Sophia Elers can be seen as representative of a woman’s intellectual yearning during the Victorian era. Charlotte Symonds, to whom John Addington Symonds addressed most of his early letters, likely worked similarly in her own commonplace books, which we, unfortunately, do not have, and with the pieces of writing and literary recommendation provided to her by her brother. Instead, we must turn to these snapshots of life that Sophia Elers has provided to imagine how Charlotte Symonds might have filled the time left available after responding to her brother, fulfilling his library requests, and consuming the novels he lauded.

^1. Circuit, Carol, The practice of concealment: Developing social history from physical evidence: a detailed exploration of artefacts hidden within a Victorian chaise longue and an interpretation of the significance of the contents (Buckinghamshire New University, Coventry University, 2017).
^2. Parry, William Edward, Journal of a Second Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Performed in the Years 1821 – 1822 – 1823. in His Majesty’s Ships Fury and Hecla Under the Orders of Captain William Edward Parry, R.N., F.R.S., and Commander of the Expedition (London: Published by authority of the Lord’s Commissioners and Admiralty, 1824).
^3. Elers, Sophia, Commonplace Book, 5.
^4. Ibid., 11.
^5. Ibid., 62.
^6. Ibid., 56.
^7. Ibid., 64.
^8. Ibid., 47.
^9. Schwartz, Laura, “Feminist thinking on education in Victorian England,” Oxford Review of Education, 37, 5 (2011): 679.
^10. Kowaleski-Wallace, Beth, “Milton’s Daughters: The Education of Eighteenth-Century Women Writers,” Feminist Studies 12, 2 (1986): 275.

Thank you very much for Job. It is a beautiful copy. I have compared it with my father’s, & find the proofs wh you have given me far finer than his impressions.”

Symonds, Letters, 1:506 (360)

So John Addington Symonds wrote in a letter to his good friend Henry Graham Dakyns in November of 1864.

 At first glance, it would seem that Symonds is referring to the Book of Job from the Bible. After all, that is certainly the best-known literary Job, and it would not be at all unusual for Symonds’s father to already have a copy. However, there is a possibility–albeit less likely–that Symonds here is referring to a poem entitled “Job the White.”

“Job the White” was written by T.E. Brown. Brown was best known for his long narrative poems written in the Manx dialect–the traditional dialect of the Isle of Man. The first poems in his series of Fo’c’s’le Yarns were published in 1881; “Job the White,” in the third and final book of the series, was not published until 1895. While this publication date, 30 years after Symonds wrote his letter to Dakyns, makes it unlikely that Symonds is referring to the poem, there nevertheless exists a deeper literary relationship between the two.

To begin with, Dakyns and Brown were good friends. Indeed, Brown even composed a poem addressed to Dakyns, entitled “Epistola Ad Dakyns,” which was published in his collection Old John and Other Poems.

DAKYNS, when I am dead,

Three places must by you be visited,

Three places excellent,

Where you may ponder what I meant,

And then pass on —

Three places you must visit when I’m gone.

Brown, “Epistola Ad Dakyns”

And while I do not know for sure whether Dakyns did visit these three places, he nevertheless played a part in perpetuating Brown’s legacy posthumously; Dakyns was one of the three editors of The Collected Poems of T.E. Brown.

More than just having a mutual friend in Dakyns, though, Symonds and Brown were themselves friends. In fact, the two shared unpublished poems with each other. While humble about his own poetry (describing it in one letter to Brown as “too diffuse & voluminously descriptive” (Letters, 2:118 (717))), Symonds was quite fond of Brown’s work.

Brown’s new poem is A…I do wish he would print one of his poems.”

Symonds, Letters, 2:119 (718)

It would be a decade before this wish would come true. Nevertheless, we can be certain that Symonds did indeed read Brown’s unpublished work; how closely those early versions resembled the final pieces we have in book form today is difficult to know. 

After reading Symonds’s (posthumous) biography by Horatio Brown, T.E. Brown expressed some measure of surprise at the contents. In particular, he was struck by the relative prevalence of “agony,” while literary matters fell somewhat by the side. Symonds’s biography was largely based on his Memoirs, and thus his own priorities of his story; but there exist other lenses through which he can be understood, and they are not necessarily any less true. Brown’s image of Symonds–an image formed through years of friendship and swapping of literature–is one of these other angles. But at present, we have yet to reach a full understanding of the relationship between the two. It is not certain that the “Job” Symonds referred to in his 1864 letter is Brown’s–but, if that is indeed the case, it stands as a very early instance of their relationship being put to paper.  

References:

Amigoni, David. 2009. “Translating the Self: Sexuality, Religion, and Sanctuary in John Addington Symond’s Cellini and Other Acts of Life Writing,” Biography 32, no. 1 (2009): 161–72.

Brown, T.E. 1893. Old John and Other Poems. London: Macmillan and Co. 

Brown, T.E. 1909. The Collected Poems of T.E. Brown. Edited by H.F. Brown, H.G. Dakyns, and W.E. Henley. London: Macmillan and Co. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t6930zd83

Symonds, John Addington. 1967.The Letters of John Addington Symonds. Edited by Herbert M. Schueller and Robert L. Peters. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

“T.E. Brown.” Manx Literature. http://manxliterature.com/browse-by-author/t-e-brown/

In his Memoirs, Symonds describes his discovery of Plato–specifically the Phaedrus and the Symposium–as “the revelation I had been waiting for, the consecration of a long-cherished idealism. It was just as though the voice of my own soul spoke to me through Plato…” (Memoirs, 152). This refers specifically to the speeches made on love–particularly, “Greek love” between two men. As Symonds himself notes, these works realize a notion that he has been working towards for some time; however, they also, I believe, reflected elements of the world he had been living in at the time of discovery.

By his account, Symonds discovered these texts while reading Plato’s Apology for his schoolwork at Harrow. When discussing Harrow in his Memoirs, however, Symonds tends to put the focus less on the schoolwork and more on the social atmosphere—especially the overwhelming presence of sexual relationships between the students at the school. As he states in a chapter focused on the school:

One thing at Harrow very soon arrested my attention. It was the moral state of the school…The talk in the dormitories was incredibly obscene. Here and there one could not avoid seeing acts of onanism, mutual masturbation, the sports of naked boys in bed together. There was no refinement, no sentiment, no passion; nothing but animal lust in these occurrences. They filled me with disgust and loathing.

Memoirs, 147

In the Phaedrus, Plato gives two speeches to Socrates: the first, arguing for the friendship of a non-lover over a lover; and the second, the reverse. It is the first of these two in which Symonds may have seen the environment at Harrow reflected. The speech disparages the lover as a creature driven only by carnal desire, with no desire for betterment of the self or the beloved. In fact, both the lover and beloved are worse off for their relationship. 

These things, dear boy, you must bear in mind, and you must know that the fondness of the lover is not a matter of goodwill, but of appetite which he wishes to satisfy:

“Just as the wolf loves the lamb, so the lover adores his beloved.”

Phaedrus 241 c-d

Given Symonds’ extensive distress over the “crude sensuality” and “animalisms” of the relationships that he saw at Harrow, it would not be a stretch to believe that he saw these very factors represented clearly in the Phaedrus. In fact, although he did not actually participate in a sexual relationship while at Harrow, Symonds describes the prevalence of these carnal pairings as something that caused him great moral distress, perhaps even to the point of physical weakening. Reading a speech that directly points at these relationships as the cause of similar moral and mental degradation in the participants may very well have made Symonds feel justified in his own feelings towards the relationships he was surrounded by.

Of course, it was the second of these speeches that Symonds saw himself in. This one, concerned with the argument of the lover over the non-lover, placed love as a “divine madness” that is ultimately a philosophical and aesthetic affair. Writing a “Myth of the Soul,” wherein all human beings are drawn likewise towards divine beauty and earthly sin, Plato (through Socrates) makes the case that the ideal love is divine in nature and something, in fact, to be sought. One key aspect of this, however, is self-control; giving in to lustful urges is something that can either cut this ideal love off at the start or at least reduce its positive effects, depending on the point at which control is lost. 

If now the better elements of the mind, which lead to a well ordered life and to philosophy, prevail, they live a life of happiness and harmony here on earth, self controlled and orderly, holding in subjection that which causes evil in the soul and giving freedom to that which makes for virtue; and when this life is ended they are light and winged, for they have conquered in one of the three truly Olympic contests. Neither human wisdom nor divine inspiration can confer upon man any greater blessing than this.

Phaedrus 256 a-b

It was this concept of love that Symonds had been searching for and moving towards with his own thought. While of course his Memoirs were written in retrospect and so may very well have been influenced by the contrast between the two images of love in these speeches, it is truly striking how well they map onto the two types of male love that he encountered in his time at (and even before) Harrow: both the carnal relations of those around him, and the aesthetic ideal that he himself sought.

Work Cited:

Symonds, John Addington, and Amber K Regis. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds : a Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Plato, Phaedrus. http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg012.perseus-eng1:227a.

To say that Symonds was disgusted by the version of homosexuality that he saw at Harrow is an understatement. Symonds saw the relationships at Harrow as brutal and vulgar, which eventually led him to discover Plato and the idealized form of homosexuality that the Platonic dialogues espouse (Memoirs, 152). However, the comfort that Symonds found in Plato might not have been merely a more elegant form of homosexuality. Looking at Pausanias’s speech in the Symposium, what Symonds might have seen and rejected in the relationships at Harrow was not only a more carnal form of homosexuality but one that he saw as pantomiming the binary relationships of heterosexuality, making Symonds’s disgust an early rejection of heterosexuality itself.

Taken at face value, Symonds’s disgust towards the sexual goings-on at Harrow seems primarily directed at their carnality. Consider the language that Symonds used in the Memoirs to describe what he saw:

The earliest phase of my sexual consciousness was here objectified before my eyes; and I detested in practice what had once attracted me in fancy.…The animalisms of boyish lust sickened me by their brutality, offended my taste by their vulgarity. I imagined them to be a phase of immature development, from which my comrades would emerge when they grew to manhood. Nevertheless, they steeped my imagination in filth.

Memoirs, 149

Symonds’s disgust here seems primarily directed at the animalistic and juvenile nature of what he witnessed at Harrow. If Symonds’s disgust here is directed solely at the carnality of the acts, the important distinction between the love Symonds read about in the Platonic dialogues and the acts he witnessed at Harrow is merely the difference between two versions of homosexuality: the more carnal version he witnesses at Harrow and the more idealistic version he reads about in the Symposium. In this “carnality” reading of Symonds’s disgust, the comfort that Symonds then finds in the Symposium is an affirmation of his more innocent homosexuality. However, there might be another part to the story. Looking at Pausanias’s speech in the Symposium, what Symonds saw at Harrow and reflected in Plato might have been not only the distinction between a “cruder” and “purer” form of homosexuality but a distinction between a pure form of homosexuality and one that mimicked heterosexuality. For Symonds, what he saw at Harrow was not only carnal; it also reflected the gendered, binary relationship of heterosexuality.

In the Symposium, Pausanias makes a distinction between heavenly love and common love. Heavenly love, for Pausanias, is “from the male only,” as those that participate in heavenly love “turn to the male, and delight in him who is the more valiant and intelligent nature,” with heavenly love also being concerned with the well-being of those involved (Symposium, 181c-d). Meanwhile, consider how Pausanias describes common love:

The Love who is the offspring of the common Aphrodite is essentially common, and has no discrimination, being such as the meaner sort of men feel, and is apt to be of women as well as of youths, and is of the body rather than the soul – the most foolish beings are the objects of this love which desires only to gain an end, but never thinks of accomplishing the end nobly, and therefore does good and evil quite indiscriminately. The goddess who is his mother is far younger than the other, and she was born of the union of the male and the female, and partakes of both.

Symposium, 181a-c

Here, Pausanias notes that common love is not only more brutal than its heavenly counterpart, but it is also more concerned with ends and is uniquely tied to heterosexuality. Meanwhile, heavenly love is an idealized non-carnal love, one that is innately homosexual. Therefore, the distinction between the two is not only one of carnal and non-carnal, but also one of homosexuality and pantomimed heterosexuality, where the former is concerned with the well-being of those involved and the latter only concerned with the pleasure of the lover.

There are echoes of Pausanias’s distinction in the way that Symonds described the goings-on at Harrow. Consider the passage with which Symonds begins the fifth chapter of his Memoirs:

One thing at Harrow very soon arrested my attention. It was the moral state of the school. Every boy of good looks had a female name, and was recognized either as a public prostitute or some bigger fellow’s ‘bitch.’ Bitch was the word in common usage to indicate a boy who yielded his person to a lover. The talk in the dormitories and the studies was incredibly obscene. Here and there one could not avoid seeing acts of onanism, mutual masturbation, the sports of naked boys in bed together. There was no refinement, no sentiment, no passion; nothing but animal lust in these occurrences. They filled me with disgust and loathing.

Memoirs, 147

Upon first glance, this passage is merely Symonds describing his disdain for the homosexual culture at Harrow. However, in this passage, Symonds also makes note of parts of the Harrow homosexual culture that mimic the gendered relationship of heterosexuality. In particular, he notes that more submissive, good-looking boys were given female names, recognized as prostitutes, and were referred to as the “bitch” of a more dominant boy. These are aspects of Harrow’s culture that Symonds not only described as crude, but that he distinctly linked with the traditional gendered power relationship of heterosexuality, one where the male figure is dominant and the female is submissive. Symonds mentions this pantomimed heterosexuality two other times in the chapter about Harrow’s homosexual culture: one when describing the mistreatment of a boy named Cookson, who others abused and referred to as “their bitch,” and another when he details the case of two boys, Dering and O’Brien, with the latter having been given the name “Leila,” whose relationship led to an assembly in which the headmaster condemned the practice of giving boys female names (Memoirs, 148-49). In these stories, Symonds once again calls direct attention not only to the crude and violent nature of the acts, but also the ways in which those events reflected the traditional power structure of heterosexuality. In Symonds’s eyes, not only were the relationships at Harrow vulgar and crude, they were a pantomime of heterosexuality.

This pantomime of heterosexuality almost directly reflects Pausanias’s distinction. Symonds almost certainly saw the love at Harrow as matching Pausanias’s description of common love, being what “the meaner sort of men feel,” and one “of the body rather than of the soul” (Symposium, 181b). Symonds would also almost certainly agree with the sentiment that Pausanias espouses later in his speech when he says, “Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul” (Symposium, 183d). However, Pausanias’s distinction is not merely one of crudeness and carnality but one between homosexuality and pantomimed heterosexuality. With that in mind, considering Pausanias’s distinction in light of what Symonds saw at Harrow (and what Symonds noted in his Memoirs) highlights another possible layer in the story of Symonds’s disgust. What Symonds saw at Harrow and what he rejected about the homosexual culture of Harrow was not only a form of homosexuality that was vulgar and carnal, but one that pantomimed heterosexuality.  

Symonds describes in detail the profound effect that discovering Plato during his time at Harrow had on him, but it seems as if Pausanias’s speech was of unique significance to Symonds. For one, Symonds names Pausanias’s speech as particularly influential, along with Agathon’s, Diotima’s, and the Phaedrus’s Myth of the Soul (Memoirs, 152). He even references Pausanias’s distinction in the letter to Benjamin Jowett, the professor whose translation of the Symposium Symonds would later help revise, which Symonds includes in the very same chapter when he writes that “Erôs Pandemos [common love] is everywhere” (Memoirs, 154). For Symonds to note Pausanias’s speech both in his Memoirs and in a letter sent decades after the events at Harrow shows that Symonds identified Pausanias’s distinction as significant. Pausanias’s importance here seems to only confirm that Symonds’s disgust at the culture at Harrow was not only towards the vulgarity of the acts, but also the ways in which they pantomimed heterosexuality. In expressing his disgust and turning to the more idealized form of Plato, Symonds not only rejected a cruder form of homosexuality, but he also rejected heterosexuality itself. Put differently, according to Symonds:

At the same time, [Plato] confirmed my congenital inclination toward persons of the male sex…

Memoirs, 152

Plato. “Symposium.” The Dialogues of Plato Translated Into English: With Analyses and Introductions, edited by Benjamin Jowett, vol. 1, 3^rd ed., Oxford University Press, 1892.

Symonds, John Addington. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition, edited by Amber K. Regis, Palgrave Macmillan Publishing. London, 2016.

John Addington Symonds writes both sexologically and nostalgically in A Problem in Greek Ethics and his Memoirs. He approaches same-sex desire from an analytical angle while also inviting readers to luxuriate with him in an appreciation of antiquity. By way of these seemingly oppositional techniques, he engages with same-sex relationships in a way that both explicates their historical receptions and enjoys their romances. This approach persists in the 21st century, with scholars including Nancy F. Cott and Rachel Hope Cleves favoring Symonds’ techniques in their contemporary explorations of same-sex desire.

Symonds begins this work in A Problem in Greek Ethics, in which he speaks of the acceptability of same-sex desire in Ancient Greece: “the tale of Achilles and Patroclus sanctioned among the Greeks a form of masculine love.”¹ He arrives at this point through the analysis of “the paragons of heroic virtue”² relied upon by Homer and other famous Greeks, and Symonds remarks, too, that

in Greek history boy-love, as a form sensual passion, became a national institution.³

He thus roots his work in formal, sexological scholarship as a necessary basis for his desire for this Greek past.

His Memoirs, then, editorialize his scholarship by providing relevant information about his identity and illustrating a yearning for space in which to express his desires, and he refers back to the concept of masculine love in discussing his sexuality:

I am more masculine than many men I know who adore women. I have no feminine feelings for the males who rouse my desires.⁴

Although he understands that his desires remain fixed in masculinity, he must confront theories from his contemporaries that founded same-sex relationships in “effeminate desire”⁵ and “the theory of a female soul.”⁶ By quickly negating these possibilities in his life with the declaration that these hypotheses are simply not true, he alludes to his study of the acceptance of masculine love and sensual passion between men in Ancient Greece. This brief intimation of a longing for a past time maintains Symonds’ characteristic analytical arc, though, for he is careful to base even claims about his personal life in the strict analysis of memories, letters, and thoughts.

Nancy F. Cott in Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation, a seminal text in the Obergefell v. Hodges civil rights case in 2015, historicizes same-sex relationships in the United States in a manner much like Symonds in A Problem in Greek Ethics. She claims in this work that

marital behavior always varies more than the law predicts⁷

and that this habitual deviance creates space within the institution of marriage for more forms of marriage than only a religious, heterosexual one. The actual work, like A Problem in Greek Ethics, does not largely engage with the present but rather seeks to elucidate the existence of covert or deviant relationships in the past. The work’s use in the Ogerbefell v. Hodges case, then, fills the role of the Memoirs in that it is applied historically and analytically to the permissibility of same-sex relationships.

Likewise, Rachel Hope Cleves resembles Symonds’ Memoirs in Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America. The novel is largely structured around analysis of the correspondence between the two women in the early nineteenth century, and it is from this critical work that Cleves begins to dramatize the romantic relationship and illustrate the existence of same-sex marriage even before its legalization. This work, like Cott’s, yearns for the integration of same-sex relationships into legal doctrine and realms of social acceptability – the same social acceptability that Symonds, too, desired.

The seemingly opposing approaches – analytical and nostalgic – come together to emphasize the intrinsic emotion regarding the study of love. Symonds’ work, though itself directed at a time long before his own, continues to be reflected formally in work surrounding same-sex desire in the 21st century.

^1. Ellis, Havelock, and John Addington Symonds. Sexual Inversion. (Wilson and MacMillan, 1897), 168.
^2. Ibid., 168.
^3. Ibid., 169.
^4. John Addington Symonds, and Amber K. Regis, ed., The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: a Critical Edition, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 103.
^5. Ibid., 103.
^6. Ibid., 103.
^7. Cott, Nancy F., Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation. (Harvard University Press, 2002), 8.

We formulate new memories every day, and sensory cues are often associated with each memory that we create. We hear the loud rattle of a train, and we are suddenly taken back to a family trip we took when we were 10, staring out the window, mesmerized by the whole world passing by us in a blur of color. We smell the sweetness of caramel, cinnamon, and butter, and we are reminded of the apple pie we baked from scratch with our friends over Thanksgiving break. We can recall details from these memories and relive them because they are true … or are they?

The unreliability of memory has been studied extensively in the field of cognitive psychology.

It is now widely recognized that human memory is not an exact reproduction of past experiences but is instead an imperfect process that is prone to various kinds of errors and distortions. 

Memory Distortion: An Adaptive Perspective, 467

Our brain is continuously adapting to process new memories and to make connections with existing ones, so it’s not surprising that some parts may be overwritten or unintentionally modified. However, John Addington Symonds recounts his childhood memories with striking detail, describing the flowers he saw, the clothes he was wearing, and even the architecture of some of the buildings he was in. Here is an account of his sister’s christening when he was about four years old.

So far as I can now recall it, the building is of pseudo-Graeco-Roman architecture, rectangular in the body, faced with a portico, and surmounted with a nondescript Pecksniffian spire in the bastard classic style … myself dressed in white, with a white hat and something blue in the trimmings of it, half standing, half supported, so as to took over the rim of the pew.

The Memoirs, 64­­­­ – 5

Here is another account from his teenage years, thinking about the view he had from his bedroom at Clifton Hill House.

Winter sunrise provided pageants of more fiery splendour. From the dark rim of Dundry Hill behind which the sun was journeying, striving to emerge, there shot to the clear sapphire zenith shafts of rosy flame, painting the bars of cloud with living fire and enamelling the floating mists which slowly changed and shifted across liquid spaces of orange, daffodil and beryl.

The Memoirs, 119-20

It’s incredible how illustrative his descriptions are, and it’s almost as if we, as readers consuming his memoirs more than a century after his death, are right there experiencing the moment with him. However, even though the details are much appreciated, it’s hard to believe that his memories were not fabricated to some extent. I am curious to see how much of his memoirs have factual evidence for or against what he claims to have happened, but this would be an almost impossible task. So perhaps the more important questions are: Why was it so important for him to make the memory seem perfect? What was so significant about those memories?

Regardless of their authenticity, Symonds included these memories and details because each represented a milestone in his life. Either the details were so important to him that he distinctly remembered them after decades had passed, or he was willing to exaggerate the details so he could depict a vivid image of the scene. Symonds wished to document his story through his memories, an emphasis that is clear in the titling of his autobiography as his Memoirs. He wanted to provide some sort of explanation as to how he came to be by delving into not only his sexuality, even though this was an important aspect of his book, but also his family, his values, and the connections he made along the way. Thus, his memories served as a roadmap for him as recapped his journey, and he wrote detailed recounts of events that were crucial to his character development, such as his first kiss with Willie Dyer.

We were together alone, I well remember, in a clearing of Leigh Woods – where the red quarries break down from tufted yews, and dwarf peaches, and wych elms plumed upon the cliff to the riverside. The afternoon sunlight fell upon glossy ivy, bluebells and late-flowering anemones.

The Memoirs, 157

Symonds eventually relied more on his journal entries rather than his memories, but nonetheless, his elaborate storytelling of specific moments of his life continued to be a driving force in his Memoirs. As readers, we are able to immerse ourselves in each experience, relive that memory with him, and get a glimpse of the thoughts he had, who he was as a person, and the impact he had on other people in his life.

John Addington Symonds was hesitant about writing this book and intended to share it only privately or not at all. Even so, he was extremely analytical in the way he approached his Memoirs, and his extremely detailed, almost photographic, accounts of significant events in his life perhaps provided an explanation for himself of the formation of the person that he became. Thus, the vivid memories add not only detail and realism to his work, but they also shed light on Symonds’ values and approach to life by giving future readers a chance to analyze him on another level, looking at not only the content of the memories but also the aspects he chooses to focus on.

Works Cited

1. Schacter, Daniel L. Guerin, Scott A. St. Jacques, Peggy L. “Memory Distortion: An Adaptive Perspective.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences. October 2011; 15(10): 467-474.
2. Symonds, John Addington. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. Edited by Amber K. Regis.London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

John Addington Symonds pointedly states in his Memoirs, “I never really enjoy a cathedral without music” (288). This testimonial is supported by his subtle nods of appreciation for music throughout his writing, starting with his earliest recollections and vivid descriptions of church hymns from his childhood. He might have extended this declaration of musical appreciation to choristers, and especially to his first love, Willie Dyer, whose ethereal renditions of the masses of great composers moved the author as a young man. However, one cannot help but notice the lack of music in Symonds’s subsequent amours, which I shall explore later. Music and musical settings played a nuanced role in his personal appreciation of aesthetics, and I shall consider how this features in the story of Willie. I would also like to explore some noteworthy composers and pieces Symonds discusses.  

In Symonds’s early recollections of churchgoing as a young man, it is apparent that music, along with art and architecture, played an important role in his developing aesthetics. In this passage, he describes how music in the Bristol Cathedral deeply affected him: 

The organ was playing and the choristers were singing. Some chord awoke in me then, which has gone on thrilling through my lifetime and has been connected with the deepest of my emotional experiences. […] The voices of choiring men and boys, the sobbing antiphones and lark-like soaring of clear treble notes into the gloom of Gothic arches, the thunder of the labouring diapasons, stir in me that old deep-centred innate sentiment (65).

An additional note of interest is the fondness with which he describes the voices of the choristers, which would play an important role in his later relationship with Willie. It also seems that the glory of the power of all the voices in a choir and the accompanying organ complemented the architectural aesthetics he appreciated in church. Following on how music complemented his perception of architecture, he explains,

Without this living accompaniment [of music] and commentary, architecture seems to me cold and dead. Are the harmonic ratios of form and sound really so sympathetic as mutually to elucidate each other? Or is it a matter of association: the religious purpose and solemn character of organ music tuning our mind to the proper key for comprehending sacred architecture? (288). 

The musical grandeur of his early experience in church leaves a lasting impression on Symonds, as he is able to capture the same majesty and feeling in his Memoirs decades later. 

Musical encounters distinguish and accompany a particularly important point in his life: his first love for Willie Dyer. On one morning at church when Symonds was a student at Harrow, the voice of a certain chorister captured his attention:

Music and the grandeur of Gothic aisles, the mystery of winter evenings in cathedral choirs, when the tumultuous vibrations of the organ shook the giant windows and made the candles in their sconces tremble, took from [Willie] a poetry that pierced into my heart and marrow (158).

In Symonds’s reflections on Willie’s voice, he writes,

His voice charmed me by its sharp ethereal melancholy. In timbre and quality it had something of a wood instrument; and because of my love for it, I have ever since been sensitive to the notes of hautbois and clarionette (156).

This leads to his passionate relationship to the singer, which was pivotal in his personal development; he writes that their eventual meeting gave rise to the birth of his real self (157). The combination of Willie’s voice and his ability to interpret such pieces captivated the author’s imagination. Music was a gateway for him to see the beauty in Willie. As an adult, Symonds directly points to the qualities of Willie’s musical talents that touched him as a young man. There is a clear nostalgia in his writing, when he states that he is still “sensitive” to the timbre of a wood instrument, which reminds him of the chorister’s voice.

An interesting point to consider is the lack of fervent descriptions of music and its role in Symonds’s later relationships. For example, in his descriptions of Alfred Brooke or Norman, the author mainly concentrates on their physical or intellectual beauty. In his recollections of Alfred, he describes his love for him in a series of prose dithyrambs, which focus on Alfred’s attractiveness. Years later, this physical longing is still in command of Symonds’s reflections in the Memoirs. For Norman, Symonds insists that this love played an important role in his literary development. He writes that Norman liberated his intellect and will, and their meeting dates to the beginning of his own period of great literary activity (381). His later amours have a profound impact on his artistic development, and other qualities of these relationships dominate Symonds’s recollections. However, he doesn’t make any references to musical works or musical settings that make him sentimental when he reflects on these other loves. Instead of mentions of hymns, he often dedicates Ancient Greek and Latin verses to the memory of these men; in place of descriptions of a church choir, the settings at Oxford and the College Green mark his later loves. Consequently, music does not have a central role in the reminiscences of Alfred or Norman as it did with Willie. When Symonds first met the chorister, he initially noticed the captivating qualities of his voice, which was an entryway into a further passionate relationship. Symonds’s love for other young men lacks this important feature. The image of the chorister subsequently made the author associate church hymns and masses with Willie’s beauty, which was not only physical or intellectual, but also musical.

Finally, I would like to look at some composers and pieces that Symonds notes in his Memoirs. The earliest mentions are amid recollections about Dyer, where he lists church masses that moved him. Three soprano solos are forever impressed in his memory of the chorister’s voice, one of them being Mozart’s Kyrie of the Coronation Mass (158). The other two solos include the recitative from Handel’s Messiah, where he also mentions the “Pastoral Symphony,” the “Chorus of the Gloria,” and Louis Spohr’s “As pants the hart” (158). Other later mentions of church music include Mendelssohn’s oratorio, Elijah, which he listened to during his travels in Switzerland (222). Later, he writes about Gioachio Rossini’s “La Carità,” which is the third piece in the Trois choeurs religieux (310). Symonds’s descriptions of hearing this composer’s music lead him into sentimental reflections, in which he writes,

None of Rossini’s cadences are more melting than their violets, none of his crescendos more passionate than their reds, and the sehnsucht of his melody seemed to be written in glowing characters of green and gold and blue (310).

The pieces that Symonds heard in concert halls and opera houses are described as follows:

With closed eyes I sat listening to the divine melodies of Mozart, the symphonies of Beethoven, to Gounod, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi; to Rubinstein’s impassioned piano-forte playing, and Piatti’s violoncello, Joachim’s violin; to the voices of Trebelli and Titiens, of Giuglini, and Patti, and Pauline Lucca (256-7). 

Although his mentions of music in his Memoirs are often sparse, one can still sense the nostalgia Symonds felt for it. Musical settings cultivated his appreciation of architecture and aesthetics. He draws parallels between harmonies and architectural ratios, believing that the two must go hand in hand. Such settings also played an important part in his first relationship with Willie. The chorister not only offered physical beauty, but also musical splendor, which Symonds’s later amours lacked. Symonds puts the effect of music best in his own words:

And Music? Ah, that is the best anodyne of all. In music we emerge from opium fumes, and narcotize the soul into a hypnotism which is spiritual (317).

Works Cited: 

Symonds, John Addington. Regis, Amber K. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 

In the opening sentence of chapter 2 of his Memoirs, John Addington Symonds explicitly presents his wish to produce an extended sexual case study of himself. The remainder of chapter 2 is devoted to describing his sexual development before the age of eleven. In addition to calmly reflecting on “what [he] know[s] to be absolutely certain facts,” Symonds constantly considers the reasons behind those superficial phenomena (101). Since he recognizes sexuality as “essentially important in the formation of character and the determination of mental qualities,” he is eager to know why his emotions are directed to the male sex (99). He is unable to provide himself with a satisfying answer. Therefore, by labeling chapter 2 as “Containing Material Which None But Students of Psychology and Ethics Need Peruse,” he implicitly claims his status as someone who can write for experts in the hope of finding a better answer from them.

Psychology as a medical specialty had begun to develop in the middle of the 19^th century. Symonds managed to gain a deeper insight into what he called his “problem” by studying cases of sexual inversion documented by continental sexologists, including some written after he first drafted the chapter. However, we know from an addendum to chapter 2 that, although some ideas of these continental sexologists resonated with Symonds, his “problem” was still unsolved. Symonds paid special attention to the probable innate character of the origination of “abnormal sexual feelings” with reference to Krafft-Ebing, an Austro-German psychiatrist and author of the foundational work Psychopathia Sexualis (1886). Krafft-Ebing created categories of inversion and argued that they were caused by internal as well as external factors. In his Memoirs, Symonds reviews his family health history: “My mother’s family on the paternal side (Sykes) was tainted with pulmonary phthisis, and on the maternal side (Abdy) with extreme nervous excitability, eccentricity, even madness” (102). He then arrives at the conclusion that Krafft-Ebing and his school would recognize hereditary neuroticism in him, which predisposes its subject to sexual inversion. However, Symonds apparently does not find this explanation satisfying. I think what hinders Symonds’ acceptance of Krafft-Ebing’s perception of sexual inversion lies partly in his delicate pride in his literary achievement. Symonds attributes his literary achievement partly to “a high degree of nervous sensibility” and questions the rationality of classifying “poets, men of letters painters, almost all of whom exhibit some nervous abnormalities, with the subjects of hereditary disease” (103). I will explore other reasons for his disagreement with Krafft-Ebing in the following paragraphs.

Symonds developed his rejection to Krafft-Ebing’s theory of sexual inversion more thoroughly in Chapter 7 of A Problem in Modern Ethics (1891). In this chapter, Symonds confined his review of medical literature on sexual inversion to what he considered as “the most recent, most authoritative, and…upon the whole most sensible studies” (143). Therefore, despite his disagreement with Krafft-Ebing, Symonds gave credit to Krafft-Ebing’s contribution to this field of studies. Symonds presented a scheme of Krafft-Ebing’s subdivision of subjects of sexual inversion under the form of a table:

Krafft- Ebing’s Analysis of Sexual Inversion. John Addington Symonds. “A Problem in Modern Ethics”. 1981.

According to Symonds, Krafft-Ebing summarizes from his case studies two causes, both necessary but neither sufficient alone, for “acquired” sexual inversion: “morbid predispositions inherited by the patient” and “onanism as the exciting cause of the latent neuropathic ailment” (151-2). Symonds only agrees with Krafft-Ebing’s conception of the “episodical type”: “[Krafft-Ebing] discusses a few cases in which it seems that sexual inversion displays itself episodically under the conditions of a psychopathical disturbance…the details show that the subjects were clearly morbid. Therefore, they have their value for the building up of a theory of sexual inversion upon the basis of inherited and active disease” (156-7). However, Symonds takes issue with the “persistent” type.

In general, Symonds criticizes Krafft-Ebing’s theory for being so constructed that it is almost impossible to be disproved, given that Krafft-Ebing identifies the concurrence of “hereditary taint” (hereditary disease) and onanism as a necessary rather than a sufficient condition for sexual inversion. Symonds writes,

Considering the frequency of both hereditary taint and onanism in our civilization, this is not risking much.

(“A Problem in Modern Ethics,” 155)

However, Symonds is unwilling to ascribe what he commonly observed in his civilization, i.e., hereditary taint and onanism, to ancient Greece–which he deeply admires. He feels it “absurd” to maintain, according to Krafft-Ebing’s theory, that all the boy-lovers in ancient Greece, where sexual inversion had been permanently established and recognized and was all but universal, “owed their instincts to hereditary neuropathy complicated by onanism” (154).

In response to the first cause for acquired sexual inversion, Symonds objects,

At what point of the world’s history was the morbid taste acquired? If none but tainted individuals are capable of homosexual feelings, how did these feelings first come into existence?

(“A Problem in Modern Ethics,” 154)

Krafft-Ebing’s theory, Symonds argues, could not answer this question. On the other hand, Symonds casts doubt on the second cause primarily with reference to facts. Although masturbation or some form of sexual inversion could be found, according to Symonds, in both public and private schools in all parts of Europe, he observes that “few of the boys addicted to these practices remain abnormal after they have begun to frequent women” (153). Moreover, Symonds claims that “common experience shows beyond all doubt that young men between 16 and 20 give themselves up to daily self-abuse without weakening their appetite for women” (155). Therefore, Symonds finds Krafft-Ebing’s reasoning that onanism leads to hyper-sensibility in the sexual apparatus and partial impotence, therefore leading to demands for sexual gratification from men, even in the face of legal prohibition, very unconvincing.

Symonds takes the aforementioned counterargument to the innate character of sexual inversion with him when he proceeds to review what Krafft-Ebing categorizes as congenital sexual inversion. In addition, Symonds feels that he himself has nowhere to stand in Krafft-Ebing’s categories. Krafft-Ebing defines the four subdivisions of congenital sexual inversion as follows:

1) Psychopathic Hermaphrodites, born with a predominant inclination toward persons of their own sex, possessed rudimentary feelings of a semi-sexual nature for the opposite;

2) Male Habitus (Mannlinge), a subdivision of Urning (true homosexual individuals in a strict sense), did not differ in any marked or external characteristics from the type of their own sex;

3) Female Habitus (Weiblinge), a subdivision of Urning, altered their character, mental constitution, habits, and occupations according to their predominant sexual inversion, but still remained in their physical configuration of their own sex;

4) Androgyni, modified the bony structure of the body, the form of the face, the fleshly and muscular integuments to an obvious extent according to their predominant sexual inversion.

“In this characterization,” Symonds wrote, “I have overpassed the limits of the fifteen cases presented by Krafft-Ebing” (160).

Why does Krafft-Ebing’s theory centering around a neuropathic hereditary bias put Symonds on the defensive? I think we might be able to find the answer in one of Krafft-Ebing’s remarks that Symonds mentions several times:

I think it questionable whether the untainted individual is capable of homosexual feelings at all.

Richard von Krafft-Ebing

Is he “tainted”? In response to this stigmatization of homosexual love, Symonds would be reluctant to say “yes”. While Krafft-Ebing repeatedly stresses “inherited disorder,” “neuropathy,” and “morbid predisposition,” what Symonds wanted to hear was, instead, a specialist acknowledging that sexual inversion is “a recurring impulse of humanity, natural to some people, adopted by others, and in the majority of cases compatible with an otherwise normal and healthy temperament” (156).

Reference:

Symonds, John Addington. Regis, Amber K. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Symonds, John Addington. “A Problem in Modern Ethics,” essay, in John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and Homosexuality: A Critical Edition of Sources. Edited by Sean Brady. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Symonds documented an early interest in Greek literature in his Memoirs, when he described being particularly struck by figures such as Shakespeare’s Adonis and Homer’s Hermes, working his way up to writers including Plato, who deeply impacted him when he began his study of him:

Here in the Phaedrus and Symposium — in the Myth of the Soul and the speeches of Pausanias, Agathon, and Diotima — I discovered the true Liber Amoris [Book of Love] at last, the revelation I had been waiting for, the consecration of a long-cherished idealism.

The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds, 152

In the Symposium, Pausanias, one of the speakers Symonds references, contradicts Phaedrus’ description of love, claiming he ought to have distinguished between heavenly and earthly — or heavenly and common — love (Plato, xx). There are, Pausanias claims, two Aphrodites: the heavenly one born from Uranus, who represents an intelligent, noble form of love, and the younger, common Aphrodite born from Zeus and Dione, who represents a perverted lust that is merely a love of the body, not of the soul (Plato, xx).

These two separate forms of love are referenced by Symonds in A Problem in Greek Ethics in his discussion of paiderastia; he describes “two separate forms of masculine passion clearly marked in early Hellas—a noble and a base, a spiritual and a sensual. To the distinction between them the Greek conscience was acutely sensitive” (Problem, section VI). His focus then shifts specifically to the “nobler type of masculine love” the Greeks practiced, stating:

The immediate subject of the ensuing inquiry will, therefore, be that mixed form of paiderastia upon which the Greeks prided themselves, which had for its heroic ideal the friendship of Achilles and Patroclus, but which in historic times exhibited a sensuality unknown to Homer. In treating of this unique product of their civilisation I shall use the terms Greek Love…

A Problem in Greek Ethics

Examples of these relationships are prominent in Greek literature and history. Symonds discusses some of these lovers, famous for their heroic contributions to Greece, and in the section of the essay called “Semi-legendary tales of love,” Section IX, he briefly mentions the most famous pair, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, lauded as heroes for killing the tyrant Hipparchus. This common reference to Harmodius and Aristogeiton as “self-devoted patriots” is an interesting one, because the idea to kill both tyrants was not originally born from a desire to restore democracy; it was of a desire for revenge (Thucydides, xx).

The story begins when Hipparchus sets his sights on Harmodius and tries in vain to seduce him. Harmodius, however, is already in a relationship with Aristogeiton, who is enraged when he learns of Hipparchus’ advances (Thucydides, xx). Hipparchus, nursing a bruised ego, makes a public suggestion that Harmodius’ sister isn’t a virgin, which inspires the lovers to kill him off. After some thinking, their plans become more ambitious, and what starts as a revenge plot is now instead a plot to kill off both Hipparchus and his tyrant brother Hippias, in order to topple the entire regime (Thucydides, xx). While they do not succeed in destroying the regime, they do manage to kill Hipparchus, for which they are both killed shortly after.

Although the lovers perhaps weren’t quite the radical patriots the Greeks may have imagined them to be, and although their sacrifices didn’t ultimately do much to save Athens (for Hippias became even more tyrannical after the death of his brother), one can certainly read the nobility in risking one’s life alongside their lover in order to get revenge, and it is not difficult to see why they were called heroes for their crime. 

Another point of interest in this event is the way heavenly love prevails while earthly love seems almost to be punished. Hipparchus’ interest in Harmodius was based entirely on the love of the body, not the soul, which is evident in his heated reaction to being rejected. He who bore the earthly love, then, was killed off, and the heavenly, heroic love that persisted between Harmodius and Aristogeiton was there until their own deaths. 

While Symonds doesn’t tell this story in full, he does share a bit in his Memoirs that relates to the idea of heavenly love being much more ideal than earthly love. He recounts several early exposures to sexual behaviors that repulsed him. One was an encounter with a boy who masturbated in front of him; he describes his reaction as:

The attractions of a dimly divined almost mystic sensuality persisted in my nature, side by side with a marked repugnance to lust in action…

Memoirs, 100

Shortly after he says:

…This [photograph of  the Praxitelean Cupid] strengthened the ideal I was gradually forming of adolescent beauty…The Cretan customs of heroic paiderastia had much that was good in them.

Memoirs, 118

While Symonds’s encounter with the representation of the statue of Eros by the Greek sculptor Praxiteles occurred some time before he became very interested in Plato, it’s interesting to note this early idea of being attracted to something more abstract than the physical body.

However, one does need to examine these passages within the context of the time; they were written during a period in which homosexuality (or “sexual inversion,” as it was commonly referred to at the time) was not accepted. While talking about his life at Oxford, Symonds devotes a chapter to a boy he fell in love with while there, a chorister named Alfred Brooke. Despite Alfred’s advances toward him, Symonds found himself unable to act on his attraction to Alfred, claiming:

A respectable regard for my father, an ideal of purity in conduct, a dread of the world’s opinion forced upon me by Vaughan’s and Shorting’s histories, combined to make me shrink from action.

Memoirs, 202

He also claims:

Sins of the body are less pernicious than sins of the imagination.

Memoirs, 202

These passages can be read as indicative of an apprehension of prevalent homophobia, especially when considering the usage of words such as “purity” and “sin.”

In addition, while he says toward the end of the Memoirs that to “pay a man to go to bed with me, to get an hour’s gratification out of him at such a price, and then never to see him again, was always abhorrent to my nature,” he follows this idea by stating:

An element of intimacy is demanded, out of which the sexual indulgence springs like a peculiar plant…But I have not sought it, except in the occasional instances mentioned above, unless I was aware that the man knew I meant to be his friend and stand by him.

Memoirs, 519

The latter statement contradicts his earlier assertion of being repulsed by sexual behaviors altogether; rather, here he seems to avoid sexual behaviors that have no basis in intimacy and love. While Symonds does show his appreciation for aestheticism and displays a tendency to prefer heavenly love, it is difficult to argue that his disgust with sexual behavior was a genuine indication of his own personal feelings instead of a larger societal belief.

Despite this question of sincerity, influence from Plato’s works can still clearly be read in Symonds’s own writings. It is from many early passages in the Memoirs that we can trace the ideas that led to the birth of works such as Greek Ethics, inspired by the theories and heroes of ancient Greek literature and the development of his sexuality that resulted. 

WORKS CITED

Plato, “Symposium.” The Dialogues of Plato: Translated into English, by Benjamin Jowett, 3rd ed., vol. 1, University Press, 1892.

Symonds, John Addington. “A Problem in Greek Ethics (1897).” John Addington Symonds Project, 10 Aug. 2020. https://symondsproject.org/greek-ethics-1897/.

Symonds, John Addington. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: a Critical Edition. Edited by Amber K. Regis. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Thucydides. “The History of the Peloponnesian War.” Project Gutenberg, translated by Richard Crawley, updated 7 Sept. 2021, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7142/7142-h/7142-h.htm#link2HCH0019.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet…

William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (1907, 2.2.43-44)

Though I have heard this line from the Bard many times throughout my years of schooling, I rarely stopped to think critically on the importance of names until, while immersed in The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds, I noticed one important aspect: the repeated and insistent use of names. On every page of his Memoirs, Symonds names not only the people with whom he comes into contact but also the plants he finds attractive, the architectural styles he both adores and despises, the books he reads, and countless other aspects of his world–all of which bring his interest in names into clear focus. However, the name in which Symonds was above all interested was his own. While Shakespeare’s Juliet approaches the issue of names with an idealistic hope for their unimportance to society, Symonds takes the opposite view.

Within Victorian social structures, the elite was comprised of multiple social levels. This included both the wealthy but untitled members of society, like Symonds’s family; the gentry, or the members of society that often inherited land and wealth; and the peerage, who held titles and had family coats of arms. Even as Symonds was raised within the upper echelons of Victorian society due to his father’s “professional success,” he records in his Memoirs his aunt’s view that physicians “have no rank in society” (Symonds 2016, 121). The younger Symonds, therefore, remained a world apart from his titled peers, all of whom came from well-named families. Symonds felt this divide acutely. While he viewed himself as a possessor of “physical ugliness, common patronymic, undistinguished status, and mental ineffectiveness,” he considered his classmates “possessors of beauty, strength, birth, rank or genius” (2016, 122). In what can be seen as an attempt to bridge this divide between himself and his peers, Symonds began researching his family genealogy in his teens, attempting to find his family’s coat of arms. As part of this research, he even asked his sister, Charlotte, to copy passages from library books on different lines in their family’s history (e.g., Letters 1:115-116 (45) to Charlotte Symonds (Harrow, September 20, [1857])). Symonds’s concern over name and rank in society followed him into adulthood. For example, when thinking upon the early years of his courtship of his wife, Symonds wrote the following:

I deeply felt my own unworthiness of [Janet Catherine North]. […] In social position and birth I was hardly her equal. I carried an ugly surname.

2016, 258

To Symonds, names were powerful. They marked identity and therefore status within society. The perceived lack in his own name led him to question what he could bring to their union, though he decided to pursue the match regardless of these worries.

Though the teenage Symonds derided his family name as both “common” and “ugly” (2016, 122, 258), he still appeared to take pride in his ancestry. Examples of this pride are riddled throughout his Memoirs, even beyond the entire chapter he devoted to this subject (see p. 12 of editor Amber Regis’s “Introduction” for details). Within the Memoirs, Symonds wrote not only of the relatives that had a rather lasting impact on his life, such as his sister, Charlotte, but also of his ancestors with whom he never had contact. For example, while traveling through Normandy, on June 3, 1867, Symonds wrote to his wife about the supposed travels of one of his ancestors relating to a nearby town (2016, 294-295). This serves as just one such example of the presence Symonds felt of his ancestors and living relatives within his life.

But I vowed to raise myself, somehow or other, to eminence of some sort. […] My ambition took no vulgar form. I felt no desire for wealth, no mere wish to cut a figure in society. But I thirsted with intolerable thirst for eminence, for recognition as a personality.”

Symonds 2016, 122

From an early age, Symonds aspired to greatness, to make a name for himself. In fact, one of his regrets in life was that his father died before Symonds had “made [his] mark and won a name” (2016, 438, 445). Throughout the Memoirs, Symonds writes freely about their close relationship and the great influence his father had in his life. He even goes so far as to say that his father’s death provided him some level of freedom professionally, as his father’s opinions meant the world to him (2016, 439). While some relationships, like that with his father, were obviously too profound for Symonds to distance himself from as he created his own identity as an author, others could have quite easily been kept separate from his professional life. For example, his untitled, non-elite ancestors could have been left behind. Instead, Symonds chose to embrace them, even writing: “if I have any grit in me, I owe it to [the] proud humility of my forefathers” (2016, 86). In openly acknowledging and admiring his connections to these ancestors, he laid claim to that part of his history and his own identity. Symonds was only able to accept this part of his history by learning more about it. A change in perspective likely began when Symonds was a teenager as he traced his family genealogy and defined his family heraldic symbol, but the full change in perspective seems to have occurred later in his life, after the death of his father. By that point, Symonds had friends and comrades who came from all walks of life and all levels of society. While the exact reason for his change of heart is only known to Symonds himself, his new understanding is clearly visible when he describes burning the letters of his ancestors. As he puts it: “I could not bear to think of my own kith and kin, the men and women who had made me, liv[ing] in this haunted cavern” (2016, 85). Whatever his reasoning, whether a reassessment of family after the death of his beloved father or an acknowledgement that the character of a person is more important than their social rank, during his adulthood, Symonds accepted and took pride in the family history he derided in his earlier years.

I will leave the conversation about the intricacies of elitism within Victorian society and its effects on Symonds’s views of himself and others for another day. For now, I leave you with this: What’s in a name? For John Addington Symonds, Jr., a name provided connections to one’s own past and the freedom to express oneself through these connections, while simultaneously limiting one due to the expectations of a hierarchical society.

References:
Shakespeare, William. 1907. Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Edited by William J. Rolfe. New York: American Book Company.
Symonds, John Addington. 1967.The Letters of John Addington Symonds. Edited by Herbert M. Schueller and Robert L. Peters. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Symonds, John Addington. 2016.The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. Edited by Amber K. Regis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Children’s books are, in a way, life guides for their impressionable readers. Being a source of knowledge other than closely related family and friends, these books are written to be relatable and inspirational. It is inevitable that hints of the philosophies that children’s books intend to teach remain influential in the children throughout their lives. Throughout John Addington Symonds’s first twenty-five years of life, a childhood tale, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling, returned to his mind from time to time. Symonds used to “sympathized passionately with the poor bird swimming round and round the duck-puddle” (Memoirs, 67). Just as most children have empathized with the ugly duckling (for it is only typical and natural to believe in a destined happy ending), Symonds has likened himself to the ugly duckling for his inherent belief in his capability to establish his own place in the world.

From his childhood, John Addington Symonds demonstrated outwardly a bright activity, as substantiated by a letter from his sister’s Governess, Sophie Girard (Memoirs, 124). Nevertheless, to Symonds’s own perception, he was never one of spirited and congenial nature. “Being sensitive to the point of suspiciousness,” he constantly imagined that he “inspired repugnance in others,” most possibly due to his nervous character and “many physical ailments” (Memoirs, 67-68). This belief urged him to unconsciously dissemble his most intimate feelings and put on a common disguise.

Symonds’s development of personality greatly intertwined with his development of sexual consciousness. After the first revelation to the sexual sentiments by his nurse and fellows, Symonds realized through his early experiences that the “sex which drew [him] with attraction was the male”(Memoirs, 100). Since an early age, Symonds realized vaguely that the recurring reveries and dreams of robust and masculine men indicated some difference in himself. This awareness, accompanied by his distinct character, made him unlike his peers.

I felt that my course, though it collided with that of my schoolfellows, was bound to be different from theirs.

The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds, 134

Symonds’s experience can be compared side by side with that of the ugly duckling, in more ways that have been mentioned so far . In his Memoirs, Symonds describes his time (1854–58) at Harrow School for boys, as follows:

Living little in the open air, poring stupidly and mechanically over books, shut up for hours in badly ventilated schoolrooms and my own close study, I dwindled physically…It is no wonder that I came to be regarded as an uncomradely unclubbable boy by my companions.

The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds, 135-136

It would be preposterous to assert that Symonds has gained no respect or formed no friendships at Harrow, for he has devoted a portion of his Memoirs to portray these valuable experiences. However, it is reasonable to say that Symonds was not generally sociable during these four years, and that, like the ugly duckling, he was regarded by the majority of his peers as feeble and different.

The years at Harrow School, though not all joyful, contributed to a phenomenal internal growth in Symonds. Close interactions with young boys of his age allowed him to explore and become more aware of his idea of sex. At the meantime, upon witness of daily obscenity in the dormitories and degrading treatment of “every boy of good looks” “either as public prostitute or as some bigger fellow’s ‘bitch,'” Symonds was filled with disgust for lustful and obscene characters (Memoirs, 147). More than once has Symonds mentioned the influence that the Greek in him has brought to his aesthetics and conduct of life. Even before reading much of Greek literature, he had, he claims, “an ideal passion which corresponded to Platonic love” (Memoirs, 149).

In Symonds’s first mention of The Ugly Duckling, he explains what moved him greatly in the story:

I cried convulsively when he flew away to join his beautiful wide-winged white brethren of the windy journeys and the lonely meres.

The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds, 67

In the Memoirs, the night when Symonds read Plato’s Phaedrus and Symposium can be juxtaposed in importance to the time when the ugly duckling fledged into a beautiful swan. Despite the fact that he was born in 19th century England, Symonds was not granted a sense of belongingness to his own surroundings, partly because his sexual orientation could not be discussed or professed publicly without him being criticized by contemporaries. Instead, he was able to reconcile himself with Greek literature from over two thousands years ago:

For the first time I saw the possibility of resolving in a practical harmony the discords of my inborn instincts.

The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds, 152

The good creature felt himself really elevated by all the troubles and adversities he had experienced. He could now rightly estimate his own happiness, and the larger swans swam around him, and stoked {check} him with their beaks.

Danish Fairy Legends and Tales, 42

It is remarkable that this children story had such a great impact in Symonds that the ugly duckling is mentioned even in recollection of his university life. In Chapter 6 of the Memoirs, which speaks of his life in the University of Oxford, Symonds recounts once more how he “was still the ugly duckling”, because he was sustained by “a dim consciousness of latent ability” (171). This feeling reflects that from his childhood, and presumably it lasted beyond his youth.

Symonds’s academic and personal connection to Greek literature led to his deeper studies about Greek society and works. While John Addington Symonds grew to be full-fledged as a translator and an author, he also achieved self-discovery and remained loyal to a sentiment that he believed to be antenatal:

My soul was lodged in Hellas.

The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds, 155

WORKS CITED:

Symonds, John Addington. Regis, Amber K. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Andersen, Hans Christian. Danish Fairy Legends and Tales. London: William Pickering, 1846
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hwhmbe

In his Memoirs, John Addington Symonds writes of his relationship with his Classics Professor John Conington at Harrow as an “almost wholly good” friendship (170). He describes Conington as a “scrupulously moral and cautious man,” yet also as someone that “sympathized with romantic attachments for boys” (170). Based on Symonds’ account, their relationship was not erotically charged, yet we can infer that Conington likely saw elements of himself reflected in Symonds’ interest in his male peers. This is further supported by the fact that Conington gave Symonds a copy of Ionica by William Johnson, later known as William Johnson Cory. 

According to a note from a reprinting of the 1891 volume, the 1858 edition of Ionica that Symonds possessed contained forty-eight poems, which were formally published by Smith, Elder, and Company. One of the preeminent publishers of the era, Smith, Elder, and Company were most well-known for publishing Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (albeit under a pseudonym). Thus, it isn’t entirely shocking that they were willing to risk printing Ionica despite its references to love between men. As for Johnson himself, we might imagine that his highly respected status as the head of Eton afforded him the benefit of the doubt to a greater degree than most. 

• 

Still, it appears that by 1877 even Johnson felt the need to exercise greater caution. He privately printed a second, anonymous volume of twenty-five poems under the title of “Ionica II.” This second collection did not even include a title page. Interestingly, it also did not contain punctuation, extending a kind of non-conformity to its structure. Evidently, as is supported by Symonds’ Memoirs and the need for multiple reprintings, Ionica and Ionica II captivated an engaged readership. Given this, in 1891, a volume combining both sets of poems – eighty-five in total – was formally published. Hopkins possesses a copy of this edition in its Special Collections. 

Symonds writes in his Memoirs that it was through reading Ionica that he first learned of Johnson’s “affair” with Charlie Wood, one of his “pupils” (170). This “love story” struck Symonds, “straight to my heart” and “inflamed my imagination” (170). Lines such as “For him who led me through that park; / And though a stranger throw aside / Such grains of common sentiment, / Yet let your haughty head be bent” from the poem “Desiderato” resonated with Symonds (Cory). However, their influence was not benign. In his own words, Symonds writes that they “helped to form a dream world of unhealthy fancies about love” (170). 

He was so moved by Ionica, that Symonds wrote to William Johnson Cory seeking advice on “the state of my own feelings,” his love for his male peers (170). According to Symonds, Johnson replied with a letter on the practice of Greek “paiderastia in modern times” (170). This correspondence seems likely to have influenced Symonds’ essay on the topic of male love in Ancient Greece, “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” which, although it was initially printed only privately, found a similarly enthusiastic audience as Ionica.    

Ionica not only left an indelible impact on Symonds and his mode of thinking about sexuality, it also played a role in facilitating a conversation between Symonds and Conington that would alter several of their peers’ lives. It was during a discussion of “passion between male persons” spurred by Ionica that Symonds revealed to his professor that his former headmaster, C.J. Vaughan, and his classmate at Harrow, Alfred Pretor, had engaged in an affair (171). While his friends, including Pretor himself, felt betrayed and ended their relationships with Symonds, Symonds viewed revealing what he knew as his moral obligation. The subsequent chain of events led to Vaughan stepping down from his position at Harrow and declining two bishoprics (174). It is ironic that, rather than existing as a bridge between Symonds’s concept closer to an empathetic understanding of his peers’ affairs, Ionica figured prominently in his memory as associated with the ruin of several of his closest friendships. 

Works Cited:

Cory, William Johnson. Ionica. London: G. Allen, 1891.

Symonds, John Addington. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. Edited by Amber K. Regis. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016.

In John Addington Symonds’ Memoirs, a passing comment and marginal note regarding J. F. Nisbet’s The Insanity of Genius and the General Inequality of Human Faculty subtly reveals Symonds’ contention with the theories of his contemporaries regarding a cause for differences in sexuality.

In the second chapter of his Memoirs, titled “Containing Material Which None but Students of Psychology and Ethics Need Peruse,” Symonds meditates on his first stirrings of sexual instinct. Here is where he realizes his “inborn craving after persons of [his] own sex” (p. 101, Memoirs). He goes on to cite Paul Moreau, Benjamin Tarnowski, and Richard von Krafft-Ebing, interpreting their sexologist arguments as tying sexual inversion to a neurotic disorder. After considering this theory, Symonds admits that he exhibits many of the symptoms that Krafft-Ebing recognizes as hereditary neuroticism that predisposes its subject to sexual inversion. 

However, Symonds denies that he is the victim of an “exceptional neurotic malady” (p.102, Memoirs) and opposes Krafft-Ebings theory by arguing that his high degree of nervous energy has in fact been useful in his success in writing and scholarship.

“It is notorious that in literature I have done a very large amount of work, not only brilliant, but solid and laborious, which has placed me in the front rank of English authors.” (p. 102, Memoirs)

In reading Symonds’ works, A Problem in Greek Ethics, for example, it is easy to see the meticulous treatment with which he combs through Greek literature, so perhaps his self-recognition of his “brilliant” work is valid. The point of tension Symonds sees is the notion of a pathological or biological reason for sexual inversion. Specifically, he finds Nisbet’s The Insanity of Genius paradoxical. 

Here we approach too near to the paradox that genius is a species of madness. (p. 103, Memoirs)

Symonds’ marginal note refers to Lombroso’s Man of Genius and Nisbet’s Insanity of Genius as works that are “upholding the hypothesis I attempted to combat” (p. 104, Memoirs). This hypothesis expands past just a tie with intelligence, as Symonds applies these principles to his ideas of the reason for sexual inversion.

It is likely that the circumstances under which Symonds read Scottish journalist and author John Ferguson Nisbet’s 1891 The Insanity of Genius was to critique the general notion that someone who exhibits traits of genius are mad. Broadly, Symonds finds fault in the general concept advanced by pathological psychologists that abnormality (sexual inversion in his case) is a sickness or hereditary disease. He sees sexual inversion as a complex variety of type exhibited by nature.  

Nisbet’s work contains theories that Symonds would have disagreed with based on his personal beliefs about his own sexuality (quoted below) and his beliefs that male-male relationships were of benefit to society and had spiritual value (Ch. I, A Problem in Greek Ethics). 

I have no feminine feelings for the males who rouse my desires. The anomaly of my position is that I admire the physical beauty of men more than women, derive more pleasure from their contact and society, and am stirred to sexual sensations exclusively by persons of the male sex. (p. 103, Memoirs). 

The problem Symonds likely saw in The Insanity of Genius was Nisbet’s assumption that sexual selection is directly tied to Charles Darwin’s survival of the fittest argument. Symonds probably saw the hole in Nisbet’s argument that if natural selection (the principle that the fittest will survive and reproduce to preserve the variations most beneficial to the community) is directly correlated with intelligence, then a “genius” like Symonds would not “fit” in and any sexual inversion would deny him the opportunity to reproduce (p. 327, The Insanity of Genius). This supports Symonds’ denial of a physical/pathological basis of sexual inversion as well as genius. Nisbet as well as Darwin would classify Symonds, even if a genius, as “unfit” or as an error of sexual instinct. 

A particularly interesting moment in The Insanity of Genius is when Nisbet analyzes nineteenth century French novelist Gustave Flaubert’s correlation between the development of intellectual power and his increased epileptic attacks. Nisbet claims that without his malady, Flaubert would have been relegated to the life of a more menial occupation like a lawyer instead of a writer. The place where I believe Symonds could feel a relation while reading this is when Nisbet characterizes Flaubert as a laborious and obsessed writer having “no passion for the fair sex, to whom, indeed, throughout his life he appears to have cherished an absolute repugnance” (p.140, The Insanity of Genius). This strikes a certain resonance with the way Symonds characterizes his own genius. Additionally, Symonds’ references to Flaubert’s distaste of women suggests a familiarity with this sort of sexually inverted (or perhaps asexual) genius.

I believe that what would have bothered Symonds is that whether the genius person is vain and egotistical, licentious, or only shows genius in certain areas, Nisbet uses a general theory of faculty and character as a catch-all to define all those who he considers genius. However, I think that Symonds would have taken solace in Nisbet hedging his own theory by saying “If it could be shown that all men, great and small, distinguished and undistinguished, were equally subject to nerve-disorder, the theory of genius as a neurosis would fall to the ground” (p. 315, The Insanity of Genius).

Work Cited:

Symonds, John Addington, and Amber K Regis. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds : a Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Symonds, John Addington. 2012. “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” essay, in John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and Homosexuality: a Critical Edition of Sources. Edited by Sean Brady. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Nisbet, John Ferguson. The Insanity of Genius and the General Inequality of Human Faculty: Physiologically Considered. New ed. London: Ward & Downey, 1891.

John Addington Symonds exchanged many letters throughout his life with American poet Walt Whitman. He records his first interaction with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass with fervor: “The book became for me a sort of Bible… I … tried to invigorate the emotion I could not shake off by absorbing Whitman’s conception of comradeship” (Memoirs, 368). The idea of comradeship is something that continued to permeate Symonds’ interaction with Whitman.

Through correspondence between Whitman and Symonds, we can see that Symonds used Leaves of Grass specifically as a catalyst for his interaction with an expanding community of interlocutors. In January of 1877, Symonds wrote to Whitman,

“I do so now [i.e., write you], however, begging you to send me copies of Leaves of Grass & Two Rivulets… I shall then have copies for myself & copies to give to a friend.”(1)

This letter shows us that Symonds is beginning to expand his social circle using Whitman’s poetry. Throughout the next few years, Symonds continued to write to Whitman, developing an infatuation with the poet and his work. Through these letters we see that Symonds uses the writings as a means to interact with the kind of people to whom Whitman refers in “In Paths Untrodden” as “all who are, or have been, young men.” (2)

In June of 1886, Whitman wrote to Symonds, “I write a line to introduce & authenticate a valued personal & literary friend of mine, Wm Sloane Kennedy, who will send you this. He is every way friendly & [sic] rapport with ‘Leaves of Grass’ & with me.” (3) Whitman is responsive to Symonds’ sentiment and widens the circle of men bonding over Leaves of Grass. Within Symonds’ world this collection of poems becomes a way to unite people across countries and continents. Perhaps for Symonds this meant feeling less alone as he thinks about his sexuality.

Leaves of Grass is a way to make new connections as well as to deepen already established relationships. Symonds tells Whitman that, “I gave him [Symond’s nephew] a copy of Leaves of Grass in 1874, & he knows a great portion of it now by heart.” (4) Symonds also included some of his nephew’s poetry in the letter. The collection allows Symonds to share a sort of emotional vulnerability with people. Symonds clearly hoped that the people with whom he chose to share the poet’s words would interpret the words as he had. Symonds thus allows Whitman’s words to express his own feelings.

Symonds’ equating of Leaves of Grass to the Bible reveals that, in a way, he uses the collection as some use religious texts. It is a medium by which to spread a message and create a community. Symonds specifically cites the “Calamus” cluster of poems. He writes, “Inspired by ‘Calamus’ I adopted another method of palliative treatment, and tried to invigorate the emotion I could not shake off by absorbing Whitman’s conception of comradeship,” (Memoirs, 368) this last word being the term Whitman used and Symonds adopted as a kind of code for male-male attachment. It may have been this idea that prompted Symonds to do his best to connect with as many men as possible through the text. The poem, “In Paths Untrodden” in particular would likely have resonated with Symonds:

“That the soul of the man I speak for, feeds, rejoices only in comrades…
I proceed, for all who are, or have been, young men,
To tell the secret of my nights and days,
To celebrate the need of comrades.”(5)

Symonds’ interaction with Leaves of Grass provides us the ability to understand how he used the text to create a community. It is undeniable that the collection of poems is something profound that Symonds wishes to share.

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Footnotes:

(1) “John Addington Symonds to Walt Whitman, 23 January 1877.” The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 14 October 2019. <https://whitmanarchive.org/biography/correspondence/tei/loc.04208.html>.

(2)Whitman, Walt. “In Paths Untrodden.” Leaves of Grass, Whitman Archive, 1860-1861. <https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1860/poems/77>.

(3) “Walt Whitman to John Addington Symonds, 20 June 1886.” The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 14 October 2019. <https://whitmanarchive.org/biography/correspondence/tei/loc.04965.html>.

(4) “John Addington Symonds to Walt Whitman, 12 July 1877.” The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 14 October 2019. <https://whitmanarchive.org/biography/correspondence/tei/loc.04063.html>.

(5) Whitman, Walt. “In Paths Untrodden.” Leaves of Grass, Whitman Archive, 1860-1861. <https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1860/poems/77>.

Works Cited:

Symonds, John Addington. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. Edited by Amber K. Regis, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016.

“The Walt Whitman Archive.” Edited by Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price, The Walt Whitman Archive, whitmanarchive.org.

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs’ series of twelve pamphlets, Forschungen über das Rätsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (“Research on the riddle on male-male love”), published between 1864 and 1870, comprise a seminal work in the history of sexuality. For Symonds, Ulrichs’ texts lay the foundation for his understanding of “sexual inversion,” the more common term and concept before they were supplanted by “homosexuality,” which Symonds himself was the first to borrow from the language of German sexologists.

Symonds references the idea of “Urnings,” a term that Ulrichs uses to describe men who are attracted other men. In particular, Symonds references “Uranian Love,” as it is described in Plato’s Symposium, in A Problem in Greek Ethics:

“The offspring of the heavenly Aphrodite is derived from a mother in whose birth the female has no part. She is from the male only; this is that love which is of youths, and the goddess being older, has nothing of wantonness.”

(Plato, Symposium 181, trans. Jowett, quoted in Symonds, Greek Ethics XIII)

The etymological origin for the term “Urning” is Uranus, based on the idea that Aphrodite’s origin is from Uranus’s testicles, as Plato explains in the Symposium. For Ulrichs, Urnings “form a sex apart—having literally a feminine soul included within a male body,” in reference to Aphrodite’s contrasting lineage and form (Symonds, Sexual Inversion, 102). This framing is epitomized by the “woman in male form” motif in Ulrichs’ explanation of sexual inversion. Ulrichs’ use of a classical framework resembles Symonds’ use of a classical framework in his Memoirs. Symonds states that:

Our earliest memories of words, poems, works of art, have great value in the study of psychical development.

(Memoirs, 101).

For Symonds, classical art provides a place where an analysis of the kind that all of the sexologists of his day try to do with psychological theories because it focuses on the individual lived experience. The response to art—in Symonds’ case, art from classical antiquity—provides an insight into what Symonds perceives as the ideal form of human relationships. Most psychological studies of Symonds’ time dealt with explanations of phenomena like sexual inversion from the outside looking in, figuratively speaking, by using theoretical models to explain behaviors. Symonds inverts that paradigm, by building out from experience toward a larger theory of sexology. When one views artistic depictions of bodies, there can be an underlying sexual reaction to the artistic representation of the body.

In A Problem in Modern Ethics, Symonds references Ulrichs as the first scholar to offer “serious and sympathetic treatment” of the topic of sexual inversion (159). For Symonds, Ulrichs “proceeds to argue that the present state of the law in many states of Europe is flagrantly unjust to a class of innocent persons, who may indeed be regarded as unfortunate and inconvenient, but who are guilty of nothing which deserves reprobation and punishment” (ibid. 159). In large part, Symonds agrees with Ulrichs’ view of the legal oppression of same-sex relations, and in that sense, Symonds sees Ulrichs as one of the first scholars to take a more research-based approach to the issue.

Symonds notes that the German lawyer wrote his pamphlets with the intention of establishing “a theory of sexual inversion upon the basis of natural science, proving that abnormal instincts are inborn and healthy in a considerable percentage of human beings” and therefore “that they do not owe their origin to bad habits of any kind, to hereditary disease or to wilful depravity” (ibid. 159).

Symonds argues that of the twelve pamphlets that were published, the seventh is the one that introduces the major concepts of Ulrichs’ theories: “Memnon may be used as the textbook of its author’s theories” (ibid. 159). In his seventh pamphlet “Memnon,” Ulrichs states that:

“The primitive hermaphrodite is reshaped into an Urning. There arises a man, but not in the strict sense, endowed with a female sexual drive, who, therefore, although he has testicles, feels himself attracted through the inner sexual drive, not to women, but to (young) men, hence an Urning.”

(Ulrichs 303)

Ulrichs’ theory then splits the Urning into different types, distinguished based on the behaviors of the Urning: “the Mannling and the Weibling. Mannlings’ physical characteristics…are completely masculine; only the bare mental sex, the direction of the yearning towards the male sex, is feminine,” while Weiblings are physically and sexually “completely feminine; only the biological sex is masculine” (ibid. 306). To these basic categories he added a series of subcategories and hybrid categories.

Symonds relates to Ulrichs’ sexological theories at a personal level, not just on an academic level. “With regard to Ulrichs, in his peculiar phraseology, I should certainly be tabulated as a Mittel Urning , holding a mean between the Mannling and the Weibling ; that is to say, one whose emotions are directed to the male sex during the period of adolescence and early manhood; who is not marked either by an effeminate passion for robust adults or by a predilection for young boys” (Memoirs , 103).

While Ulrichs’ influence on Symonds can been seen in his understanding of sexual inversion and the common connection with the classical framework of Uranian love, Symonds was by no means completely in agreement with Ulrichs. In his Memoirs, Symonds notes some of these disagreements and explains his own understanding of sexual inversion: “It does not appear to me that either Ulrichs or the school of neuropathical physicians have solved the problem offered by individuals of my type” (102). Specifically, Symonds agrees with Ulrichs’ general hypothesis about the natural origin of sexual inversion, but he sees a disconnect between Ulrichs’ theories and his own lived experience and personal view of idealized love between men.

As a result of his disagreement with previous scholarship on sexual inversion, Symonds argues “that the abnormality in question is not to be explained either by Ulrichs’s theory, or by the presumptions of the pathological psychologists. Its solution has to be sought far deeper in the mystery of sex, and in the variety of type exhibited by nature” (Memoirs, 103). In other words, Symonds places himself as a descendant and a critic of the ideas put forth by previous scholars.

Works Cited

Plato. Jowett, Benjamin, translator. Symposium. MIT. Internet Classics Archive, http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html.

Symonds, John Addington. Regis, Amber K, editor. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016.

Symonds, John Addington. A Problem in Greek Ethics. Sexual Inversion. Bell Publishing Company, 1984.

—. Symonds, John Addington. A Problem in Modern Ethics.

Ulrichs, Karl Heinrich. The Riddle of “Man-Manly” Love: The Pioneering Work on Male Homosexuality. Translated by Michael A. Lombardi-Nash, vol. 2, Prometheus Books, 1994.

In his Memoirs, Symonds wrote that his “house was well stocked with engravings, photographs, copies of Italian pictures and illustrated works upon Greek sculpture” and more.  He considered “the two large folios issued by the Dilettante Society” as “among his chief favorites” (118). The Society of Dilettanti, the group of men that compiled such collections, was founded in 1734 and consisted of young, educated Brits who had been on a so-called “Grand Tour” of Italy, as was fashionable at the time. The impact of the collections of engravings and sculptures that they published is evidenced by Symonds’ passion for consuming such compilations and, later, his own time abroad in Italy. 

The image above is a unique art object featured in one of the Society’s catalogs. While it shows a relief that currently adorns a vase, the work was believed by the Society to have originally been a Περιστομιον, a decorative engraving around the mouth of a well. It portrays the introduction of Paris to Helen by Venus, who shares in the task with the three muses, Polyhymnia, Erato, and Euterpe, and, of course, Love himself (as personified by the winged boy) (31). The presence of this Cupid-like vision of Love is what makes this image particularly striking, as we know from Symonds’ memoirs that he was so enraptured with Plato’s the Phaedrus and the Symposium, two of the most well-known dialogues on the subject of love,that he read them in one-sitting, until “the sun was shining on the shrubs outside the ground-floor room in which I slept” (152). 

Today, while they may take on new forms like Instagram poetry or advice columns, conversations surrounding the nature of love live on and retain the power to offer us perspective that help us to feel less alone. One hotly debated topic remains whether or not falling in love is something we can control. In their description of the image above, the Society of Dilettanti writes that “the conduct of Helen is invariably represented as the effect of an irresistible destiny” (Specimens). In other words, Helen’s position, surrounded by those conspiring to make her fall for Paris, leaves her vulnerable; there is nothing she can do to resist her fate. Interestingly, in his Memoirs, Symonds expresses a similar lack of agency, writing that his “enthusiasm for male beauty” has “ruled him from childhood” (152).

While this image portrays Love acting upon a man and a woman, we can imagine Symonds identifying with the kind of experience of an all-encompassing, undeniable attraction depicted. This is all the more powerful when considered in conjunction with Plato’s Symposium, especiallyPausanias’ argument that “there is dishonor in yielding to the evil, or in an evil manner; but there is honour in yielding to the good, or in an honourable manner” (181a). Helen herself may have met a dire end, but the Symposium emphasizes that so long as one’s love is characterized by noble qualities, succumbing to the influence of its larger-than-life power can better both of the parties involved. As Symonds writes, through reading this ancient text, he realized the “moral charm” and “sublimity” in the love he shared for other men and, in this way, discovered a means of beginning to find “harmony” (152).  

Works Cited 

Dorment, Richard. “The Dilettanti: Exclusive Society That Celebrates Art.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 2 Sept. 2008, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3559589/The-Dilettanti-exclusive-society-that-celebrates-art.html.

Plato. Symposium, Translated by B. Jowett, 2013. Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1600/1600-h/1600-h.htm.

Specimens of Antient Sculpture, Ægyptian, Etruscan, Greek and Roman: Selected From Different Collection In Great Britain. London: Printed by T. Bensley for T. Payne, and J. White and co., 1809.

Symonds, John Addington. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. Edited by Amber K. Regis. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016.

It is clear that John Addington Symonds was more than inundated with images of classical-style architecture from large-form sketches to more nuanced blueprint-like drawings—images like those from the Society of Dilettanti’s Ionian Antiquities. The images pictured below display conventional elements of Classical architecture: Ionic columns, measured forms that are easy to read, golden ratio proportions, and marble construction. What is particularly interesting though is the pure volume of classical architecture and classicizing forms he was exposed to through books in his father’s collection, including not only the volumes of the Society of Dilettanti, but also illustrations by Flaxman and reproductions of Hamilton’s vase collection. In his Memoirs, Symonds gives us detailed descriptions of architecture, but upon a closer look, he rarely mentions classical architecture; the overwhelming majority of his architectural passages describe a Gothic style. So despite his early exposure to classical architecture and obvious affinity for classical Greece and antiquity why does he home in on some of the complexities and forms of Gothic architecture?

Here is Symonds’ first instance of an architectural description of a Gothic-style space. I have bolded the most salient phrase for emphasis. 

The sense of meanness which annoyed me in our house, afflicted me far more keenly in the Chapel of the Blind Asylum, where we attended service twice on Sundays. The bastard Gothic lancets, dead grey, rough-cast walls and ugly painted wood-work of that paltry building gave me absolute pain. It suffocated my soul and made me loathe evangelical Protestantism. Most of all, at night, when gas-lamps flared in open jets upon the sordid scene, I felt defrauded of some dimly apprehended birthright. (Memoirs, p. 67)

Laden with negative words to describe Gothic forms, Symonds refers to the Gothic lancets as “bastard,” augments the color grey to “dead grey,” and inconspicuously calls the painted wood-work “ugly,” saying it gave him pain. Symonds lays it out for us in his line condemning soul-suffocating evangelical Protestantism. These recollections belong to a young Symonds most likely under ten years old. At this point in his childhood, we know his relationship with God is similar to superstition more than piety.

So I kept perpetually mumbling: ‘Oh, God, save me from the cholera!’ This superstitious habit clung to me for years. I believe that it obstructed the growth of sound ideas upon religion; but I cannot say that I ever was sincerely pious, or ever realized the language about God I heard and parroted. (Memoirs, p. 69)

As Ellen Harty points out in a 2019 blog post, Symonds would have had exposure to some disturbing depictions of hell as a child, possibly adding to his negative perception of Church services, and, transitively, Gothic architecture. Symonds makes his divisive relationship with God evident in his writings as well.

In a dim way I felt God more. But I did not learn to fling the arms of soul in faith upon the cross of Christ. That was not in me. And it would be unfair to expect from any sacrament of the church that it should work a miracle on catechumens. (Memoirs, p. 141)

Employing no effort to hide his distaste, Symonds continuously takes opportunities within his Memoirs to point out his dislike of Gothic architecture. In the quote below you can see how he perceives Gothic-revival as tacky. 

In those days Clifton must have been beautiful and wild indeed. The few houses of the gentry clustered around the humble village church— not that ugly building which now perpetuates the bad taste of the incipient Gothic revival, and the dismal piety of the Simeon trustees—but a rustic West of England chapel, with narrow windows and low sloping roof. (Memoirs, p. 107)

From these examples, it is easy to assume a connection between the drab yet imposing Gothic architecture that Symonds perceives and his negative feelings about going to Church as a child, but as we look at more of his architectural descriptions, we can see a much more complex relationship. 

Because his youth meditations on the Gothic style are related to churches, at first it seems that the church is the object that fuels his contempt for Gothic. But one instance at the Bristol Cathedral, originally a Gothic church with Gothic revival editions in the 19th century, Symonds viewpoint radically changes. In the quote below Symonds has recently been “awoken” by the concepts of love in Plato’s Phaedrus and Symposium and is about to be charmed by his first love Willie Dyer.

On the first Sunday morning after my arrival, I attended service in Bristol Cathedral. It was a radiant forenoon, and the light streamed in from those large southern windows. My ritualistic pranks with Vickers at Harrow had this much of reality in them, that they indicated a natural susceptibility to the aesthetic side of religion—I felt a real affection and natural reverence for grey Gothic churches. The painted glass and heraldries in this cathedral, crusaders cross-legged on their tombs, carved woodwork and high-built organ lofts, the monuments to folk long dead, and, over all, the quiring voices and reverberations of sweet sacred music, touched me to the quick at a thousand sensitive points. There was no real piety, however, in my mood. My soul was lodged in Hellas; and the Christian in me stirred only, like a torpid snake, sunned by the genial warmth of art. (Memoirs, p. 155)

Symond’s newly found reverence for the Gothic comes at a point in his life when he “was on the verge of attaining to a man’s self-consciousness.” When meditating on his relationship with Willie he realizes that 

In [Willie] too I found the final satisfaction of that dim aesthetic ecstasy which I called religion. Music and the grandeur of Gothic aisles, the mystery of winter evenings in cathedral choirs, when the tumultuous vibrations of the organ shook the giant windows and made the candles in their sconces tremble, took from him a poetry that pierced into my heart and marrow. (Memoirs, p. 156)

I would argue that this is the turning point in his life where not only has he accepted Gothic architecture as a noble and reverent form, but in a less superficial way, he begins to understand the Gothic style as more than just imposing forms. About ten years later, Symonds comes to a realization while reflecting on the music in the presence of sacred architecture and explaining that a cathedral without music to fill the space with “invisible presences” makes the architecture seem dead and cold (Memoirs, p. 288).

The church of St Ouen might be almost called provokingly perfect: a full-sized, elaborately designed Gothic cathedral, finished on one plan down to its minutest details. Some of the romance of old church-building is lost by this completeness. The precise way in which it has been isolated from surrounding houses and planted at one end with pleasant trees, destroys the pathos of the picturesque. Nothing is left to the imagination. But for gaining an insight into the working of the medieval brains which planned these structures, St Ouen is invaluable. Here the veriest child can see that the spirit of Gothic art is not anarchy, but symmetry and order. Only the parts here forced into correspondence are almost infinite; not, as in the case of Greek work, select and few. (Memoirs, p. 289)

Symonds completely flips his perception of Gothic architecture throughout his life concluding that the inherent spirit of Gothic architecture is in the symmetry and order of its forms. From this point on, Symond’s descriptions and meditations on Gothic architecture are generally positive. He calls out fine distinctions between different regions’ Gothic styles telling us that he finds the early pointed style more tasteful than the later iterations of Gothic (decorated style). And from here, his descriptions of Gothic become nothing less than poetic. For example: 

On a second visit to the cathedral, by dint of staying there in quiet thought for two hours, I harmonized my mind to its severe and heaven-aspiring beauty. This church has the bloom and freshness of adolescence; the strength of the old Norman with the delicacy and luxuriant loveliness of early Gothic. The huge round arches of the nave are adorned with diapers and traceries, not yet formed into flowers or foliage, but rich like gured brocades. The transept and the choir expand into the beauty of clustered columns, soaring to a vast height and feathering with fantastic leafage, while the long pointed windows of clerestory and chapel hold wheels, cut into hexagons and quatrefoils by pure crisp cusps, the very models of expanded summer blossoms. (Memoirs, p. 294). 

Symond’s fascinating relationship with the Gothic poses many questions. There is a clear turning point where Symonds is touched by religion, love, and the Gothic architecture he once felt a bold distaste for. So why are all these different aspects of Symonds’ psyche connected?  It is interesting to think about his childhood exposure of Gothic style juxtaposed with the overwhelmingly classical collection of his father’s library. Perhaps Symonds’ notion of the visual culture of antiquity holds a different place in his mind compared to the emotional and religious sacredness of the Gothic that he only first realizes when he feels his first romantic connection. It is possible that his romanticizing of Gothic architecture after his “awakening” and encounter with Willie Dyer in the Bristol Cathedral positively paints his perception of Gothic architecture allowing him to not only see the beauty in the physical forms, but the more sacrosanct nature of Gothic’s symmetry and order. 

While it seems at first that Symond’s childhood distaste of the Gothic comes from a dislike of church, his early relationship with the style could easily be attributed to a lack of exposure. Regardless, it is noticeable that the further Symonds gets from his childhood, his father’s library, and the classical imagery on which he would place great academic value, the more he experiences the profound nature of the Gothic style and the more he comes to revere it in a manner that goes deeper than purely taste or preference for form and style.

Works cited:

Symonds, John Addington, and Amber K Regis. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds : a Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Chandler, Richard, Nicholas Revett, and William Pars. Ionian Antiqvities. London: Printed by T. Spilsbury and W. Haskell, 1769.

John Addington Symonds was exposed to classical Greco-Roman art through the large illustrated folios in the library in his childhood home in Clifton. In his Memoirs, Symonds recalls that his house “was well stocked with engravings, photographs, copies of Italian pictures, and illustrated works upon Greek sculpture.” (118). From this large collection, Symonds mentions that “the two large folios issued by the Dilettante Society were among my favorites” (ibid). The Dilletante Society that Symonds refers to, more properly known as the Society of Dilettanti, was an academic society that focused on studying ancient Greek and Roman art.

One of these folios is most likely Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, Ægyptian, Estruscan, Greek, and Roman: Selected from Different Collections in Great Britain published by the Society of Dilettanti published in 1809. Specimens is filled with engravings that reproduce pieces of sculpture obtained by the British Museum from private donors of ancient Greek sculptures, including the figure of Apollo, whose representations in art and literature became an inspiration for Symonds throughout his life. Symonds describes the attraction as follows:

“The kernel of my inspiration was that radiant figure of the young Apollo, doomed to pass his time with shepherds, serving them, and loving them. A luminous haze of yearning emotion surrounded the god. His divine beauty penetrated my soul and marrow”

(114)

These descriptions of Apollo come from the mythological story of Apollo’s servitude to King Admetus as punishment for rebelling against Zeus (Apollodorus, The Library): “So he went to Admetus, son of Pheres, at Pherae, and served him as a herdsman, and caused all the cows to drop twins” (Apollodorus). This description of Apollo is one that sets the deity in a pastoral landscape, with the god interacting with nature and potential lovers of both genders. The erotic implications of such a setting are well illustrated in “The Herdsmen of Admetus” painted by Constance Phillott.

Symonds’ understanding of Apollonian beauty was not just one based on literary understanding of the mythological figure, but also on visual representations which portray the figure of Apollo. In Plate V of the Specimens, the figure of Apollo is depicted; as the description notes:

“The muscles of the limbs and body are full and prominent after the antient manner of representation”

(Society of Dilettanti)

In this depiction of the god, he seems to be engaging in something related to nature, like hunting. According to the text in the book, “the right arm might have rested on a quiver, the left seems to have held a bow, which has been in contact with the leg on the left side.” (Society of Dilettanti).

In the corner of the plate, is the inscription “J.S. Agar”, referring to John Samuel Agar, a painter and engraver in the early nineteenth century, close to the publication date of this book. Unlike John Flaxman, another engraver of the time, Agar utilizes a style of engraving depicts Apollo’s full form in a realistic style. This depiction of Apollo, with its sharp details, displays his physicality, not his intellect or his association with the arts, comparable more to “patron of pugilism than to the leader of a celestial orchestra” (Society of Dilettanti).

Symonds equates Apollo with masculinity and his association with nature, such as the legends of Apollo’s travels among shepherds. For Symonds, “the god of my adoration drank life and love among the sheep-cotes of Admetus” (Memoirs, 114). Symonds understands Apollo as both an abstracted deity of the arts, but also as a representation of ideal male beauty. This view of Apollo is one that depicts idealized beauty which Symonds uses to judge what he perceives in others.

Symonds’s view of art also influenced his view of real life. When he describes his relationship with William Dyer, Symonds describes his friend as: “the boy who owned that voice seemed the only beautiful, the only flawless being I had ever seen” (Memoirs, 155). This description of Dyer reflects the view that Symonds holds in his mind about ideal beauty, which he contrasts to the social relationships that prevailed at Harrow.  

He writes that Dyer “had delivered my soul from the Egyptian house of Harrow bondage. He enabled me to realize an ideal of a passionate and yet pure love between friend and friend” (Memoirs, 158). This use of the “ideal” clearly manifests itself in the way that Symonds translates his love for William into the classical framework.

Works Cited:

Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.%203.10.4&lang=original

Specimens of Antient Sculpture, Ægyptian, Etruscan, Greek and Roman: Selected From Different Collection In Great Britain. London: Printed by T. Bensley for T. Payne, and J. White and co., 1809. https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/catalog/bib_719409

Symonds, John Addington. Regis, Amber K. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016.

John Addington Symonds was familiar with Greek myth and indulged a particular affection for its visual depiction. He had access to a multitude of books in his family’s home but reveals that he spent much time in his youth with European books of images and mentions John Flaxman specifically. Symonds writes, “I was very fond of picture books and drew a great deal from Raphael, Flaxman and Retzsch. Our house was well stocked with engravings, photographs, copies of Italian pictures and illustrated works upon Greek sculpture” (Memoirs, 118). Composizioni di Giovanni Flaxman Scultore Inglese Tratte Dall’Odissea di Omero (Compositions of John Flaxman, English Sculptor, Regarding the Odyssey of Homer) is a likely candidate given that it is an European picture book with multiple images of Apollo, for whom Symonds expressed an interest. The book, with engravings by Beniamino del Vecchio, was published in Italian in 1805. John Addington Symonds Senior was born in 1807 and his son in 1840. The book, or a similar edition, easily could have been purchased by Symonds senior and would not have been too old for Symonds junior to enjoy in his youth. The publication date, paired with Symonds’ explicitly stated interest in the subject, makes it a plausible candidate for either Symonds to own, though it should be noted that Flaxman’s illustrations were frequently printed, both on their own and in editions of the works they illustrate. The 1805 book has thirty-five plates depicting various scenes from the Odyssey. But there is one specific image of Apollo that, given his tastes, would surely have struck the young Symonds.

Symonds makes clear his affection for Apollo. He spent many walks and daydreams dwelling on the deity. He recalls this in the third chapter of the Memoirs,

“The kernel of my inspiration was that radiant figure of the young Apollo… A luminous haze of yearning emotion surrounded the god. His divine beauty penetrated my soul and marrow. I stretched out my arms to him in worship. It was I alone who knew him to be Olympian; and I loved him…” (114).

Symonds is obviously enchanted by Apollo and his myths. Given his deep infatuation, it is reasonable that the youth examined a multitude of images of his love. In Flaxman’s book there is a plate entitled, La Ninfa Lampesia va ad avvertire Apollo che i compagni di Ulisse gli hanno ucciso il bestiame. This translates to: The Nymph Lampesia goes to Apollo to warn him that the companions of Ulysses killed his cattle. In the Odyssey the deity from this tale is Helios who can be used interchangeably with Apollo since both are sun gods. ¹

 Symonds might have been drawn to this image in particular because it shows the god as an idealized, youthful nude flying through the sky on a glorious chariot. It is clear that Symonds would have spent time with nearly any image of Apollo, but this one is especially interesting because of the second figure in the plate. Apollo’s image is accompanied by the partially nude female figure of Lampesia. In his Memoirs, Symonds records that his father commented to him regarding what piqued his visual interest,

“I used to pore for hours together over the divine loveliness, while my father read poetry aloud to us in the evenings. He did not quite approve, and asked me why I would not choose some other statue [than the Praxitelean Cupid], a nymph or Hebe” (118).

This plate would afford Symonds the opportunity to compare Apollo with a feminine being, perhaps quieting his father. Given Symonds infatuation with Apollo it seems obvious that if he had access to this specific plate he would have adored this image of the glorious and beautiful deity.

---

¹ Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 120. https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/catalog/bib_634129

Works Cited:

Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985.

Composizioni di Giovanni Flaxman Scultore Inglese Tratte Dall’Odissea di Omero designed by John Flaxman, engraved by Beniamino del Vecchio. Published 1805. https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/catalog/bib_537161

A quick author’s note first: for the three blog posts I have written so far, I started by looking at Symonds’ memoirs, then his letters, to search for evidence linking him with to the book/image/author in question. I would then read the source. I decided to try a different approach this time. I picked a book from his library before consulting Symonds’ memoirs and letters for connecting points. This way, I hoped I would be better able to put myself in Symonds’ role as a reader. The book I selected is by Vernon Lee, the pseudonym for Violet Paget. While entering the books from Symonds’ library into our Omeka catalog, I noticed three books, Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy, Euphorion, Belcaro, and Juvenilia by Vernon Lee on the list. I became curious about what Symonds saw in Lee’s works in particular. With this, I opened Belcaro: Being Essays on Sundry Aesthetical Questions.

Belcaro is a collection of Lee’s ”studies,” in which she describes her observations and experiences of different works of art. This book implements her approach to psychological aesthetics, an area she is expert in. Her analysis is based on a variety of artworks, from sculpture to bas-relief, music to poetry. ( Fun fact: While writing about music, Vernon Lee takes Mozart’s character, Cherubino, from the Marriage of Figaro. This male character is usually portrayed in opera productions y a mezzo-soprano, a woman. Vernon Lee also sees herself as a woman who often assumed masculine attire. )

In each chapter, Lee uses one specific art form to shed light on a distinct aspect of aesthetic experience. She usually points out a difference between the way people are inclined to see the arts and the way she deems this art ought to be perceived. And such inconsistency, according to her, is what distances “The Child in the Vatican” from the true aesthetic values of Greek sculptures, from falling in love with a city like Rome, which has given birth to the richest history of mankind. (Lee, 48). Thus, Lee argues against appreciating arts from what viewers think it portrays. Rather, we should look at it in terms of how it portrays, “the perfection of line and curve, and light and shade,” as she puts; “the highest intrinsic quality of form is beauty; and the highest merit of the artist… is to make form which is beautiful” (41). In another chapter on a bas-relief of Orpheus and Eurydice, Lee explains how, by assuming that each art piece tells a story outside itself, people are only able to enjoy the arts if they know enough background information, i.e., who Orpheus and Eurydice are and what their relationship is. Once again, she criticizes this kind of appreciation on the basis of a viewer’s knowledge as “appreciating merely your own intellectual equivalent of it [art]” (Lee, 64). Topics of other chapters include the “supernatural” power of poems, the fidelity of music performers to composers, and more.

To truly appreciate the arts, as Lee suggests, one needs to see a work of art in its light, not one’s own. While Lee’s position is firm, she unfolds her arguments imaginatively, narrating in a way that, to an extent, makes her work itself a piece of art. For example, in her essay on “Orpheus and Eurydice,” she says:

“One answer, then another, then yet another, as fancy took more definite shapes. Yes, the dawn and the morning are a pair of lovers over whom hangs an irresistible, inscrutable fate

—Cephalus and Procris, Alcestis and Admetus, Orpheus and Eurydice.” (Lee, 50)

Although often vague and giving her readers a real hard time, her poetic style does not fail to remind me of another equally imaginative writer, John Addington Symonds. Here is an excerpt drawn from “The Song of the Summer,” which is included in Symonds’ Miscellanies:

“He threw his rags aside. Naked he stood there; like an athlete, like a Greek hero, like Heracles or Hermes in the dawn of noble deeds. His firm and vital flesh, white, rounded, radiant, shone upon the sward.” (Memoirs, 370)

(Memoirs, p. 370)

In the quotes selected, both Symonds and Lee make reference to Greek figures. While Lee directly list them to illustrate what she describes as “a pair of lovers,” appealing to readers’ romantic imagination, Symonds directly writes his erotic imagination as realized in the figure of a Greek hero. Also, they both use “dawn” here to convey a sense of hope for the forthcoming future for those bright energetic Greek youth.

So I was very surprised when I finally opened Symonds’ letters to search for his references to Vernon Lee. Between 1880 and 1884, Symonds corresponded frequently with her; he wrote around fifteen letters to Vernon Lee, besides also mentioning her multiple times in his correspondence to his other friends. Symonds knew Vernon Lee from her work, Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy. Both were influential for their studies of the Renaissance, and at one point Symonds considered Lee a “new star risen above the horizon” (Letters, 995) It is clear, however, that Symonds often disagreed with Lee’s writing style as well as her way of unfolding her arguments. Symonds’ interactions with Lee, therefore, were not entirely pleasant. At first, Symonds did not hesitate to provide writing advice to Lee, as he considered himself “as an older craftsman” speaking to “a younger craftsman” (Letters, 635). Gradually, however, Symonds became impatient with Lee’s writing and her “overconfiden[ce] in [her] own intuition,” which he eventually described as “insufferable ignorant conceit” while writing to one of their mutual friends, Eleanot Frances Poynter, (Letters, 853). Regarding Belcaro, the book being analyzed here, Symonds directly expressed his difference of opinion, writing that “Art is not Art’s end; & Beauty is not its end; Art is the means, & Beauty is the mode chosen for utterance of the Geist” (Letters, 740) In a latter correspondence addressed to Lee, Symonds directly tells Lee that “I[he] feel[s] that you[she] imagine yourself to be so clever that everything you think is either right or else valuable. And your way of expressing yourself is so uncompromising that your belief in yourself grates upon my sense of what is just and dignified.” Hence, Symonds (Letters, 897 & 898).

Symonds’ frankness, his keen willingness to mentor and guide a junior scholar whom he considers a “comrade,” and his intolerance of “one-sidedness” and “cocksure” writing, are new to my knowledge of him. Although Vernon Lee turns out not to be among those who influenced Symonds’ own work, she helps us see other sides of Symonds as a reviewer, a senior scholar, who, although firmly believes that one should not withhold their opinions, also assumes it his responsibility to perpetuate the “accepted wisdom, a certain caution & reserve in asserting our opinions” that may differ from the world. More moving perhaps, is his insistence on a clear writing style that is accessible to readers. The illimitable energy and vigor of Lee’s writing , as Symonds describes, is “pungent.” However, he also admits that her books will “give me delight” while stimulat[ing] me[him] to controversy.” (p. 870) While original ideas shine in Lee’s essays, Symonds’ reflection on Belcaro shows again his human-centered way of thinking: art, if anything, is a unique and crucial human expression; there will be no aesthetic experience. I find myself more convinced by his argument.

Works Cited:

Lee, Vernon. Belcaro: being essays on sundry aesthetical questions. W. Satchell & co: 1881.

Symonds, John Addington. The letters of John Addington Symonds. Volume II. Wayne State University Press: 1967

Regis, Amber K. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK , 2016.

John Addington Symonds was, among many other things, an extraordinarily prolific writer. In addition to various essays and poetry, he authored twenty or so books over the course of his career. This is a remarkable output considering he was not published until 1863; on average, Symonds put out a book every year and a half from the age of 23 until his death at 53 in 1893. He had three publications in his final year of life: the first of three was In the Key of Blue, and Other Prose Essays. (The other two were The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti and Walt Whitman: A Study.) This antepenultimate book is the culmination of many different pieces of Symonds’ life, and here I will discuss how In the Key of Blue is not only representative of Symonds’ full corpus and body of interests, but also by far the most open acknowledgement of his same-sex love and attraction published publicly up to that point.

In The Key of Blue contains thirteen selections written by Symonds over the span of more than 30 years. That Symonds selected the essays in this text for breadth is not a revelation: he says as much in the preface. “I have tried to make the selection representative of the different kinds of work in which I have principally engaged—Greek and Renaissance Literature, Description of Places, Translation, Criticism, and Original Verse,” he writes, which is an accurate if unspecific list of his scholarly inclinations.¹ Many of the pieces cover several of the aforementioned categories and are multi-genre. “Edward Cracroft Lefroy,” for example, is biography, poetic analysis, and discussion of the man’s influences on Symonds all in one.

It is worth discussing “Among the Euganean Hills,” which contains scenic descriptions and account of Symonds visit to the Euganean Hills in Padua, Italy, at more length. The essay is mediated by Symonds’ musings on the Percy Shelley poem “Lines Written among the Euganean Hills.” It is also rife with references to classical antiquity, often apropos of nothing. In a section about the villages Battaglia and Abano, Symonds includes an extended aside on Geryon that, while interesting, has little to do with the primary subject.² This phenomenon is not isolated to this essay–In the Key of Blue is, altogether an extraordinarily self-indulgent book.

Another element present in “Among the Euganean Hills” is Symonds’ same-sex attraction. Symonds describes a time he was sitting on Monte Venda, the highest mountain of the hills, and a “youthful cowherd” came along, who he calls “a bright lad, clear-cut in feature, nut-brown of complexion, white of teeth, with pale wistful blue eyes.”³ This description is similar to others that appear in Symonds work that portray men he finds attractive or has feelings for. Although these sorts of low-key mentions are common across Symonds’ works, this essay is actually quite subtle when compared to the references to Symonds’ homosexuality in other essays within In The Key of Blue specifically.

This brings me to my second point, which is that In the Key of Blue contains far more obviously references to male same-sex attraction than any other mainstream text by Symonds. Although A Problem in Greek Ethics was written around 1873 and printed privately in 1883, it was not published until after Symonds’ death, as a part of Die konträre Geschlechtsgefühl in 1896. Further, In the Key of Blue discusses Symonds’ personal attractions, not similarly the historical evidence and cultural implications of “Greek love.” There are three essays in particular I would like to draw attention to: “In the Key of Blue,” “The Dantesque and Platonic Ideals of Love,” and “Clifton and a Lad’s Love.”

The eponymous first essay, “In the Key of Blue,” starts off as a meditation on how color is expressed in literature but morphs into a simultaneous consideration of how the color blue illuminates the beauty of Augusto, a Venetian youth. The essay alternates between Symonds’ commentary and his “studies” of the color blue, which are really just poems gushing about how beautiful Augusto is. The first of these studies is reproduced below:

A symphony of black and blue—
Venice asleep, vast night, and you.
The skies were blurred with vapours dank:
The long canal stretch inky-blank
 With lights on heaving water shed
From lamps that trembled overhead.
Pitch-dark! You were the one thing blue;
Four tints of pure celestial hue:
The larkspur blouse by tones degraded
Through silken sash of sapphire faded,
The faintly floating violet tie,
The hose of lapis-lazuli
How blue you were amid that black,
Lighting the wave, the ebon wrack!
The ivory pallor of your face,
Gleamed from those glowing azure back
Against the golden gaslight grapes
Of dusty curls your brows embrace
And round you all the vast night gapes.⁴

Although Symonds claims the focus of these studies is the color blue, it is difficult to view them creative experiment: his attraction towards Augusto hard to miss.

In “The Dantesque and Platonic Ideals of Love,” Symonds discusses the similarities and differences of Greek love and the chivalrous love Dante describes through the allegory of Beatrice (for an expansion on the latter, see this post) and argues they both ultimately allow one to “scale the higher fortresses of intellectual truth”⁵ In other words, he places homosexual love in a comparable plane of ethics and legitimacy as heterosexual love.

Finally, “Clifton and a Lad’s Love,” which appears midway through the collection, is the most unambiguous in that it is the only essay where Symonds openly acknowledges same-sex attraction. The essay is a somewhat unusual inclusion in that it is the earliest work by a good few years.⁶ It is another piece which alternates Symonds’ poetry with prose commentary. The writing of the essay corresponds with Symonds’ relationship with the choir boy Willie Dyer.⁷ So where Symonds writes, “Else had I laid my lips to his, /And called him by love’s dearest name,” there is little doubt as to who he means, although certainly readers of the day did not have the Memoirs as a cross-reference point.⁸

Although homosexuality was an important subject for Symonds, personally and academically throughout his career, it took until the publication of In the Key of Blue for this subject to be reflected openly in his public work. The years after his death would see Symonds’ contributions to the historical and literary discussions of same-sex attraction and his own inclinations first more widely known, and then fervently minimized and released by his executors. So, in some ways, In the Key of Blue was the first, and only, unmitigated and publicly available text on Symonds’ own sexuality.

External Links
In the Key of Blue, and Other Prose Essays (1893) via HathiTrust

Endnotes
¹ John Addington Symonds, In the Key of Blue, and Other Prose Essays, (London: Elkin Matthews & John Lane), 1893, preface.
² Symonds, In the Key of Blue, 25.
³ Ibid, 31.
⁴ Ibid, 6.
⁵ Ibid, 61.
⁶ Amber K. Regis, “Late style and speaking out: J.A Symonds’s In the Key of Blue,” English Studies (2013) 94:2, 206-31.
⁷ John Addington Symonds and Amber K. Regis,,The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: a Critical Edition, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 156.
⁸ Symonds, In the Key of Blue, 158.

Works Cited
Regis, Amber K. 2013. “Late style and speaking out: J.A Symonds’s In the Key of Blue.” English Studies 94:2, 206-31.

Symonds, John Addington. 1893. In the Key of Blue, And Other Prose Essays. London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane.

Symonds, John Addington. 2016. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: a Critical Edition. Edited by Amber K. Regis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

In 1909, 16 years after Symonds’ death, a prominent bookseller in Bristol published a catalogue of Symonds’ home library, shedding light on his literary preferences and direct influences. Our ability to partially reconstruct his lost library through the catalogue gives us the chance to understand Symonds not just as an author, but also as a philosopher, historian, traveler, and avid reader. Among the books of poetry, art, sexology, and classical antiquity that once were on his bookshelves, a seemingly fun adventure novel by a name I knew caught my attention.

In 1846, Herman Melville published his travel book Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life During a Four Months’ Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas. Not many years later, Symonds owned and likely read a copy of this book, and we can only postulate on why.

Typee, Melville’s first book, is a highly romanticized and fictionalized account of his one-month stay in the Marquesas. Melville drew from his experiences, from his imagination, and from accounts by Pacific explorers, departing from the truth of what actually happened to make a more entertaining story. Typee is a story of escape, capture, and re-escape, alluding to themes of cannibalism, colonialism, natural beauty, and the perceived simplicity of “native” lifestyle.

While Symonds never visited the Pacific islands, he was an avid traveler and travel writer – and in these writings can occasionally be discerned a sympathy for Melville’s South Seas experience. During a trip to Normandy, for instance, Symonds kept a diary, a “misty guide book,” in which he describes his own seaside isolation:

“Like a formless Monaco, but with so much more of suggestion in the northern sea. The Channel Islands are visible from the terrace of the town, and long stretches of arid dunes stretching away northwards, salt, barren, uninviting.”

(Memoirs, 298)

The emotions that the coast evoke in him is fodder for Symonds’ own poetry. In the summer of 1867 in London, he writes the Song of Cyclades, describing the burden of loneliness that he shares with the islands.

“The burden of Cyclades, the burden of many islands, of islands on the sea of my own life. (There is firm ground beneath; I am not all islands and sea.)

The hours of weeping because I was not strong, and no companions sought me; nor beautiful, and women did not love me; nor great, and no poems were in me.

The hour of passionate weeping for the sin and shame upon me—the hour of wailing for the unkindness of friends—the hour of hot blushing for the thoughts of my own soul: solitary, self-centred, judgment and confession hours. “

Memoirs, 318

The first edition of Typee was published in New York (Wiley and Putnam) and London (John Murray) in 1846 as part of a collection of travel books. It was Melville’s first published book after a stint of articles and short stories. After the publication of Typee, Melville became a more successful and well-known writer, with the help of his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, eventually publishing his whaling novel Moby-Dick in 1851.

The first edition was published as part of “Murray’s Colonial and Home Library,” a collection for readers in the British colonies to compete with piracies, often by American publishers. We know from the 1909 William George’s Sons catalogue that the edition Symonds owned was published in 1861, the year in which John Murray published it in London. The small octavo edition sold for two shillings and six pence. The 1861 edition is in all likelihood a reprint of the first edition, published cooperatively with an American publisher

Did Symonds read Melville’s Moby-Dick? The author is not mentioned at all in his Memoirs or his Letters, so we cannot know for sure. But Melville was a contemporary of Symonds’ time, and Symonds was familiar with the works of other American writers such as Walt Whitman. If Symonds read Typee, it is possible he also read the better-known Moby-Dick, first published in 1851. Symonds could have become better acquainted with Herman Melville’s works after the publication of Moby-Dick and gone to read more of his lesser-known works, buying a later 1861 edition of his earlier book, Typee. Perhaps these naturalistic adventure novels were what he read as part of his research in travel writing.

Perhaps Symonds never even read Moby-Dick, but specifically sought out Typee for its interesting take on travel literature, by combining fiction and fact. Symonds himself wrote many travel books that combined his own experiences with a scholarly assessment of the land, society, and culture, including his book Sketches and Studies in Southern Europe (1880) and his book Our Life in the Swiss Highlands (1892) written cooperatively with his daughter Margaret.

Symonds himself loved to travel; here we see what Symonds may have read for when he wished to travel in his mind– a wild adventure story with tales of far-away travel that combines whimsy with the eloquent skill of an established author, undoubtedly influential in Symonds’ own later works. Exploring the lost library of Symonds allows us to appreciate him as a person and better understand his life outside of academia.

For reference:

Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period best known for Typee (1846), a romantic account of his experiences in Polynesian life, and his whaling novel Moby-Dick (1851). His work was almost forgotten during his last thirty years. His writing draws on his experience at sea as a common sailor, exploration of literature and philosophy, and engagement in the contradictions of American society in a period of rapid change.

Works Cited:

Featured image is “Mekong pirogue at sunset in the 4000 islands.” Wikimedia Commons: Featured Pictures.

Melville, Herman. Typee, or Four Months’ Residence in the Marquesas. London: John Murray, 1861.

The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. Amber K. Regis, editor. London: Palgrave Macmillan Publishing, 2016, pp 1-587. Print.

If there is a theme that could perhaps define Symonds’ academic career, outside of Classic Greek literature, a case could certainly be made for his attachment and fascination toward Italy, something that can be gleaned by inference, looking at his catalog of work and his personal library. With one of the main pillars of the Renaissance taking place in Italy, Symonds’ love of classics would naturally lead him to Florence and Rome, and writers like Dante who took their cues from the writers of old. Much of Symonds’ body of work is concerned with not only the literature that came from the modern surroundings of Rome, but also the aesthetics and culture of the country. Symonds wrote multiple books such as Sketches in Italy and Greece that demonstrated an interest in the classical countries, beyond just tracing their literary history. Symonds also owned books such as those dealing with Italian architecture, and prominent Italian figures. Symonds also had personal reasons to be attached to Italy, between one of his friends owning a house where he often stayed in Venice, as well as his lover being a gondolier in the city of canals. Symonds’ personal connection to Italy, as a person and a scholar, is an undeniable part of his character.

Italian Byways is one of the books that catalogues the breadth of Symonds’ work, as it unites all of his interests in Italy in a way that fits someone with as unique a character as Symonds possessed. The book covers Italian architecture, but in a way that encompasses the historical context behind them, as well as Symonds’ scholarly background. While the book is ostensibly about some of the architecture in Florence and other parts of Italy, it is synthesized with Symonds’ own thoughts on art and the various legendary figures that inhabited those streets at other points in time. It showed he was a free thinking person in a time that could perhaps be called one of great conformity, if his sexual orientation and the frankness of his memoirs didn’t indicate that already, as well as how learned he was, showing off comparisons to classical architecture and drawing comparisons that displayed how much time and effort he had put into researching the architecture, as well as the history of certain classical adjacent authors.

But to me, by far the most interesting aspect of this book is Symonds’ own thoughts that he intersperses and elucidates throughout the book. He describes art (like architecture) as “in the business of creating an ideal world.” The tangible parts of art are “the mode of presentation through which spiritual content manifests itself.” As an English major myself, this resonated with me as it’s the very reason I was so interested in literature in the first place. All of those characters, stories, the beautiful representations of the potential of humanity, the acknowledgment of how far we could descend into depravity, that is what is so attractive about literature. It connects to something deep within us that recognizes our potential, for good or for ill, and puts it into a form digestible to us, analogous to Plato and the cave in which the captives can see shadows. As a person who could not be more different than Symonds in terms of background, it is a moment of respite to see how much we shared in this regard, of how we both saw how art required a certain connection to spirit to function. The human spirit is what invests art with meaning, what allows us to recognize why the form appeals to us so. That perhaps, is the most timeless thing that Symonds left us, the acknowledgment that art transcends time and touches upon humanity for a reason we all can understand, but not necessarily fathom.

Featured image: Unknown maker, Italian, photographer [Canal, Venice, Italy], about 1865 Albumen silver print The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 84.XC.873.8035. https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/107EM9

It seems almost presumptuous for me to try and write a blog post on Symonds’ Studies of the Greek Poets. It’s a quite influential and momentous text that’s been discussed in detail by people far more erudite than I; additionally, and perhaps more pertinently, Yiyang has already written a wonderful overview and analysis of the text for this site’s blog (you should check it out).

I don’t want to retread ground that’s already been covered, so rather than focusing on the internal particulars of the work itself, I’m going to try and stick to examining some of the context within which Studies of the Greek Poets was written, and why I think it’s a pretty exciting work.

(I know, I get excited by old books about Greek poetry a lot. You should too!)

[I’ve finally written a blog post which warrants using an image of Symonds. I almost feel like a real academic now.]

As I mentioned in my last post, “Book it! (Part 1 – William Mure’s Critical History),” Symonds considered Studies to be a contribution to the then-relatively new scholarly movement of analyzing classical texts through a modern critical lens. Symonds was not content to merely present poetry as a historical document, or write a dry biography of classical writers. Rather, he aimed to provide an analysis which was both vividly evocative and packed with critical insight. Again, you should check out Yiyang’s post for a more in-depth look at how he accomplishes this.

Perhaps calling Studies of the Greek Poets a contribution to this critical movement is an understatement – it may seem a bit dramatic to phrase it this way, but I would consider Studies of the Greek Poets nothing short of revolutionary. Certainly, A Problem in Greek Ethics was a revolutionary text, and Symonds conceived of the two works collectively:

“Part of it [an essay on ‘Platonic Love’] I used for my chapter, in Studies of the Greek Poets, on the Greek Spirit. The rest I rewrote in Clifton in 1874, and privately printed under the title of A Problem in Greek Ethics.” – JAS, Memoirs, 340

This revolutionary thrust was not limited to some shared material between the two works, however. I believe that Symonds harbored a strong feeling of dissatisfaction with the state of the classical literary establishment during his lifetime, which likely inspired the creation of both A Problem in Greek Ethics and Studies of the Greek Poets.

Regarding the former, we may consider this excerpt from 1889 letter to Benjamin Jowett, which Symonds wrote in response to Jowett’s dismissal of the prospect of homosexual content in the works of Plato:

“It surprises me to find you, with your knowledge of Greek history, speaking of this in Plato as ‘mainly a figure of speech.’ […]

Greek love was for Plato no ‘figure of speech’, but a present poignant reality. Greek love is for modern students of Plato no ‘figure of speech’ and no anachronism, but a present poignant reality. The facts of Greek history and the facts of contemporary life demonstrate these propositions only too conclusively.

I will not trouble you again upon this topic. I could not, however, allow the following passage in your letter—‘I do not understand how, what is in the main a figure of speech should have so great power over them’—to go unnoticed without throwing what light I can upon what you do not understand.” – JAS, Memoirs, 154-155

I think this passionate rebuttal suggests not only Symonds’ interest in accurate discussion of homosexual love in ancient Greece, but also his resistance to academic ignorance or insufficient analysis.

Of course, there’s also a level of emotional intensity in Symonds’ writing here reflecting that his interest in discussing homosexuality in ancient Greece goes beyond simple academic exploration. Symonds’ personal experience doubtlessly both inspired and informed his work in this area. His remark that “Greek love is for modern students […] a present poignant reality” hearkens back to his personal observations of sexual contact within the student body at Harrow, which he derided as “repulsive” due to its manipulative and violent character (Memoirs, 148). A thread of personal experience runs through many of Symonds’ scholarly endeavors.

To return briefly to the topic of my last blog post, the sensuality and corruption Symonds witnessed at Harrow would have been constantly before him as he studied and contemplated his school gift copy of Mure’s Critical History – a connection made all the more prominent due to the text’s school bindings. One can only imagine what this association inspired for Symonds, and the role this inspiration played in the creation of A Problem in Greek Ethics.

For a look at material more directly related to Studies of the Greek Poets, let’s compare Symonds’ response to Jowett to this excerpt from a letter he wrote to George Smith in 1872, which I discussed in my last post.

“I have been often asked of late to reprint in a collected form some Essays on Greek Poetry […] In all of them it has been my aim to adjust the study of the Classics to the spirit of modern literary criticism more than has been attempted in the standard books on the subject – Müller and Mure.” – JAS, Letters, 254-255

This statement certainly lacks much of the fire present in the letter to Jowett, but it may be read as containing some similar motivation. Clearly, Symonds felt that existing critical work regarding classical literature was thin on the ground, and inadequate in the areas where it had been attempted.

While I will not claim that his modern poetic critical analysis was a topic which was personally important to Symonds to the same degree as his discussion of homosexuality in the classical world, I think that the recurring elements of sexuality and personal experience associated with his scholarly work in both areas – consider Mure’s Critical History, for just one example – suggests the source of the passion Symonds devoted to both A Problem in Greek Ethics and Studies of the Greek Poets. Furthermore, I believe that neither work could exist without Symonds’ desire to discard the restrictive shackles of entrenched traditions within classical scholarship, and to examine ancient works with fresh eyes.

Works Cited:

Symonds, John Addington.The Letters of Johns Addington Symonds. Wayne State University Press. Detroit, 1967. Print.

–. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. Amber K. Regis, ed. Palgrave Macmillan Publishing. London, 2016. Print.

–. Studies of the Greek Poets. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1873

The first version of Studies of the Greek Poets is published in 1873. A result of his life-long study in Greek literature, this book looks deeply into the Greek aesthetics, literary traditions, and politics through the lens of poets and the poetry. At this point, Symonds’ knowledge of Ancient Greece is sophisticated enough for him to look at one piece of art and draws out countless ties it has with the whole Greek society.

Symonds starts by giving a temporal and historical account of Greek literature, which he divides into five periods: the Heroic, the transition from Heroic to artistic maturity (B.C. 776 to B.C. 477), the Athenian Supremacy (B.C. 477 to B.C. 413), Athenian Decline (B.C. 413 to B.C. 323), and the final period of decline and decay (B.C. 323 to the final extinction of classical civilization).

It is worth paying attention to Symonds’ descriptions of the Heroic period, which initiates the flourishing splendor of Greek literature. According to Symonds, the influence of Homer’s works infiltrates all emerging literature, aesthetics, ideals of beings, and thereby the Greek society as a whole. He states that “it is from the Homeric poems alone that we can form a picture to our imagination of the state of society in prehistoric Hellas. ”(Studies of Greek Poets, p. 7) For one thing, Homer’s works shed light on the ideal of human life. Infusing the “beautiful human heroism” (p. 9) in Achilles; and in Ulysses the “bravery, subtlety, and cunningness”(p. 9), Homer lays the foundation of one human ideal: a man eloquent and adventurous like Ulysses in his outer appearance; radiant, youthful, adolescent like Achilles in his spirit. Homer puts upon desk the most energetic possibilities of living, which give rise to the Homeric Epic poems, those of Achilles and of Ulysses or the alike. Moreover, Achilles’s death influences the Greek tragedy too. In short, Homer alone inspires the major themes and aesthetics of Greek literature. The history of Greek literary development can therefore be viewed as a process of how the heroism created by Homer develops into a thematic monarchy all over its literature, and then eventually dissolves into a subtle yet omnipresent aesthetics constantly dazzling in later Greek literature.

With this understanding, let us now start approaching the content of Symonds’ scholarly essays. By writing “Studies of the Greek Poets,” Symonds aims to achieve two things: being an informant who “bring[s] Greek literature home to the general reader” and an literary critic who “applies to the Greek poets the same sort of criticism as that which modern classics receive.” (p. 1) In each chapter, Symonds would usually start from an overview, sketching the historical development of one genre, its division and mutation over time, to specific examples that he deems reflect the essence of the genre best. Take the chapter on The lyric poets for example. Symonds starts by introducing the particularities of lyric poems given by its form. According to Symonds, each genre of poetry is donated to a different purpose. “The Hexameter was consecrated to epical narrative; the Elegy was confined to songs of lament or meditation; The Iambic assumed a satiric character. ” (p. 111) The lyrical poetry is connected to personal feeling and of public ceremonial. From there, Symonds then accounts for the different sub-divisions of the lyrical poetry and the relevant names related to each. Through his writings, we are informed of the sublime rhythm of Sappho’s poems which bears a “heart-devouring passion.” (p. 130) And Scolion of Hubrias the Cretan, which sheds light on the early Dorian barbarism. Such analysis enables us to imagine not just the individual lives of the poets; Symonds also puts before our eyes lively pictures of ancient Greek life.

To make his writings more accessible to the modern readers, Symonds uses a lot of comparisons between the Ancient Greece and the society we are more familiar with. For example, when talking about the lyric poems, he compares the mass of “lyric poetry which might have existed in Greek” to the “church music that exists in Germany and Italy.” (p.113) Symonds even dedicates a whole chapter to the comparison between ancient and modern tragedy. In Chapter IX, he argues that the major difference between the modern tragedy and the Greek tragedy lies in that Greek tragedy knows no subtlety in depicting human emotions. Located in open ground with all grand Athenian sceneries around, the Greek theatre does not allow actors to express the wide spectrum of human emotions and passions as does the modern theatre which takes place in indoor chambers. Symonds acutely summarizes this difference as “the ancient dramatist plays with his cards upon the table: the modern dramatist conceals his hand.” (p. 289) In Greek tragedy, a lot of theatrical elements are fixed and simple: the construction, the scenes, etc. Moreover, it keeps using the same well-known characters drawn from Homer and to the Epic cycle, for example, Oedipus, Agamemnon, etc. The audience therefore comes to the theatre with abundant knowledge of the destiny of all characters; it is only the characters themselves who don’t know what they are facing. This renders the Greek Tragedy a sense of irony which is not present in any modern dramas (considering how we all hate spoilers).

While reading this book, I am impressed by how Symonds uses “poets” rather than “poetry” as the thread to link up his arguments. It appears to me that Symonds possesses a keen sense of looking at history, politics, and civilization from the lives and deeds of humans, not the reverse way. One evidence is that Symonds keeps going back to Alexander, who, bearing an unusual parallel to Achilles due to his admiration for Homer’s works, proves the importance of this literary figure to the Greek race. Metaphorically, Symonds loves to draw an analogy between the historical development of literature to a person’s life. Greek literature, with its long-lasting impact on individuals and thereby the society, is the “springtime of the world. The world has now grown gold.” (p. 398) The modern society Symonds lives in inevitably afflicts his mind with human sufferings, with the unexpressed identities, and with all other complications that gradually drains a youthful mind. The Greek society becomes no more than a past dream. At the time of his writing, Symonds is thirty-three. As I am reading Symonds’ imagination of the Greek society, a world he imagines to have “no mystery of darkness, no labyrinth of tortuous shade, no conflict of contrasted forms,” (p.404) I imagine him sitting in his study, his eyes closed. I imagine the rich literature he just read from Pericles, from Sappho, and from Pindar, alleviating the pains he had from illness, and from having to “sit down soberly to contemplate his own besetting vice. ”(Memoirs, p.524) What penetrates through the book pages is Symonds’ yearning for all fair things: integrity, truth, bravery, and ultimately the possibility of a life that conceals nothing. All of these ideals are present in Greek literature. In this light, Symonds clings on to Greek literature for this transcendental beauty that is itself adequate to shine through all dark ages of humanity.

Works Cited:

1. John Addington Symonds. Studies of the Greek Poets. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1873.
2. Regis, Amber K. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK , 2016.

Although John Addington Symonds’ strongest influences came from classical antiquity, he also drew substantial inspiration from books by some of his contemporaries. One noteworthy example is Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. Reading Leaves of Grass was a spiritual and artistic epiphany for Symonds; the book, and his understanding of Whitman, had a great influence on his writing and helped him formulate his thoughts on his own homosexual desires and ethics.

Symonds describes his first encounter with Whitman in the 1866-1875 section of his Memoirs. During that time, he wrote poetry as a “vehicle and safety-valve” for his feelings of same-sex attraction, which he called “tormenting preoccupations.”¹ He discovered the book while he was spending time with his friend, F.W.H. Meyers. Meyers “stood up, seized a book and shouted out in his nasal intonation with those brazen lungs of his: ‘Long I thought that knowledge alone would content me.’” Symonds was quite taken with the work: “This fine poem,” he wrote, “omitted from later editions of Leaves of Grass, formed part of ‘Calamus’. The book became for me a sort of Bible.”²

Beyond this retroactive commemoration in the Memoirs, Symonds’ Whitman revelation can be dated more precisely by a letter from Symonds to his close friend Henry Graham Dakyns. Written on February 2, 1867 the letter he describes his first reaction to the book:

Leaves of Grass were published in 1860, when I was just 2 years old.³ Is it not strange I should only have read them this last week I am now 9 years old? Providence orders things so crookedly. If I had read them then & if I had understood I should have been a better very different man now. It is quite indispensable that you should have this book. Yet wait until I come & savor it for the first time with me. It is not a book; there are many better books; it is a man, miraculous in his vigour & love & omnigenuousness and omniscience & animalisme & omnivorous humanity [sic].⁴

In his letter, Symonds suggests he read Leaves of Grass a week or two before writing to Dakyns, at most, so his first encounter with the book must have occurred in the first month of 1867.  Symonds was then 27 years old. He had already been involved in at least one same-sex affair, with choir boy William Fear Dyer, at Balliol College. However, Symonds ended the affair after a short time, and remained at odds with his own desires for many years after. He was aware of “social standards of propriety and respectability” that made homosexuality disallowed: at the same time, he was unable to ignore how he felt.⁵ Reading Leaves of Grass catalyzed for Symonds a sense of peace about his desires.

Unlike some texts, whose influence on Symonds is subtle and difficult to detect, Leaves of Grass is praised and discussed critically throughout the entirety of his Memoirs. At the end of the preface, there appears a quotation from Whitman’s poem “When I Read The Book,” which was part of his “Inscriptions” cluster in Leaves of Grass.

When I read the book, the biography famous,
And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man’s life?
And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life,
Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life,
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections
I seek for my own use to trace out here.)⁶

The “Inscriptions” quotation speaks many of the themes that Symonds drew from Whitman, and these are discussed in more depth later on in his autobiography. In Chapter 13, titled “Norman,” Symonds describes his relationship with his long time love Norman Moor. Norman Moor was a young man who Symonds met in Clifton 1868—a year after Symonds read Leaves of Grass.⁷ He says their time together “approached sincerity and truth mainly in those ‘native moments’” Symonds says.⁸ The phrase “native moments” shows up twice in the ‘Enfans d’Adam’ cluster of Leaves of Grass.⁹

Leaves of Grass also figures prominently in Chapter 15 of the Memoirs, on Symonds’ “Religious Development.” There is a lengthy section in which he waxes poetic about Leaves of Grass and its profound impact on him:

I find it difficult to speak about Leaves of Grass without exaggeration. Whitman’s intense emotional feeling for the universe, his acute sense of the goodliness of life in all its aspects, the audacity of his mood—as of one eager to cast himself upon illimitable billows, assured that whether he sank there or swam it would be well with him, confident the while that sink he could not, that nothing can eventually come to naught: this concrete passionate faith in the world, combined with the man’s multiform experience, his human sympathy, his thrill of love and comradeship, sent a current of vitalizing magnetism through my speculations… In short, Whitman added conviction, courage, self-reliance, to my sense of the Cosmic Enthusiasm. What is more, he taught me, as no enthusiasm of humanity could do, the value of fraternizing with my fellows—for their own sakes, to love them, to learn from them, to teach them, to help and to be helped by them—not for any ulterior object upon either side. I felt, through him, what it really is to be a member of the universe I sought to worship.¹⁰

In brief, the writings of Whitman played an important role in both Symonds self-conceptualization and spiritual life. But even more powerfully, Symonds states that Leaves of Grass, and in particular “Calamus,” played a direct role in his decision to write “A Problem in Greek Ethics.” The “Calamus” cluster in Leaves of Grass is a sequence of forty-five untitled poems that speak effusively of “comradeship” and “adhesive love,” terms which had been used in other contexts to indicate male same-sex love specifically.¹¹ Even beyond this terminology, the poems were decisively provocative: one of them ends on the lines, “…two simple men I saw to-day on the pier…The one to remain hung on the other’s neck and passionately kiss’d him, / While the one to depart tightly prest the one to remain in his arms.”¹² It is hard to conjure an interpretation of these lines that is not referential to homosexual desire. Symonds describes the influence of these poems in Memoirs:

Inspired by ‘Calamus’ I adopted another method of palliative treatment, and tried to invigorate the emotion I could not shake off by absorbing Whitman’s conception of comradeship… I can now declare with sincerity that my abnormal inclinations, modified by Whitman’s idealism and penetrated with his democratic enthusiasm, have brought me into close and profitable sympathy with human beings even while I sinned against law and conventional morality. The immediate result of this study of Walt Whitman was the determination to write the history of paiderastia in Greece and to attempt a theoretical demonstration of the chivalrous enthusiasm which seemed to me implicit in comradeship.”¹³

Symonds encountered at least four different editions of Leaves of Grass throughout his life. The edition that he received from Meyers was the third edition, published in 1860-1861 by Boston publisher Thayer and Eldridge.¹⁴ We know this because of the publication date Symonds offers Dakyns, as well as the opinions he expresses about other editions. This edition contained the full, forty-five poem “Calamus” cluster in its original sequence. 

In the Memoirs, Symonds quotes from three different U.S. editions of Leaves of Grass: the aforementioned 1860 version, as well as the 1856 second edition and the 1867 fourth edition. Whitman often made substantial edits, sometimes adding full sections of poems, between editions, which is why it is possible to determine exactly which version Symonds quoted from. The 1856 edition, among other differences, notably did not include the “Calamus” cluster, and in the 1867 edition “Calamus” had been edited down to thirty-nine poems.^{15, 16}

In addition to the three US editions, Symonds got his hands on the first UK edition of the book…sort of. William Rossetti, a literary critic and biographer, wanted to publish an edition of Leaves of Grass. However, he was concerned about the UK’s anti-pornography laws, and omitted poems he thought would upset the public. The book, titled Poems by Walt Whitman,was published in in 1868 with John Camden Hotten. Hotten specialized in controversial titles, but the new volume nonetheless omitted nearly half of the poems.¹⁷ After the publication of the book, Symonds wrote to Rossetti to inquire why he had cut certain poems—including “Calamus.”¹⁸ It is notable that by early 1868, Symonds was already knowledgeable enough about the “Calamus” poems to notice their absence.

Symonds is not shy about his influences; the majority of his work, in fact, draws quite explicitly on other texts. However, he speaks of no modern book quite as effusively or clearly as he does Leaves of Grass. Symonds would carry his love of Whitman with him throughout his life, and it ultimately culminated in the writing of Walt Whitman: A Study, published in 1893.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Leaves of Grass (1856)
Leaves of Grass (1860)
Leaves of Grass (1867)
Poems by Walt Whitman (1868)

ENDNOTES
¹ John Addington Symonds and Amber K. Regis, ed., The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: a Critical Edition, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 367.
² Symonds and Regis, Memoirs, 367.
³ Symonds cites the incorrect original publication date for Leaves of Grass. It was first published in 1855, although Symonds probably did not read this edition, as he does not mention or cite it.
⁴ John Addington Symonds, Herbert M. Schueller, ed. and Robert Peters, ed., The Letters of John Addington Symonds, vol. 1 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1967), 696.
⁵ Symonds and Regis, Memoirs, 10.
⁶ Ibid, 60.
⁷ Ibid, 379.
⁸ Ibid, 403.
⁹ Ibid, 413n.
¹⁰ Ibid, 468.
¹¹ James E. Miller, “Whitman’s “Calamus”: The Leaf and the Root,” PMLA 72. 1 (1957): 251, doi:10.2307/460228.
¹² Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, (Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, 1860), 373.
¹³ Symonds and Regis, Memoirs, 368.
¹⁴ Gregory Eiselein, J.R. LeMaster, ed., and Donald D. Kummings, ed.,“Leaves of Grass, 1860 edition,” Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_23.html.
¹⁵ Harold Aspiz, J.R. LeMaster, ed., and Donald D. Kummings, ed.,“ “Leaves of Grass, 1856 edition,” Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_22.html.
¹⁶ Luke Mancuso, J.R. LeMaster, ed., and Donald D. Kummings, ed.,“ “Leaves of Grass, 1867 edition,” Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_24.html.
¹⁷ Kenneth M. Price and Ed Folsom, “Published Works,” The Walt Whitman Archive, University of Nebraska–Lincoln and University of Iowa, May 2019, https://whitmanarchive.org/published/books/other/british/intro.html.
¹⁸ Symonds, Schueller, and Peters, Letters, 836n.

WORKS CITED
Aspiz, Harold. “Leaves of Grass, 1856 edition.” 1998. J.R. Edited by LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings. Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing. https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_22.html.

Eiselein, Gregory. “Leaves of Grass, 1860 edition.” 1998. J.R. Edited by LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings. Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing. https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_23.html.

Mancuso, Luke. “Leaves of Grass, 1867 edition.” 1998. J.R. Edited by LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings. Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing. https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_24.html.

Miller, James E. “Whitman’s “Calamus”: The Leaf and the Root.” 1957. PMLA 72, no. 1: 249-71. doi:10.2307/460228.

Price, Kenneth M. and Ed Folsom, eds. “Published Works.” The Walt Whitman Archive. University of Nebraska–Lincoln and University of Iowa, May 2019. https://whitmanarchive.org/published/books/other/british/intro.html.

Symonds, John Addington. 1967. The Letters of John Addington Symonds. Volume 1. Edited by Herbert M. Schueller and Robert Peters. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Symonds, John Addington. 2016. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. Edited by Amber K. Regis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Whitman, Walt. 1860. Leaves of Grass. Boston: Thayer and Eldridge.

Today, the literary legacy of John Addington Symonds includes edited versions of his memoirs, biographies he penned of Percy Shelley and Philip Sidney, and of course his privately-printed essay A Problem in Greek Ethics. Yet a large percentage of his work fell into a very different genre: many of his books were sold as a sort of history of Italy, complete with commentary on the art, culture, and natural beauty of the country. The most expansive of these is Renaissance in Italy, a seven-volume series covering important episodes of Italian history and literature, from the dramatically titled first volume The Age of the Despots to The Catholic Reaction, Parts I and II, the sixth and seventh volumes. Originally published during Symonds’ lifetime in 1875, the series returned to print several times after Symonds’ death (including a late publication date of 1914), presumably due to widespread popularity. Though they are not particularly ornamented volumes, the Renaissance in Italy books were printed on quality paper, suggesting that they were truly intended to be read instead of displayed.

The third volume of Renaissance in Italy, subtitled The Fine Arts, first published in London in 1877, is a guide to the art of Italy. It recalls the pieces proudly displayed in galleries across the country, most notably the Uffizi. It opens with this phrase:

“It has been granted to only two nations, the Greeks and the Italians, and to the latter only at the time of the Renaissance, to invest every phrase and variety of intellectual energy with the form of art.”

The Fine Arts, 1.

This line certainly serves its purpose as an eye-catching opening sentence, one that could now be contentious considering the artistic skill of many non-European nations at the time. However, to readers intent on discerning the interests of the author himself, this line lends itself to another reading, revealing the idea that Symonds’ esteem of Italian culture rivals the importance he places on classical Greek authors. Perhaps his interest in each culture can be attributed to his curiosity about paederastia.

We can trace the references in A Problem in Greek Ethics to mentions of paiderastia in classical Greek works, and the presence of many of those same works in Symonds’ library suggests they had a notable influence on his writing, and scattered amidst Symonds’ appreciation of Italian sculpture and painting are a few echoes of paederastia. Though the first publication of The Fine Arts in 1877 predates that of the 1883 A Problem in Greek Ethics, it is likely that he was working on the latter while writing the book, and so it is easy to trace Symonds’ ruminations on paederastia back through his earlier publications. In The Fine Arts, Symonds mentions the pieces of Italian sculptor Donatello, saying of St. George and David:

“Without striving to idealize his models, the sculptor has expressed in both the Christian conception of heroism, fearless in the face of danger, and sustained by faith. The naked beauty of the boy David and the mailed manhood of St. George are raised to a spiritual region”

The Fine Arts, 100.

The two figures are not displayed together today and Symonds’ comparison of them is not intended to suggest that the people they depict took part in a paederastic relationship. Instead, he assigns them roles that are reminiscent of people who assumed paederastic relationships: the pre-pubescent boy and the educated adult man. It is unlikely that Symonds’ intention here was to imply that Italy followed the Greek tradition. Instead, this phrase is a tiny window into Symonds’ mind, where A Problem in Greek Ethics was just beginning to solidify into an idea to pursue.

The Renaissance in Italy series is proof that Symonds was both an astute scholar and a brilliant observer of the world, especially the Italian peninsula that so interested him. Symonds’ books are a reminder to recognize the beauty of the classical history still visible in Italy today, and reading them with an understanding of the pertinence of paederastia to Symonds’ own life only supplements the experience.

Works Cited:

Symonds, John Addington. Renaissance in Italy: The Fine Arts. New edition. London: Smith. 1877. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.95657/page/n7.

Two ways to look deeply into an ancient culture are to read about the lives of its people and the social ideologies they formed. Plutarch produced one work for each. As an essayist, Plutarch has a collection of articles, Moralia, including essays and transcribed speeches, shedding light on the Greek and Roman livings in general. As a biographer, Plutarch is known for Lives/Parallel Lives, which chronicles a series of famous Greek and Roman people (Mark Antony for example) in a detailed manner. Like Karl Marx to a sociology class, Plutarch is one of those names you are unlikely to miss on your Classics 101 (says me who is not a classics major, yet) reading list as his works provide a basic understanding into the social, philosophical, and spiritual frameworks of ancient Greek culture.

It is curious to see how our protagonist John Addington Symonds, who is a classics scholar and to whom Greek life is “of intense personal interest,” came across Plutarch. Several times in his memoirs and letters, he mentioned reading Plutarch as part of his personal life. On his trip to Italy, JAS brought Plutarch with him to read all day long in a cabin and in Sicily. He expressed his feeling of being in Italy as to “get so many of the good things of the world,” Plutarch being one of them. In another letter, he mentions that his 10-year-old Janet read Plutarch’s Lives with him every day after breakfast.

What, then, did JAS find so invaluable in Plutarch’s works? As aforementioned, Plutarch’s works are more like an encyclopedia of Greek livings and society. It is therefore crucial and intriguing for us to see what is it that draws the most attention from JAS among the plethora of ancient Greek characters and ideologies Plutarch has to offer. We might also want to ask what the connection is there between those characters and JAS’s personal life and beliefs.  

Plutarch’s Lives as a source that demonstrates the military origin of Greek love. The Life of Pelopidas brings up the Sacred Band, an army led by Pelopidas, and is “cemented by friendship grounded upon love” between soldiers. The Sacred Band, is said to be invincible as lovers would never want to appear base in sight of the beloved, as supported in Plutarch’s The Dialogue on Love: “For love makes a man clever …the coward brave, just as men make soft wood tough by hardening it in the fire.” Symonds also touches lightly on other similar stories to support this claim. Such love that bred in a military setting rests on what Symonds calls comradeship, the “companion in battle…in public and private affairs of life,”The relationship between Pelopidas and Epaminondas in the Life of Pelopidas fits this description. Both being free of a vanity towards “personal wealth and glory,” they are bonded by a “divine desire of seeing their country glorious by their exertions.” The affection between them further ferments through participating in public actions and fighting together at battles. Evidence from Symonds’ memoirs and letters suggest that such friendship infiltrates its influence from his scholastic to personal life, exciting his romantic imagination. Symonds describes his affection for Willie Dyer, his first love, as “a passionate yet pure love between friend and friend…the vision of a comrade, seemed at the time to be made actual in him [Willie]”. As a boy, Symonds wrote an unpublished poem, “Epaminondas,” which is mentioned in his letters. Although we as readers cannot see the actual poem, it is hard not to draw a connection between Epaminondas and Symonds himself, both of whom are voracious in philosophizing and engaged in boy love. Moreover, in his memoir, Symonds confesses his attraction towards masculinity which indicates a possibility of him projecting himself on Epaminondas; he has an unusual friendship with Pelopidas, who is keen on bodily actions. It is funny to read that Pelopidas and Epaminondas once worked together as colleagues “in supreme command and gained the greater part of the nations there, including all Arcadia.”, comparing this to the fact that Symonds famously euphemizes his ideal Greek love as the “Arcadian Love,” distinguishing it from Greek love which includes also a baser form of paiderastia.

Symonds’ referral to Plutarch is centered on the debate about love and the characters that exemplify a pure, passionate relationship seen in the Greek military, which drives his intellectual inquiry and unworldly personal imagination. However, upon reading Plutarch, I also recognize traces of other morals from Plutarch that might have been correlated to Symonds’ life. As stated by Arthur Hugh Clough, “Plutarch is a moralist, not a historian.” Plutarch’s own moral values are made apparent in his Lives, partly reflecting the ideals the Greek society had aspired to. Besides the Life of Pelopidas, Symonds mentions the Life of Solon quite frequently as well. According to Plutarch, Pelopidas, Epaminondas, and Solon share one commonality: they are “no admirers of riches.” Symonds, at a very young age, had also discovered that he “felt no desire for wealth, no mere wish to cut a figure in society,” In this light, it is Symonds’ whole nature, or at least some nature more than mere sexual orientation, that resonates with the essential virtues of the Greek heroes as portrayed by Plutarch. Thus, this observation suggests to me that his indulgence into the ancient Greek history and literature would not be a choice, but a destiny.

Featured image: Detail from cover of Plutarch’s Lives, trans. John Dryden, rev. Arthur Hugh Clough. Modern Library: 1977.

Works Cited:

Sean Brady and John Addington Symonds, “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” essay, in John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and Homosexuality: a Critical Edition of Sources (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 21.

Regis, Amber K. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK , 2016.

Symonds, John Addington, and Horatio F Brown. Letters and Papers of John Addington Symonds. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1923.

Symonds, John Addington. A Problem In Modern Ethics: Being an Inquiry Into the Phenomenon of Sexual Inversion. London, 1896.

Plutarch. “Plutarch’s lives” London, Dent; New York, Dutton [1969-71; vol. 1&2, 1970] Dryden ed., rev. with an introd. by Arthur Hugh Clough.

Understanding the social, economic and political conditions of John Addington Symonds’ life is crucial to understanding his personality and his writing. It is also a way to find the connections he had with other writers and translators. The World of London represents an opportunity to deepen this dimension we may have ignored so far. This book clearly belonged to Symonds’ library with an entry in William George’s Sons 1909 catalog (see lost library). The World of London describes British society around 1885 through a series of 25 letters written by Count Vasili. It gives information about how British politics worked, how the gentry and the aristocracy lived or how sports was a structuring activity for Englishmen. It also describes the important political leaders, statesmen, scientists, and writers. It is designed for someone who does not live in London, the capital city of the United Kingdom, but still wants to understand British civilization.

First, I will focus on the history of The World of London, its author and the edition Symonds may have read. Then, I will connect this book to other volumes that may have belonged him but were not in William George’s Sons catalog of 1909.

The catalog doesn’t contain detailed information on the version Symonds owned. The most valuable information is the date of publication (1885) which indicates that Symonds was already an accomplished author and gentleman when he read The World of London. I assume he owned an English edition and the only possibility was the one published by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington. It is worth noting that in both the American and English editions of the book, there is an interesting introductory note. It explains that the publishers did not see any part of the text before publication. However, they reserved the right to remove some passages if they thought they were “too scandalous, if not libelous” (page II). It is probably because some quite sarcastic letters in the book criticize the Royal Family, politicians and British Society more generally. A non-expurgated French edition is available online and includes 28 letters instead of 25 for the English edition.

The World of London was not written by a British author. The book was initially published in France by Comte Paul Vasili, an alleged Russian aristocrat. In fact, Paul Vasili was a pseudonym for a group of writers that included Juliette Adam, Catherine Radziwill and others. It is not really clear if the book has been mostly written by Adam or Radziwill. The non-British author is a reason why this book gives perhaps obvious details about English culture. It was also purportedly written for non-British readers who may need some basic knowledge about British Society. An English gentleman like Symonds would likely have read this book to understand how a foreign author saw British culture. He may not have paid attention to the elements he already knew. I had the opposite approach because the details about British society were crucial in my attempt to understand the historical context surrounding Symonds and his library.

The World of London contains many chapters focused on politics, a subject that we have not extensively discussed so far. It is an opportunity to find new leads about his library. Symonds did not write about ordinary politics (elections, parties, etc.) in his Memoirs. He explained that his father was close to the Liberals (“He corresponded with the leading Liberals in politics, religion, and philosophy.”, page 84) but Symonds did not mention his own views. The words “vote”, “politics” or “elections” are almost absent when searching the Memoirs but there are other clues about his opinions. For instance, The World of London tends to be in favor of Liberals than any other party. Furthermore, Symonds was related to T.H. Green who influenced the social-liberal movement. He was also a friend with Edward Carpenter who was openly socialist. Therefore, Symonds was arguably a liberal and British scholar Colin Tyler considers he was even close to “an eroticized form of democratic socialism.” (J.A. Symonds, socialism and the crisis of sexuality in fin-de-siècle Britain, History of European Ideas, 2017). It is close to the conception I in my previous post on Walt Whitman: a study. Symonds’ library should reflect his political thoughts. Publications from Edward Carpenter are already in our database but there is nothing about Green. We should expect to discover some books written by this author and more generally volumes about political theory in subsequent researches

The World of London helps us understand which poets and/or novelists were prominent around 1885 and many poets mentioned in this book were on Symonds’ shelves. Even if Symonds was proud of his collection of Walt Whitman’s books, Whitman was not, by any mean, the only poet he read. For instance, The World of London has information about Lord Tennyson, the Poet Laureate. We know Tennyson was an author Symonds read because there are two entries in our catalog under this name. Robert Browning follows the same pattern. Vasili mentioned him and Symonds owned three of his books. However, there is no record of the other eminent authors mentioned in by Vasili. Books by George Eliot, Charles Dickens and John Stuart Mill were presumably on Symonds’ shelves even if there is no record. These missing titles make it very clear that the bookseller’s catalog we are using to reconstruct the library is not exhaustive. A significant amount of work still needs to be achieved to fully comprehend the composition of Symonds’ library.

In conclusion, The World of London is interesting because it relates to the society surrounding Symonds. As a part of the intellectual élite, Symonds cannot be detached from a political situation that includes the reign of Queen Victoria, reforms and modern political thinkers. The rise of some poets and successful authors of novels may have also affected Symonds. In the end, The World of London represents an opportunity to identify books we may find are important in our further attempts to reconstruct his lost library.

Works cited and useful links:

Colin Tyler (2017) J.A. Symonds, socialism and the crisis of sexuality in fin-de-siècle Britain, History of European Ideas, 43:8, 1002-1015, DOI: 10.1080/01916599.2017.1284141

Quinn, J., & Brooke, C. (2011). ‘Affection in Education’: Edward Carpenter, John Addington Symonds and the politics of Greek love. Oxford Review of Education, 37(5), 683–698. DOI: 10.1080/03054985.2011.625164

Regis, Amber K. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016.

Symonds, John Addington. Walt Whitman: a Study. London: G. Routledge & sons, limited, 1893. (link)

Vasili, P., Cyon, E. de, & Adam, J. (1885). The world of London : La société de Londres. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington. (Internet Archive / Hathi Trust)

Vasili, P., Cyon, E. de, & Adam, J. (1885). La société de Londres. Paris: Nouvelle Revue. Fourth Edition. (Internet Archive)

More information on T.H. Green (link)

During his studies—almost certainly at the Harrow School, and more extensively at Balliol College, Oxford—John Addington Symonds would have read the Iliad by Homer. There is much speculation and dissent, both by ancient writers and modern scholars, about the exact nature of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus depicted by the text. At the time, it could have been considered through the lens of paiderastia. A relationship between an adult man, the erastês, and a younger one, often a teenager, the erômenos, paiderastia was a well-established institution in ancient Greece by the 4th century BC.¹ However, the acceptability of this arrangement was not as prominent when Homer composed the Iliad. Although Symonds himself did not ascribe an erotic dimension to the heroic friendship between Achilles and Patroclus, their relationship is so easily read as such that it nonetheless functions as a keystone for understanding “Greek love.”

Symonds’ first encounter with the Iliad, and therefore the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, was almost certainly during early childhood.
In his Memoirs, he discusses the artwork and texts available to him as a young boy, writing, “I was very fond of picture books and drew a great deal from Raphael, Flaxman and Retzsch. Our house was well stocked with engravings, photographs, copies of Italian pictures and illustrated works upon Greek sculpture.”² The name surname Flaxman refers to John Flaxman, who was an eminent Neoclassicist sculptor and engraver.

The image above is taken from a collection of illustrations based on scenes from the Iliad, engraved by Thomas Piroli and based on John Flaxman’s line drawings. As a representation of one of the most famous Greek texts, Flaxman’s Iliad illustrations would have been important to the classical education of a young boy. So of all of Flaxman’s work, it is probable Symonds would have been able to access these; the book of engravings containing this scene almost certainly was present in Symonds’ childhood library. This particular image depicts Achilles in violent rage following his grief over the death of Patroclus. To avenge his fallen comrade, Achilles slaughtered dozens of Trojans in the river Xanthus:

But when they were now come to the ford of the fair-flowing river, even eddying Xanthus that immortal Zeus begat, there Achilles cleft them asunder… the Zeus-begotten left there his spear upon the bank, leaning against the tamarisk bushes, and himself leapt in like a god with naught but his sword; and grim was the work he purposed in his heart, and turning him this way and that he smote and smote; and from them uprose hideous groaning as they were anchorage in their terror, for greedily doth he devour whatsoever one he catcheth; even so cowered the Trojans in the streams of the dread river beneath the steep banks.³

Achilles killed so many Trojans, in fact, that the river god Scamander showed up to ask him to please stop:

The deep-eddying River waxed wroth and called to him in the semblance of a man, sending forth a voice from out the deep eddy: “O Achilles, beyond men art thou in might, and beyond men doest deeds of evil; for ever do the very gods give thee aid. If so be the son of Cronos hath granted thee to slay all the men of Troy, forth out of my stream at least do thou drive them, and work thy direful work on the plain. Lo, full are my lovely streams with dead men, nor can I anywise avail to pour my waters forth into the bright sea, being choked with dead, while thou ever slayest ruthlessly. Nay, come, let be; amazement holds me, thou leader of hosts.”⁴

Achilles would not, and decided to literally fight the river:

Then swift-footed Achilles answered him, saying: “Thus shall it be, Scamander, nurtured of Zeus, even as thou biddest. Howbeit the proud Trojan will I not cease to slay until I have pent them in their city, and have made trial of Hector, man to man, whether he shall slay me or I him.”⁵

Symonds’ interest in the image during childhood would have been rudimentary, and no doubt broadly curious rather than raptly speculative or scholastic. However, that his corpus draws substantially upon Achilles and Patroclus to discuss Greek love indicates that available representations in his early life made an impression. Despite Symonds’ statement in A Problem in Greek Ethics that “in the delineation of the friendship of Achilles and Patroclus there is nothing which indicates the passionate relation of the lover and the beloved,” their prominence in that text suggests some ambivalence.⁶ Symonds even mentions this specific scene: “The love for slain Patroclus broke his mood of sullen anger, and converted his brooding sense of wrong into a lively thirst for vengeance. Hector, the slayer of Patroclus, had to be slain by Achilles, the comrade of Patroclus.”⁷

Even if Achilles and Patroclus were not intended to be read as lovers, Greek writers after Homer represented them as such. In The Myrmidons, written in the fifth century BCE, Aeschylus portrayed Achilles as the erastês and Achilles as the erômenos. This portrayal is argued against in Plato’s Symposium, written in 4th century BCE–Phadedrus takes issue not with the fact that Aeschylus represents Achilles and Patroclus lovers, but argues against the paiderastic roles he assigns, insisting, “Aeschylus talks nonsense when he says that it was Achilles who was in love with Patroclus.”⁸ In other words, Aeschylus was incorrect to represent Achilles as the erastês. The long history of discourse around Achilles and Patroclus as a paragon of same-sex love render them a vital example in Symonds’ discussion.

Another interesting comment Symonds makes that complicates his position on Achilles and Patroclus as an example of “heroic friendship” rather than “Greek love” is that he goes on to suggest that “Greek love was, in its origin and essence, military.”^{9, 10} Achilles is a great warrior and military commander, and by far the most heroic figure in the Trojan War as represented in the Iliad. His initial response to Patroclus’s death—to go on a rampage—is as militaristic as response as one could possibly have. Given this definition of “Greek love,” it seems contradictory for Symonds to insist that Achilles’ dearest companion in life and battle could not also have been in some way a romantic partner, especially because Achilles insisted that his remains needed to be put in the same urn as Patroclus after he died.

Regardless of the Homeric representation of Achilles and Patroclus, the couple functioned as an important site of discussion and consideration during both classical antiquity and Symonds’ time. Achilles’ grief and rage at the death of Patroclus in the context of their broader relationship is just one of many pieces of evidence that Symonds used to evaluate whether they could be considered an example of paiderastia, but the event is a vital signal towards elements of the dynamic that cannot be dismissed merely as heroic friendship.

Endnotes 
¹ John Addington Symonds and Sean Brady, ed., “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and Homosexuality: a Critical Edition of Sources, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 44.
² John Addington Symonds and Amber K. Regis, ed., The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: a Critical Edition, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 118.
³ Homer and A. T. Murray, ed., The Iliad, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924, via the Perseus Digital Library), 21.1-2,17-26.
⁴ Homer and Murray, The Illiad, 21.212-221.
⁵ Ibid, 21.222-226.
⁶ Symonds and Brady, “Greek Ethics,” 44.
⁷ Symonds and Brady, “Greek Ethics,” 45.
⁸ Plato and Harold N. Fowler, “Symposium,” Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9., (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925, via the Perseus Digital Library), 180b.
⁹ Symonds and Brady, “Greek Ethics,” 45.
¹⁰ Symonds and Brady, “Greek Ethics,” 50.

Works Cited
Homer. The Iliad. 1924.  Translated by A.T. Murray. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, in the Perseus Digital Library. Accessed April 22, 2019. http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng1:1.1-1.32

Plato. “Symposium.” 1925. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9. Translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, in the Perseus Digital Library. Accessed April 22, 2019. http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg011.perseus-eng1:180b

Piroli, Thomas. “Achille Combat avrec le Fleuve Scamandre ,” 1793. Line engraving, 35 x 45 cm. (Johns Hopkins Special Collections 730 X6 FOLIO c.1, Baltimore, MD). In L’iliade d’Homere gravée par Thomas Piroli d’apres les desseins composés par Jean Flaxman, sculpteur á Rome [Homer’s Iliad engraved by Thomas Piroli after drawings by Jean Flaxman, sculptor in Rome]. Book, printed in French. https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/catalog/bib_2105108

Symonds, John Addington. 2012. “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” essay, in John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and Homosexuality: a Critical Edition of Sources. Edited by Sean Brady. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Symonds, John Addington. 2016. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: a Critical Edition. Edited by Amber K. Regis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

1858 – John Addington Symonds graduates from his boarding school, Harrow, and receives a most interesting book from his classmates as a parting gift. In his Memoirs, Symonds recounts the event:

“When I left Harrow the boys at Monkey’s subscribed to present me with a testimonial. It was Mure’s History of Greek Literature, handsomely bound, which my successor Currey handed to me with a speech of kindly congratulation.” – JAS, Memoirs, 136

The work Symonds alludes to here is Critical History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece, a five-volume work written by 19th-century classicist William Mure published between the years 1850 and 1857. This massive text provides a partial overview of Ancient Greek literature, acting as both a historical record and an analysis of the cataloged works through a more modern lens. The text’s critical angle is particularly interesting, as literary critical work on classical texts appears to have been a relatively new innovation at the time of the book’s publication (JAS, Letters, 254-255).

Given the way Symonds received the text, and the attention he draws to the fact that it was ‘handsomely bound,’ we can conclude that his copy of the text likely included school bindings marking the text as a present awarded at Harrow. A search on the book selling site AbeBooks.com, performed on April 18, 2019, showed multiple different volumes of the text bearing such bindings, though none from Harrow. From these listings, it can be concluded that it was not necessarily uncommon to gift Mure’s Critical History – all five volumes! – in the manner Symonds describes (at the very least, it happened more than once, and at a school other than Harrow). This is interesting not only as a matter of historical note, but also because it serves to highlight Symonds’ unique and innovative nature as a scholar; despite receiving such an apparently common gift, his usage of the text is far from typical.

A letter Symonds writes to his sister Charlotte in November of 1859 seems to confirm that Symonds was indeed given more than one volume of Critical History, and that he actively read the work and considered it to be of some value:

“W[oul]d you bring with you (if you have room for books) […] [the] volume of Mure that treats of Homer – I s[houl]d think it was vol I.” – JAS, Letters, 214

A reference to Mure appears once more in the Memoirs, quite a bit after Symonds’ initial acquisition of Critical History. Describing the period of his life from 1868 to 1877, Symonds recalls:

“Once more I read through the Greek poets, and wrote copiously, assimilating at the same time the criticisms of Müller, Mure and many scattered essayists. […] I have always thought that the large amount of time and vigour devoted to this work of lecturing prepared me for the definite career of authorship.” – JAS, Memoirs, 438

Though Symonds does not provide a definitive date for this particular series of projects, its placement in the chapter suggests it took place around 1868 or 1869. Given that it seems to comprise a fairly large body of work, it is also possible that this utilization of Mure’s text took place slightly earlier.

I find this timing exciting because it suggests that Symonds was closely reading and making use of Mure’s work – very probably, in my estimation, the same copy of Critical History he had received from his compatriots at Harrow – during a period which roughly overlaps with the creation of A Problem in Greek Ethics. It is somewhat difficult to definitively date the creation of the essay’s first draft, but the window of time here makes it likely that Symonds at least consulted Mure in between the essay’s initial composition and its rewriting in 1873 or 1874.

Here’s the kicker – what really gets me excited about Mure’s Critical History within the context of Symonds’ work: check out this excerpt from a letter Symonds wrote to George Smith in 1872:

“I have been often asked of late to reprint in a collected form some Essays on Greek Poetry wh[ich] have appeared from time to time in the North British & Westminister Reviews. […] In all of them it has been my aim to adjust the study of the Classics to the spirit of modern literary criticism more than has been attempted in the standard books on the subject – Müller and Mure.” – JAS, Letters, 254-255

So there we have it! Not only does the letter’s date give us a definitive indication that Symonds had been reading and thinking about Mure’s work just prior to the rewrite of A Problem in Greek Ethics, the excerpt almost explicitly links Mure’s writing with Symonds’ Studies of Greek Poets, the collected reprint of essays Symonds refers to here, which Prof. Butler notes as “closely related” to A Problem in Greek Ethics in his piece linked here and above.

But even beyond those two points, we have a direct statement that Symonds intends to place himself in dialogue with William Mure’s work in synthesizing Classical studies with modern literary criticism – an area of writing in which A Problem in Greek Ethics flourishes as a revolutionary text.

From these few scraps of information, we can draw a fairly viable connection between Symonds’ acquisition of Mure’s Critical History in 1858 and one of his direct inspirations in composing and/or rewriting A Problem in Greek Ethics about a decade later – perhaps from rereading those very same books he received as a gift!

Honestly, I don’t know how much more compelling a story about a linguistic historical text can get.

Works Cited:

The Letters of Johns Addington Symonds. Wayne State University Press. Detroit, 1967. Print.

The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. Palgrave Macmillan Publishing. London, 2016. Print.

It was the year 1872 and Symonds was 32 years old. After falling ill with possible tuberculosis in 1868, he had returned to lecture at Clifton College, and he began preparing essays such as that comprised the Introduction to the Study of Dante (1872) and Studies of the Greek Poets (1873-1876) as resource materials for teaching his classes.

He tells how he prepared these essays that summer in Austria: “I wrote the bulk of these lectures in a little tavern at Heiligenblut during the month of June, and remodeled them at Clifton” (Memoirs 438).

The chapters included in his Introduction to the Study of Dante were originally meant to make the study of Dante’s works more accessible to English readers. It was published in London in 1872, by Smith and Elder, a British publishing company that also published Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. This book is a precursor to his culminating work on the cultural history of the Italian Renaissance, entitled Renaissance in Italy, which appeared in seven volumes between 1875-1886. Dante was an important to Symonds as both a literary and historical figure.

In his Introduction to the Study of Dante, Symonds begins broadly, writing first about early Italian history in the 13^th century, then about Dante’s life in Florence: his literary studies, political quarrels, his relationship with Beatrice, and his exile from the city. Chapters 4 and 5 involve themes of the Divine Comedy – its allegory, satire, literary allusions, and the visual map of the Christian afterlife. Chapters 6 and 7 focus on Dante’s genius – the sublimity of his meter compared to Homer, Aeschylus, Shakespeare, and Milton and how it has influenced the later work. Chapter 8 discusses the differences between Classical Platonic love and Medieval chivalrous love, referencing Dante’s love poetry to Beatrice.

The photograph that serves as the book’s frontispiece is taken from a cast of Dante’s face in death which was given to Symonds by Mr. Kirkup of Florence, to which he ascribes physiognomic characteristics:

“The eyes are half-closed, as in death. The mouth is shut as though silence or paucity of words habitually dwelt upon the lips. The whole face is very calm and sad and grave”

(Introduction 88)

Dante was an important figure for Symonds, both in his studies and also in his personal life. While writing in London, Symonds first turned to Dante for words to describe his own sorrowful malaise and sexual repression. In a letter to Henry Sidgwick, he writes

“But at times, when my nervous light burns low in solitude, when the fever of the brain and lung is on me, then the shadows of the past gather round, and I feel that life itself is darkened…I am often numb and callous; all virtue seems to have gone out of me, the spring of life to have faded, its bloom to have been rubbed away. I dread that art and poetry and nature are unable to do more for what Dante with terrible truth called li mal protesi nervi” ¹

(Memoirs 316)

His mental suffering reached a peak during his last few weeks at Cannes, France in 1869 when he contemplated suicide. He likened his own senseless desperation to Dante’s slothful in the fifth circle of Hell:

“Fixed in the mire they say, ‘We sullen were
In the sweet air, which by the sun is gladdened.
Bearing within ourselves the sluggish reek’ ”

(Inferno 7.121-3)

In December 1868, Symonds was introduced to Norman Moor, with whom he delighted in romantic affection. But while Norman reciprocated Symonds’ feelings in part, they never attained the Greek ideal union of lover and beloved, causing great pain for Symonds.

“The result was that I had to suffer from jealousy, from the want of any definite hold upon my adored friend, from the dissatisfaction of incomplete spiritual possession, and from the hunger of defrauded longings” (Memoirs 381).

The medieval trope of courtly love was one with which Symonds was familiar, both in his studies and in his personal homosexual endeavors. It is quite possible that Symonds likened his courtly love to that of Dante’s love for Beatrice.

In the summer of 1872, Symonds vacationed with Norman around Europe, and they reach a mutual unspoken agreement that the time for “amorous caresses” had gone by, yet Symonds still held a tender affection for him.

Right after their foreign tour, on September 19^th, 1872, Symonds received his first published copy of the Introduction to the Study of Dante. He cited the publication of this book and the natural end of his episode with Norman as happening concurrently; one bitter ending brings another exciting beginning:

“Thus my entrance into authorship took place exactly at the moment when a final reconciliation of opposites was effected in the matter of my love for Norman. He became a schoolmaster, married, and is now the father of children” (Memoirs 402).

Besides the Newdigate prize poem on the Escorial (1860) and the Chancellor’s prize essay on the Renaissance (1863), Symonds had not yet published anything with his name attached to it until this essay.

In February 1871, his father died, never knowing a world where his son was a known author. Just a year later, in the spring of 1872, Symonds rose to literary success and published his lectures of Dante, which were “favourably received upon the whole, and added to my reputation” (Memoirs 439).

Symonds then compared the physical, sensual passion of Classical love poetry to the love of medieval, chivalric poetry – the amorous devotion heightened to religious worship:

“God was the ultimate object of the worship of the chivalrous lover; but the lady stood between his soul and God as the visible image and perpetual reminder of the heaven to which he ardently aspired. Thus Petrarch and Dante both constantly repeat that it was the thought of their lady which had ennobled them, and turned their souls to God” (Introduction 243).

The state of feeling generated by this love was called Joie; it was the ecstasy which filled the heart of the true lover with delight and capable of deeds almost more than mortal. Like the ideal Greek love Symonds so ardently desired, chivalric love existed independent of the marriage-tie; the lady who inspired it was often already married or otherwise unattainable. Symonds compares this courtly love to the mania of Greek love described by Plato in the Phaedrus, in which love led the way to heaven and raised a man above himself. Both the Classical and medieval chivalric love are idealized states, for which Symonds spent his life looking.

“Both set forth an idea of love, pure from the grossness of the flesh, not to be confounded with matrimonial affection or sensual passion, by means of which the spirit of man is rendered capable of self-devotion and high deeds” (Introduction 245).

While Symonds ultimately does not find his Beatrice in Norman, he does go through a harrowing pilgrimage of his own during the writing and publication of An Introduction to the Study of Dante. Just as Dante enters the darkness of the underworld scared and confused² only to find his way up to the blessed salvation of Heaven,³ Symonds begins 1871 lost and depressed, having just suffered the loss of his father, but ends 1872 with the publication of his first official book and a renewed sense of creativity.

For reference:

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was an Italian statesman, political theorist, and poet of the Late Middle Ages. He is most known for his Divine Comedy, an allegorical poem writing in the Italian dialect that depicts Dante the pilgrim’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. He is cited as an influence on John Milton, Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Alfred Tennyson among others for his literature and theology. He also published the Vita Nuova (The New Life}, a book of verse poems detailing his tragic, unrequited love for Beatrice. He immersed himself in the politics of Florence, where he fell out of favor and was exiled for life by leaders of the Black Guelfs.

¹ “sin-excited nerves” (Inferno 15.114).
² “I found myself within a forest dark / For the straightforward pathway had been lost” (Inferno 1.2-3)
³ “But now it is turning, my desire and will / the Love which moves the sun and the other stars” (Paradiso 33.143-145).

Featured image: Gustave Dore, “Inferno Canto 6.” From Dante Alighieri, The Vision of Hell. Trans. Rev. Henry Francis Cary. London: Cassell, 1892. From Project Gutenberg via Wikimedia Commons.

Works Cited:

“Dante Alighieri – The Life.” Unione Fiorentina, Museo Casa di Dante, 2018. Website. Digital Access.

Symonds, John Addington. An Introduction to the Study of Dante. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1872. Internet Archive, University of California Libraries SRLF 302444. Digital Access.

Symonds, John Addington. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. Amber K. Regis, editor. London: Palgrave Macmillan Publishing, 2016. Print.

N.B. The translations of Dante’s Divine Comedy that Symonds cites in his Memoris are from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1867). Columbia University, Website. Digital Access.

Published in 1893, Walt Whitman: A Study is the last book written by John Addington Symonds. Indeed, the preface is dated March 10, 1893, and Symonds died the following month. In the study, Symonds describes the main themes and influences of Walt Whitman’s poems. Symonds had a special connection with Whitman: they were from the same generation; they were writers and they loved men. The two authors knew each other and communicated by letters. Whitman died in 1892 and arguably Symonds wrote this book as a tribute to the man he knew.

In this blog post, I will analyze both the form and the content of this 1893 edition of Walt Whitman: a study. Then, I will make some connections between the text and other works written or owned by John Addington Symonds.

I learned from this book that the first encounter between Symonds and Whitman’s poetry goes back to 1865. Symonds heard about Leaves of Grass thanks to F.W.H. Myers, a friend from the University of Cambridge (Memoirs, 368). Symonds was fascinated and immediately bought the Boston edition of the Leaves of Grass. What Symonds called the “Boston edition” is a new edition by Thayer and Eldridge in 1860. Whitman modified Leaves of Grass several times until his death in 1892 and the Boston edition is the first to include a cluster of poems called Calamus describing the love between two male comrades. There is no mention of an 1860 copy of Leaves of Grass in the catalog published for the posthumous sale of Symonds’ library. Therefore, there is no trace of the copy he owned. That information is crucial to a confident reconstruction of his library.

Walt Whitman: A Study illustrates Whitman’s strong influence over Symonds, something that was clearly acknowledged by the latter. Symonds had a very high opinion of Whitman whom he considered as some kind of a prophet/philosopher comparable to Buddha, Socrates or Jesus Christ. Symonds considered that Leaves of Grass affected him more than the works of Plato or Goethe, which is truly impressive from a European gentleman who specialized in ancient Greece. Symonds gave many autobiographical details in the study which may lead the reader to think this book focuses less on Whitman’s works and more on Symonds’s life and relationship with the poet. Thus, it is difficult not to see a connection with Symonds’ Memoirs in which he also quoted Whitman several times. For example, Symonds wrote that it was the encounter with Whitman’s volume of poetry that made him write A Problem in Greek Ethics. Beyond inspiration, perhaps Whitman enabled Symonds to accept his love of men, as it is suggested by this sentence from Walt Whitman: A Study: “Through him, I stripped my soul of social prejudices” (160).

Apart from the inspiration, there are multiple connections between Walt Whitman: A Study and A Problem in Greek Ethics. In his study of Whitman, Symonds used many examples from antiquity. These were already present in A Problem in Greek Ethics, in which Symonds mentioned the sexual habits of the Dorians and the famous relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. Moreover, the attitude of the ancient Greeks regarding “boy love” was also very close to Whitman’s thoughts. For Whitman, passion and romance are associated with the love of two men engaged in a strong friendship. This is the kind of love Achilles and Patroclus experienced according to Symonds. Symonds thought Whitman never wrote about sexual desire between two men even if several passages of Leaves of Grass seem to definitely portray two men in erotic and sexual relationships, something Whitman denied. Symonds wrote that according to Whitman the relationship between men and women is “ordinary” (page 75) and purely sexual. It clearly relates to what he wrote in A Problem in Greek Ethics, in which he explained the relations between men and women in ancient Greece were mostly defined by reproduction. There is, however, a key difference with Whitman. For ancient Greeks, male love was reserved for the citizens who were a male elite, whereas Whitman had a democratic vision. For him, there was no question of social status when dealing with the love of two comrades.

On a different note, the Johns Hopkins library owns a first edition of the book. Reading the first edition of this book was an incredible opportunity. First, it enabled me to read Symonds as one his contemporaries would have. For instance, a poem by Symonds is pasted onto the first page. It is arguably the mark the first owner of this book who gave this book in 1923 to the library. The owner signed as Dr. W.W. Lovejoy and he may be the father of Arthur O. Lovejoy whose papers are conserved at the Johns Hopkins’ library (see Lovejoy’s biography). Beyond identifying the first owner of the book, it is possible to understand the reaction of successive readers, thanks to several annotations in the margins. For example, there is a reaction of surprise represented by a question mark above the sentence, “This being so, Whitman never suggests that comradeship may occasion the development of physical desire” (90). It is perhaps the reaction of past students or faculty members that were unfamiliar with the theme of sexuality in Whitman’s poems. It could also be that readers were familiar with Whitman’s erotic descriptions, and were surprised by Symonds’ denial.

It is worth noting that Walt Whitman: a study seems to have not been borrowed much. There is only one entry on the library card used before computers and it is from the 1960s. Overall, the first edition provides an opportunity to ask questions, not only about the content but also about the reception of a book over the years.

In conclusion, Walt Whitman: A Study gives information about what Symonds read and how it affected him. In our project to reconstruct Symonds’ library, it is now possible to find which edition of Leaves of Grass he probably possessed based on the fact that he bought this book in 1865. Even if this book is not mentioned in A Problem in Greek Ethics, the influence of Whitman’s poems was crucial. Whitman was behind Symonds’ work on the relationship between men during antiquity. More generally, the influence of nineteenth-century poetry on John Addington Symonds seems to be worth noting since our work has mostly been focused on authors from antiquity so far. Following this idea, there are arguably other perspectives on Symonds’ works and life that could be discovered by reading Shelley, the biography of the English Romantic poet he wrote.

References and useful links:

Ellis, Havelock, John Addington Symonds, and Ivan Crozier. Sexual Inversion: a Critical Edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2008.

John Addington Symonds to Walt Whitman, letters stored at the Library of Congress (follow the link)

Wiener, Philip P. “Towards Commemorating the Centenary of Arthur O. Lovejoy’s Birthday (October 10, 1873).” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 34, no. 4, 1973, pp. 591–598. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2708890.

Regis, Amber K. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016.

Symonds, John Addington. Shelley. London: Macmillan & co, 1878. (text from the first edition)

Symonds, John Addington. Walt Whitman: a Study. London: G. Routledge & sons, limited, 1893. (text from a different edition is available)

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, year 85 of the States, 1860. (text from the Boston edition)

Our lab’s task of re-creating John Addington Symonds’ library has most recently taken us to the catalogue of its contents prepared by William George’s Sons, a prominent bookseller in Bristol.¹ Although the catalogue is from 1909, 16 years after Symonds’ death, it can shed much light on the influences and inspirations for his scholarly works. Additionally, the contents listed in the 1909 catalogue can give us information about Symonds beyond our understanding of him as an academic. Symonds was a prolific historian and classicist, who made significant contributions to queer history and literature, being one of the first people to use the term “homosexuality” in A Problem in Modern Ethics. In this essay and its predecessor, A Problem in Greek Ethics,  he gives insight into classical history and provides a working understanding of Ancient Greek sexual culture.

In academic study it is often common to view important figures only within the context of their scholarly or literary output. Rarely have I been asked to think about an author beyond the scope of reading and analyzing their literature. Our work on Symonds has felt like fresh air, seeing him not only for his work and but also beyond it, learning about him in intimate detail through his memoirs and letters he wrote. Given the breadth of Symonds’ work, it has been fascinating to read through the catalogue of his library and see the direct influences on his writing. Between books on poetry, philosophy, language, and art, one can see the amount of literature at his disposal. In analyzing this catalogue, clear connections can be made from the contents of his library to his own written works, allowing us to trace his inspirations in a remarkable way.

And yet, not every connection is so clear. The book that struck me most, for instance, was Richard Brown’s Memorabilia Curliana Mabenensia, and Symonds’ copy was likely the first edition published in 1830.² It was somewhat hard to find information on the book due to a typo in the catalogue, but I was able to dig around and find an electronic copy through the HathiTrust Digital Library. Not recognizing the Latin vocabulary in the title, I was surprised to discover it is a book on the history of curling. Different sections of the book outline the rules, strategies, lingo, and history of the winter sport, particularly referencing Scottish curlers of the Lochmaben Curling Society. Considering the impressive and intellectual makeup of his library, I found the presence of the Memorabilia puzzling; within a library largely comprised of works seemingly related to Symonds’ scholarly pursuits, where on Earth do Scottish curlers fit? What is their place among Homer, Thucydides, and Shelley, to name a mere few? We know from Symonds’ Memoirs that he did not care for sports in his youth, and yet he owned a book on curling.

After a few moments of perplexed reflection, I thought about how reductive that line of thinking was. Though we know Symonds largely for his notable academic work, it is foolish to expect that his interests were limited to those efforts alone. Why should I think his interests could not evolve? There are many things I detested in youth that I can now enjoy even just in young adulthood (e.g. tomatoes, running). Likewise, I’m sure we can all relate to a few seemingly “out of character” pieces of literature, art, or music in our various collections. As evidence of pursuits outside of academia, the Memorabilia serves to show the diversity and range of his interests, reminding us of his humanity.

Though unrelated to the academic interests for which he was known, it is possible to establish connections with his works describing his life in Switzerland. In Our Life in the Swiss Highlands (which he wrote with his daughter shortly before his death), he dedicates an entire chapter to discussing Swiss athletic sports. ^{3, 4} Sporting events in the winter season appear to have been an important means of integrating into Swiss culture and meeting people, and specifically, young men. Here we can start connecting the dots. Curling, among other athletic sports, likely served as a way for Symonds connect to the communities around him in Switzerland in the last years of his life. The Memorabilia seems to be the only book in the catalogue that focuses on sports, yet it gives us a peek into Symonds’ Swiss life and shows us more about Symonds as a multi-faceted person and not just a lofty academic. There is something remarkably down-to-earth about engaging in interests in order to make social connections, and to see cute boys exercise.

Exploring the contents of Symonds’ library allows us to appreciate the inspirations behind his extensive academic accomplishments, as well as the influences on his life outside academia. From this we can gain greater insights into who John Addington Symonds was as an author and person, strengthening the lab’s work.

Featured image: Frontispiece for Richard Brown, Memorabilia Curliana Magenensia. Dumfries: J. Sinclair, 1830. Via HathiTrust.

1. Books on poetry, art, biography, etc., from the library of late John Addington Symonds, removed from Am Hof, Davos Platz, Switzerland : each work. (1909) Bristol [Gloucestershire] : Offered for sale by William George’s Sons.
2. Brown, R. (1830). Memorabilia curliana mabenensia. Dumfries: J. Sinclair.
3. Symonds, J. Addington. (1879). Sketches and studies in Italy. London: Smith, Elder.
4. Symonds, J. Addington., Symonds, M. (1892). Our life in the Swiss highlands. London: A. and C. Black.

            “Sexual Inversion” is a book written by John Addington Symonds and Havelock Ellis that was published in 1897. While published posthumously, it still remains one of Symonds’ most influential works and encompasses many of his thoughts pertaining to the ancient world as well as conceptions of homosexuality throughout history. “Sexual Inversion” is the first scientific study written in English on the subject of homosexuality, or “sexual inversion” as it was called before the origin and widespread use of the word “homosexuality”. The book is the product of four years of research across a variety of fields, such as anthropology and psychiatry. The result is a series of case studies of homosexual men and women that portray homosexuality (or sexual inversion) as a natural phenomenon and not something that should be considered morally wrong or shameful.[1] The book also includes Symonds’ shorter text “A Problem in Greek Ethics”, which has been one of our most important texts for the Lab throughout the semester.

This book truly epitomizes much of what John Addington Symonds believed about the history of homosexuality as well as its origins in the Classical world. The text begins with a scientific discussion about animals and their sexual practices. After this, using a series of 33 case studies of homosexual individuals, Symonds and Ellis discuss the nature and theory of sexual inversion. These case studies are extremely detailed and thoroughly describe several of the most intimate aspects of individuals’ lives. These range from details about the ages that people started experiencing certain attractions, their own individual sexual preferences, and their views on homosexuality (among many others). These case studies are extremely interesting because of just how detailed they are and how many areas are touched upon by a study of a single person. There is an incredible depth to these case studies and there is much to be learned by any reader of this book. Here is one such example of an excerpt from a case study from “Sexual Inversion”:

“Case II: – Highlander, age 37, a ‘chance’ child of rather poor birth, and employed as a portman. He is very amorous by nature, with good intelligence but feeble will. His heart is weak, and there is a tendency to hypochondriasis. Latterly he has taken drugs to a considerable extent to relieve his heart-trouble, and has also become almost impotent.

As a young man he was very fond of the girls and showed a morbid degree of erethism (emission at sight of women, etc.); he had one or two serious love affairs and disappointments. Then the passion gradually veered round to his own sex, he does not know why. At the present time his life is always wrapped up in some male friend, but without much response on the physical side from the other person. His sleeping and waking life is filled with a continual procession of images of physical and emotional desire. His temperament is somewhat artistic.”[2]

This is just one of the 33 case studies in “Sexual Inversion” that provide a detailed window into an individual’s private life. The nature of these case studies vary but this gives insight into the types of things that Ellis and Symonds were interested in highlighting with the publication of this book.

The edition of the text that I read was provided through digital scans via Internet Archive and while this was quite a convenient method, I would say that this is not a true substitute for reading the physical book. Some of the scans are better than others and often times, the text can be a little bit difficult to read. Additionally, it becomes a quite difficult to “flip” through the book so to speak without a physical copy. However, reading the book in this format has been particularly efficient for a project that I am personally contributing to. A few of us in the Lab have undertaken the task of transcribing the Greek text that Symonds included in “A Problem in Greek Ethics”. This is made much easier through the use of a digital version of “Sexual Inversion” because it allows me to use a split screen so that both the Greek and the document into which I am transcribing it are visible at the same time. 

In general, “Sexual Inversion” is a wonderful compilation of many of the themes that we knew Symonds was interested in throughout his entire life. The inclusion of personal sentiments as well as a scope of case studies shows just how universal of a topic homosexuality is and it is a great effort to normalize a taboo subject, particularly during the time period in which Symonds lived.

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[1] Beccalossi and Chiara, “Sexual Inversion: A Critical Edition,” OUP Academic (Oxford University Press, February 21, 2009), https://academic.oup.com/shm/article-abstract/22/1/211/1628427.

[2] Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds, “Studies in the Psychology of Sex. [Electronic Resource] : Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming,” Internet Archive (London : Wilson & MacMillan, January 1, 1897), https://archive.org/details/b2041996x, 43.

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As befits a well-educated nineteenth century writer, the library of John Addington Symonds was extensive both in volume number and in subject matter. Of course, cataloguing the contents of his library—recreating it at least digitally, and assembling as many physical components of its contents as possible—provides insight into Symonds’ interests and allows us to trace the sources of ideas furthered by his own writing.

Yet choosing to believe that every volume contained in Symonds’ library correlates directly to his publications-thus assuming that he acquired books with the intent of creating a cohesive research library-is impractical. Some books were doubtlessly purchased as souvenirs, others were passed down to Symonds by his father or were copies he may have picked up in school, and a few were presented to him as gifts from their respective authors or publishers.

One of these is a translation of Aeschylus’ Tragedy of Agamemnon, which contains the inscription “With the Publisher’s Compliments.” Published by Bernard Quaritch in London during the year 1876, the title page reads “Agamemnon A Tragedy taken from Aeschylus.” (1) Symonds’ copy contains a scrawling handwritten signature crediting the book to Edward Fitzgerald. Whether it was the translator himself who signed the book or merely the publisher’s effort to clarify the source of the material, it is worth noting that a copy from the same edition available online contains the same inscription, though the hand is different. Symonds’ copy is clearly expensive, a collectible: the text on each of its pages is framed by ornate detailing, and the format of the book is clearly meant to be beautiful rather than utilitarian.

The preface—presumably also written by Fitzgerald, though it is unsigned—is amusingly apologetic for the “per-version” of Aeschylus’ original text that this translation constitutes. (2) As the first volume in the Oresteia, widely considered to be Aeschylus’ most famous work, the Tragedy of Agamemnon chronicles the death of its titular character King Agamemnon of Argos, who is betrayed by his queen Clytemnestra. Although it is likely that Symonds was also familiar with the other pieces in the Oresteia, which countinue the tale of the house of Atreus with Aeschylus’ “Choephori” (or “The Libation Bearers”) and “The Eumenides,”this particular translation is only the first book.

As a classicist, it is not odd for Symonds to have possessed Fitzgerald’s Agamemnon. Aeschylus’ name appears in Symonds’ memoirs a few times, as well as in some of his letters. Agamemnon is referenced specifically in a postscript found in a letter to Mrs. Blanche Arthur Hugh Clough: the reference reads, “Soul-wounding flower of love is in AEschylus.” A footnote in the Letters explains this relatively cryptic sentence, providing a quote from Arthur Way’s translation of Agamemnon: (3)

An arrow of desire

That archer-eyes were winging

A flower soul-thrilling, springing

Out of love’s bed of fire. (4)

Another reference, this time to the Oresteia as a whole rather than Agamemnon, appears in one of Symonds’ first letters, written during his time at Harrow to Charlotte Symonds. Once again in a footnote, Symonds writes,

Would you look and see whether in Schlegel’s Dramatists there is any thing on the characters of Clytaemnestra & Lady [Blank] or about the plays of Macbeth & Aeschylus’ Orestea. I am going to take Aeschylus’ idea of Clytam (5)

The rest of the letter is incomplete, and Symonds’ decision to take up an idea belonging to Aeschylus remains unexplained. However, it is interesting to note that this letter, written in 1858, predates the Fitzgerald Agamemnon. Clearly, Symonds knew the story of the first volume of the Oresteia long before a copy of Fitzgerald’s translation came into his possession: perhaps it is even possible to guess that the earlier copy of the Way translation he cites in the first letter provided his first reading of the Agamemnon. 

Apart from taking place in Greece, the material found in Fitzgerald’s translation of Agamemnon is not closely connected to Symonds’ more famous works. Instead, the play’s presence in Symonds’ library provides an insight into the complex and interconnected world of authors, publishers and scholars during the nineteenth century, and remind us that Symonds read widely and was interested in more than the subjects for which he is remembered.

Footnotes:

(1) Aeschylus. Agamemnon.

(2) Aeschylus. Agamemnon.

(3) Letters II:365.

(4) Aeschylus, Agamemnon (Way).

(5) Letters I:134.

Works Cited:

Aeschylus. Agamemnon, a Tragedy. Translated by Edward FitzGerald. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1876. https://archive.org/details/agamemnonatrage00fitzgoog/page/n3.

Aeschylus. Aeschylus in English Verse. Translated by Arthur S. Way. London: Macmillan, 1908.

Symonds, John Addington. 1923. Letters and Papers of John Addington Symonds. Edited by Horatio F. Brown. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons.

Symonds, John Addington. 2016. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: a Critical Edition. Edited by Amber K. Regis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

The letters and memoirs of John Addington Symonds are filled with references to authors whose work spans centuries, from his contemporaries to the Greek writers on which Symonds’ own early curriculum at Harrow was built. Exposure to these works began even before Symonds’ school days due to his easy access to his father’s extensive library. Among the material available to Symonds in that library were many works pertaining to the Homeric poems. Although it is hard to identify the exact date that a version of the engravings of John Flaxman’s illustrations of Homer arrived at Clifton Hill House, it is not unreasonable to assume that Symonds had access to them.

The versions of Flaxman’s drawings that Symonds likely grew up with were large, printed in the center of thick, heavy paper with plenty of space in the margins. Though the volumes’ decoration is understated, it is clear that the books were expensive items, and would have occupied a distinguished shelf in the library at Clifton Hill House.

Among the many pages of Flaxman’s simple, clean line drawings—detailing important scenes from the journeys and trials of Greek heroes, organized chronologically—is an image relevant to Symonds’ essay A Problem in Greek Ethics. In the Iliade d’Homere, a volume composed of Thomas Piroli’s engravings of Flaxman’s drawings first published in Rome in 1793, there is an image entitled The Embassy to Achilles. The image is captioned in swirling, handwritten French, and reads, “Ulisse, Ajax, Phenix, et deux Herauts viennent à la tente d’Achille pour traiter de la paix avec Agamemnon.” In English: “Odysseus, Ajax, Phoenix, and two heralds come to the tent of Achilles to treat peace with Agamemnon.”

The drawing, then, is an illustration of Homer’s Iliad, Book 9, where three of the foremost leaders of the Greek forces attempt to persuade Achilles to return to battle during the Trojan war. A translation of the original Homer reads:

And they came to the huts and the ships of the Myrmidons,

and found [Achilles] delighting his soul with a clear-toned lyre…

he sang of the glorious deeds of warriors;

and Patroclus alone sat over against him in silence,

waiting until Aeacus’ son should cease from singing.

But the twain came forward and goodly Odysseus led the way,

and they took their stand before his face; and Achilles leapt up in amazement

with the lyre in his hand, and left the seat whereon he sat;

and in like manner Patroclus when he beheld the men uprose.

Then swift-footed Achilles greeted the two and spake, saying:

“Welcome, verily ye be friends that are come—sore must the need be

—ye that even in mine anger are to me the dearest of the Achaeans.”

So saying, goodly Achilles led them in

and made them sit on couches and rugs of purple;

and forthwith he spake to Patroclus, that was near:

“Set forth a larger bowl, thou son of Menoetius;

mingle stronger drink, and prepare each man a cup…

So he spake, and Patroclus gave ear to his dear comrade.

Homer, Iliad 9.185-205.

This scene is exactly replicated in Flaxman’s drawing, though the ceremony evident in Homer’s words seems subdued in the drawing. On the far left is Patroclus, positioned near the lyre set down by Achilles, who greets his visitors led by Odysseus. Following him are Ajax and Phoenix, and then two additional unnamed men. Flaxman’s faithfulness to the poem makes it easy to identify these characters as Odius and Eurybates, who are mentioned a few lines earlier in the Iliad during a portion that describes planning the delegation to Achilles:

First of all let Phoenix, dear to Zeus, lead the way,

and after him great Aias and goodly Odysseus;

and of the heralds let Odius and Eurybates attend them.

Homer, Iliad 9.168-170.

A Problem in Greek Ethics contains several references to the relationship of Achilles and Patroclus, mostly asserting that it took the form of heroic friendship rather than constituting an actual paederastic arrangement. Symonds writes that “Homer, who knew nothing about [paederastia] as it afterwards existed, drew a striking picture of masculine affection in Achilles. Friendship occupies the first place in his hero’s heart, while only the second is reserved for sexual emotion”(1). This image, then, may have been of interest to Symonds because of what it depicts: two men, a powerful older man and his subservient companion, living together in a situation that could very easily be interpreted either as paederastic or as the heroic friendship situation posited by Symonds. The fact that recognized Greek leaders come to ask Achilles for help serves to reinforce the normality of heroic friendship in Greek society: by mentioning it only in passing, the text makes clear that the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus follows typical custom.

This image is not cited in Symonds’ writing: as a mere visual interpretation of an important but brief scene in the Iliad, it would not have formed particularly strong academic proof of the kind needed by Symonds for his writing. The significance of the engraving lies instead in the fact that the idea of heroic friendship as an early form of paederastia was something Symonds may have been exposed to at an early age, perusing the books of his father’s library. It is easy to imagine a young Symonds stumbling across this image, wondering what it might mean for him.

Footnotes:

1. John Addington Symonds and Sean Brady, “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” 58.
   

Works Cited:

Homer. The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. ll.185-205. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.

Iliade d’Homere gravée par Thomas Piroli d’apres les desseins composés par Jean Flaxman, sculpteur á Rome. [Rome? 1793?] https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/catalog/bib_2105108

Symonds, John Addington. “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” in John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and Homosexuality: a Critical Edition of Sources. Edited by Sean Brady. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

John Flaxman is a figure not very often referenced by Symonds in his memoirs or his letters, but someone who seems to have a more hidden connection with Symonds. The one mention of Flaxman in the memoirs mentions him in the context of picture books and how he “drew a great deal from Raphael, Flaxman and Retzch.” At the very least, Flaxman’s illustrations served as one of Symonds’ first introductions to Greek classics. The specific Flaxman book I will be referring to is Compositions from the Tragedies of Aeschylus, of which the content seems fairly self-explanatory.

The reference from his memoirs, along with a mention in one of his letters about selling a Flaxman book as part of a “list”, is strong evidence that Symonds had these books lying around in his collection and would have been familiar with them. In his memoirs he also mentions his house “well stocked with engravings, photographs, copies of Italian pictures and illustrated works upon Greek sculpture.” (page 118) It wouldn’t have at all been unusual for Symonds to possess his books, between his interest in classical Greek literature and noted proclivity toward collecting artwork. The publishing date of 1795 is also well before Symonds’ time (being born in 1840), making it entirely plausible for Symonds to have owned a copy. While Flaxman as a figure does not appear much in Symonds’ writing, Aeschylus certainly does, making appearances multiple times in his memoirs, his letters, and a few instances in A Problem in Greek Ethics. Considering all these factors, it would be a seemingly gaping hole in his collection if Symonds never owned a version of Flaxman’s illustrations of Aeschylus.

The specific play pictured in this image is Agamemnon, a play by Aeschylus which dramatizes the life of the titular Agamemnon, a mythological king of Mycanae. The scene pictured in the photo seems to be Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, standing over his corpse, after he has been killed according to Cassandra’s prophecy. The quote underlying the illustration seems to be Clytemnestra expressing grief over her husband’s death, though the picture itself seems to tell a different tale, from her facial expression. Perhaps it could be interpreted as indignant rage over her husband’s death, but the play itself also says otherwise. Clytemnestra had a lover, and when Agamemnon dies, she takes over the government with him. The expression on her face in the picture does not seem to match her quote, but also is not particularly congruent with the events of the play that are going on in that moment. In terms of Symonds’ interest in the Agamemnon in particular, he does not reference in much in the writings we have looked at; there is one mention in the letters but nothing particularly earth-shattering. He does reference Aeschylus a fair bit throughout his letters, and a few times in both his memoirs and A Problem in Greek Ethics. But it seems fair to assume, at least for the scholarly affairs of Greek Ethics and his life in general, Aeschylus and the Agamemnon were not particularly massive influences. Which leaves us only with the vague speculations of what a young boy looking at this particular image could have seen when gazing into the confusingly furious eyes of a cheating wife looking at her husband’s body while expressing grief. We can probably assume that Symonds was not aware of the events in the play, but I think there is still something to be said. Perhaps the disconnect between facial expression and quote inspired a sort of curiosity, an inkling in him that something was quite not right with the situation. Essentially, it might have served as a sort of gateway to hint at the depth of the Greek classics, and planted the seed that would sprout into his research into Greek classics years later. It provided a question, that he would later answer through the course of his life through study.

From John Addington Symonds’ body of work, it seems clear that Greco-Roman art and literature had a significant influence on his intellectual and sexual development. In his memoirs he describes the books in his childhood home that were influential in his personal and intellectual life.

Sculpture specifically played a significant role in Symonds adolescence, as he came into his sexuality and discovered his attraction to men. In his memoirs, he discusses his early experiences of sexual dreams which allowed him to appreciate male beauty in art, writing that “this vision of ideal beauty under the form of a male genius symbolized spontaneous yearnings deeply seated in my nature, and prepared me to receive many impressions of art and literature”.¹ He then specifically describes how a photograph of the Praxitelean Cupid was particularly inspiring: “A photograph of the Praxitelean Cupid…taught me to feel the secret of Greek sculpture…[and] strengthened the ideal I was gradually forming of adolescent beauty”.² In this way, studying the masculine form in sculpture provided an outlet for his appreciation of male beauty, a concept important in his discussion of paiderastia in A Problem in Greek Ethics. 

From his account of his childhood library, Symonds seems to have had access to a number of works focused on photographs and engravings of Italian and Greek art, and sculpture in particular.³ He directly mentions two folios of the Society of Dilettanti as being among his favorite sources of Greco-Roman art. With the emphasis Symonds places on sculpture, it is reasonable to conclude that one of the folios to which he is referring is
Specimens of antient sculpture, Ægyptian, Etruscan, Greek and Roman: selected from different collection in Great Britain. Published in 1809, it is likely that the folio gained popularity and became culturally significant for an educated man like Symonds, so that he would have read it in his youth and adolescence. Within the plate book are images of a multitude of sculptures representing men, women, and various scenes. While a number of images could have been meaningful to Symonds, a particular image was of note to me, shown below in Plate LI.

The image shows a sculpture of Apollo and Hyacinthus, likely from Hadrian’s villa near Tivoli—as noted in its description.⁴ The pair are known from the tenth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which the two have a love affair that appears to be a paiderastic relationship, with Hyacinthus being a young boy in this loving and likely sexual relationship with an adult Apollo.⁵

“[Apollo’s] zither and his bow no longer fill
his eager mind and now without a thought
of dignity, he carried nets and held
the dogs in leash, and did not hesitate
to go with Hyacinthus on the rough,
steep mountain ridges; and by all of such
associations, his love was increased.”

The story takes a tragic turn when Apollo’s discus takes an unfortunate bounce off the ground, striking and killing Hyacinthus.⁶

“My own hand gave you death
unmerited — I only can be charged
with your destruction.—What have I done wrong?
Can it be called a fault to play with you?
Should loving you be called a fault? And oh,
that I might now give up my life for you!
Or die with you! But since our destinies
prevent us you shall always be with me,
and you shall dwell upon my care-filled lips.”

Beyond the context of the image, the details of the sculpture are worth noting. From the image in the plate book, the sculpture looks incredibly well-made; the figures look extremely lifelike, seeming less of marble and more of flesh and bone. Here we can see the idealism often associated with classical art, of perfect human form. It is no wonder the image served as a reinforcement of male beauty for Symonds. There also seems to be a tenderness in the figures’ poses, with Apollo’s hand resting on Hyacinthus’ hair and Hyacinthus’ arm on Apollo’s thigh, suggesting a sense of intimacy between the pair. Such a depiction of two men could have been extremely influential to Symonds and his burgeoning sexuality, providing a classical example of his own feelings towards men. These features, along with the mythological context, create the potential for a huge impact on Symonds, not only in understanding himself, but informing his future scholarship.

Such an image could have been very significant to Symonds, in helping him understand his own sexuality as well as the paiderastic relationships he would discuss in A Problem in Greek Ethics. He mentions Apollo and Hyacinthus across different works when discussing paiderastia and male friendship. In Letter 476 in Volume I of his Letters, he references the lovers when describing “the divine youths and maidens of Hellenic dreams…some Hyacinth bewept by Phoebus”.⁷ In Volume II of Studies of the Greek Poets, Symonds again references the pair when providing quick examples of tales describing male friendship in Greek mythology and history.⁸ The story was able to provide Symonds with more evidence of the prevalence of paiderastia within mythology and history to inform his position on paiderastia even further.

The tale of Apollo and Hyacinthus, the associated sculpture, and its image seem then to have had significant influence on Symonds on the development of his sexuality and insight into paiderastic relationships in mythology. The lovers’ different forms symbolize paiderastic love as well as masculine beauty, both of which are ideas which contributed to Symonds’ sexual awakening and intellectual stimulation.

1. Regis, Amber K. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016.
2. Regis, Amber K. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016.
3. Regis, Amber K. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016.
4. The Society of Dilettanti. Specimens of antient sculpture, Ægyptian, Etruscan, Greek and Roman: selected from different collection in Great Britain. 1809.
5. Ovid. Metamorphoses, in the Perseus Digital Library. http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0959.phi006.perseus-eng1:10.143-10.219
6. Ovid. Metamorphoses, in the Perseus Digital Library. http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0959.phi006.perseus-eng1:10.143-10.219
7. Symonds, J. Addington., Peters, R., Schueller, H. M. The letters of John Addington Symonds. Vol I. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. 1967.
8. Symonds, J. Addington. Studies of the Greek Poets. Vol II. London : Smith, Elder. 1873.

As a well-educated English literary man, John Addington Symonds had read the ancient Homeric epics in school by an early age, and it was from these stories that Symonds first learned ideas of Greek masculine love.

In Homer’s Iliad, military brotherhood is an intense bond. It is only when Patroclus dies that Achilles overcome his anger at Agamemnon and seeks vengeance, incited by love for his slain comrade. The true turning point of the epic lies in this epic love and change in passion: Hector, the slayer of Patroclus, must be slain by Achilles, the lover of Patroclus.

From fifth century BCE writers in antiquity to modern day scholars, the nature of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus as presented by Homer has been a controversial matter for discussion: was it a relationship of homosexual love or heroic friendship?

The long-term influence of the Iliad produced many illustrations of the tragic scene in modern-day reception. Throughout time, illustrations, including this kylix from Classical Greece, this sarcophagus from late antiquity, and this Hennequin drawing from modern times, are ambiguous on the exact nature of their relationship.

The image above is from a collection of illustrations based on scenes from Homer’s Iliad. This engraving by Tommaso Piroli, based on the original line drawings of John Flaxman, depicts Achilles lamenting the death of Patroclus. The image presents us with a scene of passionate mourning, with figures covering their faces and tensing their bodies, yet it does not imply anything homoerotic. This Flaxman drawing shows the ambiguity of this famous relationship: is it depicting a man lamenting the death of his best friend and comrade in war, or his romantic companion and sexual partner? The beauty in this engraving lies in the interpretation of its viewers – it can be whichever one chooses.

This book, published about 40 years before Symonds was born, could likely have been in his family’s library, something he would have seen as a child that would have shaped his understanding of ancient Greek literature. Since Homer became so essential to Symonds’ conception of ideal Greek male love, it is not hard to imagine him poring over visual depiction of the epic love story of Achilles and Patroclus. We can picture Symonds gazing at this drawing just as we are now, lamenting the untimely death of the Greek hero alongside Achilles and empathizing with the bitter emotions of those in the image. Perhaps Symonds would have even thought of his own male lovers, Willie Dyer and Alfred Brooke, and reminisced about the emotions he himself felt after losing those men.

Symonds references Homer often throughout his collected works, and many of the allusions concern the story of Achilles and Patroclus. In his essay A Problem in Greek Ethics, Symonds states that, at least in Homer, their companionship was not paiderastia – male love for a male youth – but simply heroic friendship (Greek Ethics 44). However, Symonds himself seems to doubt this definition of their relationship, considering that in later Greek history the love of Achilles for Patroclus became the canonical model and “almost religious sanction to the martial form of paiderastia” (Greek Ethics 44).

Later in his essay, Symonds contends that even ancient Greek students of Homer must have seen this friendship as an example for ideal masculine love. He describes their love as “a powerful and masculine emotion, in which effeminacy had no part, and which by no means excluded the ordinary sexual feelings…the tie was both more spiritual and more energetic than that which bound man to woman” (Greek Ethics 45). Even before the concept of paiderastia was established in Greek custom, the erotic often had a place in intimate male relations.

It seems very possible that Symonds held the same viewpoint, not as that of Homer, but as that of later Greeks, who read into the sentiments and passions of the text to find a romantic relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. Symonds cites Aeschines, in his Oration Against Timarchus, who discusses this question of Achilles’ love, saying “[Homer] indeed conceals their love, and does not give its proper name to the affection between them, judging that the extremity of their fondness would be intelligible to the well instructed men among his audience” (Aeschines 142).

Symonds would indeed fall under this “well-educated audience,” in which Achilles’ affection does not have to be overtly stated, as it is already implied. Fourth century BC Aeschines, like nineteenth century English scholars, could read Homer through the lens of homoeroticism, and Symonds himself shows real empathy to this idealistic Greek love in his own analysis.

Symonds read the Iliad along with other Greek classics in school and then went on to teach lectures on it. In an 1886 letter to Norman Moor, Symonds addressed the influence of homosexuality in classical literature in public schools. He believed that young boys “have been initiated into the mysteries of paiderastia unofficially long before their reading of the classics,” yet he thought that while they do read the Iliad in school, “it does not occur to them that there was anything between Achilles and Patroclus.” Here it seems that Symonds himself subscribed to the belief that there is a sexual and romantic component to the relationship of the two Greek heroes, but only if one is receptive and mature enough to perceive it. As he said in his Memoirs, it was not until age 18 when he read Plato that he encountered the catalyst for his own self-revelation of erotic male love, but once he acknowledged this in himself, he agreed that Patroclus and Achilles could be read as examples of Greek lovers.

Additionally, Aeschylus’ tragedy the Myrmidones, now lost, which would have been a popular sight in fifth century BCE Athens, portrays Achilles and Patroclus as lovers. Symonds was familiar with this story, in which Aeschylus presents Achilles as the erastes [lover], speaking to his dead beloved Patroclus, the eramenos [beloved]. In one fragment of the play, Achilles laments over the corpse of his friend, his lower limbs uncovered – the same scene depicted more modestly on Flaxman’s engraving above – with unmeasured passion that describes the intimate love between the two heroes. Here Achilles mournfully reproaches that, in his forbidden advance against the Trojans, Patroclus had been heedless of his dear affection:

 “For the pureness of the thighs, you have no reverence, O most ungrateful for my frequent kisses!” (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists xiii.79 13.602e frag. 64)

As the Iliad is a work of fiction, the question of a possible homosexual relationship here is not one of historical accuracy. In Piroli’s engraving, as well as in many late Greek stories and illustrations from antiquity to modern-day, it seems that Achilles and Patroclus did have an intimate relationship as lovers. But it does not really matter to us whether this would have been possible in Homeric society. Instead of pondering over hypotheticals, we can find in the Iliad a familiar love story told in romantic discourse. For us, and for Symonds, we can relate to their timeless relationship, and the possibility of seeing queer love in such an ancient story.

At least for Symonds, it is likely a depiction of historically bounded ideal Greek love, the idealist homosexual affection he himself had experienced and dedicated his life to studying. Yet it does not matter whether or not Homer really intended to portray the relationship of Achilles and Patroclus as ‘heroic friendship’ or that of lovers, for from 4^th c. BC Greece onward, their relationship has become the canonical representation of Greek male love.

Works Cited:

Featured image: Philippe-Auguste Hennequin, “Achilles and Patroclus,” 1784. Pen and brown ink with brown-grey wash on laid paper. Sheet: 20.5 x 30.9 cm. The National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C), Joseph F. McCrindle Collection Inv. No. 2009.70.141, via Artstor.

Johns Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and Homosexuality. “Chapter 2: A Problem in Greek Ethics.” Palgrave Macmillan Publishing. Basingstoke, 2012. Print.

The Letters of Johns Addington Symonds. Wayne State University Press. Detroit, 1967. Print.

Symonds, John Addington. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. Palgrave Macmillan Publishing. London, 2016. Print.

When he began to read in his youth, John Addington Symonds was mentally precocious and aware of the amorous subtleties of Greek literature; he was particularly attracted to certain male figures, like the Adonis of Shakespeare’s poems, Hermes in Homer, and the Praxitelean Cupid (Memoirs 118). In adolescence, he enjoyed sleeping visions of beautiful young men and exquisite Greek statues, finding a poetic pleasure in ideal forms.

In his eighteenth year, a decisive event in his sexuality occurred: he read Plato.

Symonds’ first introduction to Plato was during summer vacation, when he joined a reading party with his friends John Conington and Thomas Green, in a farmhouse on Lake Coniston. There in July 1860, Symonds writes to Reverend Stephens, the Dean of Winchester, “Green is coaching me in Plato. He does it well, for he knows an immense deal about the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. On the other hand, because he is a very original thinker, he does not express himself quite clearly and fluently as such beginners as myself would like” (Letters 1.251 (149)).

Reading Plato, especially the Phaedrus and the Symposium, was a revelation for Symonds in terms of the notion of Greek ideal love; it was the catalyst for his own self-reflection on homosexuality:

“Here in the Phaedrus and the Symposium, I discovered the true Liber Amoris [Book of Love] at last, the revelation I had been waiting for, the consecration of a long-cherished idealism. It was just as though the voice of my own soul spoke to me through Plato, as though in some antenatal experience I had lived the life of a philosophical Greek lover” (Memoirs 152).

He was introduced to a new world and he felt his own nature was revealed to him. He fell for a boy, a choir boy named Willie Dyer, and the only two kisses they ever shared “were the most perfect joys he ever felt.” Symonds cites the morning he first met him, the 10^th of April 1868, as “the birth of [his] real self” (Memoirs 157).

Seeing the crude sensuality of the boys at Harrow School, he believed that he was saved by finding the aesthetic Platonic idealism of erotic instinct. The study of Plato allowed Symonds the possibility of reconciling his “inborn instincts of masculine love” with his “higher aspiration after noble passion” (Memoirs 152). Plato did not think of carnal human love but of the ideal love of beauty, truth, goodness, and perfection. It is the revelation of this love that drives Symonds’ studies; he devours Greek literature and art as “love unsealed the eyes of [his] soul” (Memoirs 159).

Later at Oxford, he fell violently in love with a chorister called Alfred Brooke, with a passion both more sensual and more ideal than he had ever felt before (Memoirs 159). In describing the “genius” of Greek love, he writes a poem of his own heart’s experience, being thoroughly disarmed by the charm of this man, and holding his love as a secret from his family and friends:

Upon my bed I turn in the night-watches:
I clench my fist, and beat my brow; the flesh
Throbs in revolt, and my faint soul is faltering.
I thirst for him as thirsts the hunted hart
For water-brooks: I weep and wail for him,
For him from whom I turned aside, for him
On whom I trampled. Yea, I loathe my longing.

Before my study-window once he passed:
The Phaedrus fell from my unheeding hands.
He smiled and beckoned, with frank open face
Wafting fair messages of fruitful joy.
I would not answer, hardly looked at him,
Holding my breath and at the curtain clutching
Till he was gone. Then down into the road
Rushed, followed him, restrained my racing feet,
Fell on the garden grass and leaves, and wrestled.

(Memoirs 199)

To Symonds, the sensual appetites were, theoretically at least, excluded from Platonic idea love. It was, as Plato says, the divine in human flesh: “the lightening vision / the radiant sight of the lover” (Greek Ethics xv)

By 1865, Symonds was well-read in Plato and was aware of the controversy that surrounded the topic of the Greek ideal love between a man and an adolescent – paederastia (παιδεραστία). Yet this social opprobrium did not hinder him from pursuing this love in his studies. If anything, it encouraged him to share and discuss it with his friends. Symonds sends Wright’s translation of Plato’s Phaedrus and Protagoras (1848) to Clementina Strong as recommended reading, with a caveat that “you will find some things that jar upon our modern taste but nothing that ought to shock the most refined sensibilities” (Letters 1.575 (434). While he was aware of the “sexual perversion,” he still wished to pursue it on a scholarly and personal level.

In his scholarly field, Symonds had a few disagreements with his Classics professor Benjamin Jowett, who intended to publish an essay on Greek male love as part of his translated edition of Plato’s Dialogues but decided to abandon the idea. Symonds was surprised that Jowett saw Plato’s treatment of Greek male love as “mainly a figure of speech” and wrote a letter to him in 1889, insisting that it is actually an “innate passion” and “injurious to a certain number of predisposed young men.” (Letters 3.345 (1894)).

Here Symonds expressed his idea of Platonic Greek male love as a revelation to many people, later including himself. He believed that Greek history and literature confirmed the admitted possibility, and that ideal male love was still a “present poignant reality” to some whom find it personally interesting, reading Plato as their version of the Bible.

Symonds began to understand Greek masculine love as more a condition of the mind and heart, rather than a psychological disease. While working with Havelock Ellis on their publication of Sexual Inversion, Symonds sent him a letter discussing the chapter on the Greek history of sexuality: “One great difficulty I forsee: It is that I do not think it will be possible to conceal the fact that sexual anomaly (as in Greece) is often a matter of preference rather than of fixed physiological or morbid diathesis” (Letters 3.787 (2062)).

Greek love was in its origin and essence militaristic; fire and valor rather than tenderness or tears were the external expression of this passion and effeminacy had no place in it. In his A Problem in Greek Ethics, Symonds references a speech from Plato’s Symposium 12: Phaedrus says, “For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; love would inspire him; that courage which, as Homer says, the god breathes into the soul of heroes, love of his own nature inspires into the lover.” (Greek Ethics vii).

The citations from Plato showed Symonds, as well as us, how real and vital was the passion of Greek love. Symonds even says, “It would be difficult to find more intense expressions of affection in modern literature” (Greek Ethics vii).

For reference:

Plato (428-348 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, and author of many philosophical works. In the Symposium, the characters discuss the topic of Love: interpersonal relationships through love, what types of love are worthy of praise, and the purpose of love. In the Phaedrus, the characters Lysias and Socrates present speeches on erotic love, the immortality of the soul, rhetoric, and the madness of love.

Title image: Anselm Feuerbach, Plato’s Symposium, 1869. Oil on canvas, 598 cm x 295 cm. From the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe via Wikimedia Commons.

Works Cited:

Featured image “The Banquet of Symposium” by Anselm Feuerbach (1869). Oil on canvas, Kalrsruhe, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

Johns Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and Homosexuality. “Chapter 2: A Problem in Greek Ethics.” Palgrave Macmillan Publishing. Basingstoke, 2012. Print.

The Letters of Johns Addington Symonds. Wayne State University Press. Detroit, 1967. Print.

Symonds, John Addington. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. Palgrave Macmillan Publishing. London, 2016. Print.

As a well-educated nineteenth-century English man, John Addington Symonds read the ancient Homeric epics at an early age. In addition to the aid works like these provided in students Latin and Greek like Symonds, they seem to have contained the terms and ideas that ultimately led him to write A Problem in Greek Ethics. Symonds references Homer often throughout his collected works for varied reasons, but many of the allusions to the Iliad concern the story of Achilles and Patroclus.

In his essay, after defining the Greek social custom of paederastia, the first thing Symonds references is the famed Achilles and his companion Patroclus, included in only the second section of his piece. The placement of this story in the opening of the unedited version of the essay places it in conjunction with paederastia, defined mere sentences before. The most logical path, then, would be for Symonds to expound upon the paederastic nature of that connection.

Instead, the first part of Symonds’ essay states that Homer makes no effort to portray Achilles and Patroclus’ relationship as paederastic, writing that “in the delineation of the friendship of Achilles and Patroclus there is nothing which indicates the passionate relation of the erastes and eromenos”(1). He writes that “the tale of Achilles and Patroclus sanctioned among the Greeks a form of masculine love… afterwards connected with paederastia” (2), in short, paederastia became an accepted social custom after Homer’s time, and the oft-referenced relationship between Achilles and Patroclus did not become a paederastic model until long after the stories in Homer’s Iliad. Homer’s role in Symonds’ work, then, is a counterintuitive one: Symonds uses stories of his that have since become models of paederastia, like Achilles and Patroclus or Zeus and Ganymede, as an example of the heroic friendship that preceded the common practice of paederastia in Greece. Of all Homer’s work, it is these two pairs that are referenced most often in A Problem in Greek Ethics.

The debate about Achilles’ and Patroclus’ relationship can be seen very clearly in a painting of the two dated around 500 BC, where Achilles is assisting a wounded Patroclus. Their physical intimacy is striking, and could suggest either the intimacy of friendship or a more romantic connection, neatly summarizing the frustrating ambiguity of their relationship.

Symonds uses this argument as the basis for the first few sections of A Problem in Greek Ethics: he explains how heroic friendship differed from paederastia, and theorizes that the origins of paederastia were not exclusively Greek. Using a line from the Iliad to prove his point, Symonds writes that “Homer, who knew nothing about [paederastia] as it afterwards existed, drew a striking picture of masculine affection in Achilles. Friendship occupies the first place in his hero’s heart, while only the second is reserved for sexual emotion”(3). Analyzing Achilles’ character in this way supports Symonds’ assertion that the connection between him and Patroclus was merely a precursor to the custom of Greek paederastia, falling more neatly into the category of heroic friendship.

Through A Problem in Greek Ethics, Symonds uses more concrete evidence than the stories of Homer’s epics to illustrate the existence and practice of paederastia, exploring the potential origin of the custom and how it was realized in the gymnasiums and military institutions of Greece. But a thread drawn from the epics of Homer runs beneath Symonds’ work, for it is from the stories told about Greece that understanding of cultural practices like paederastia can be best understood.

Footnotes:

1. John Addington Symonds and Sean Brady, “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” 44.

2. Ibid, 45.

3. Ibid, 58.

Works Cited:

Symonds, John Addington. “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” essay, in John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and Homosexuality: a Critical Edition of Sources. Edited by Sean Brady. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Symonds, John Addington. 1923. Letters and Papers of John Addington Symonds. Edited by Horatio F. Brown. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons.

Symonds, John Addington. 2016. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: a Critical Edition. Edited by Amber K. Regis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

The works of Xenophon are prominent in “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” which is surprising given his complete absence from the Memoirs of John Addington Symonds. In addition to providing vital evidence within what is arguably now Symonds’ most iconic contribution to queer scholarship, Xenophon also seems to function as a kind of vehicle for the articulation of same-sex desire between Symonds and his friend Henry Graham Dakyns.

Xenophon was a soldier, historian, and philosopher who lived from 431-354 BC. A student of Socrates, one of his best-known works is Memorabilia, which contained conversations with Socrates. His other notable works include the Anabasis, and Symposium and Apology also depict Socrates. He was famously part of the march of the Ten Thousand to take Persia. Although he was from Athens, he also wrote on and took great interest in Sparta. 

Symonds primarily uses Xenophon to sketch out more specific details of paiderastia, or the Greek tradition of a socially acceptable romantic relationship between a younger boy and an adult man. He selects specific examples to argue that paiderastia is a genuine and passionate arrangement, and to reinforce its cultural permissibility by highlighting instances of same-sex relations that are unseemly.

The first notable reference to Xenophon appears in Section 7 of the essay. Symonds relays an anecdote from Anabasis, which is lengthy military history, explaining, “The following anecdote from the Anabasis of Xenophon may serve to illustrate the theory that regiments should consist entirely of lovers.”¹ He goes on to relay how Episthenes of Olynthus saved a gorgeous boy from being killed by Seuthes II’s army. In his justification for saving the boy, in violation of a direct order, Episthenes tells Seuthes that he once formed an entire army of beautiful men.

The inclusion of this excerpt is specifically notable for its passion. Symonds includes both the Greek text and English translation of the following line: “Then Seuthes asked Episthenes if he was willing to die instead of the boy, and he answered, stretching out his neck, “Strike,” he says, “if the boy says yes, and will be pleased with it.”² Here, Symonds makes the case that if the love between Episthenes and the boy is so strong (as strong as a heterosexual love), it should be permitted. This reading is validated by the fact it is reason enough for Seuthes—he grants the boy freedom, and Episthenes and the boy leave together.

Xenophon appears again in Section 10: Symonds cites Agesilaus, which biographies King Agesilaus II. Xenophon explains that paiderastia was not only sanctioned, but a part of Spartan education, since boys left home early for training and family influence was minimal. Throughout his essay, Symonds uses, alternatingly, sociohistorical accounts and specific illustrative examples, and Xenophon is particularly salient for his provision of both.

In terms of the latter, Symonds draws on Xenophon’s Symposium extensively in Section 13, using direct excerpts to elucidate the ideals of the boy lover. Symonds recounts a passage where Autolycus is invited to a banquet by his lover, Callias. When Autolycus is presented, “kind of divine awe fell upon the company…The grown-up men were dazzled by the beauty and the modest bearing of the boy.”³ The passage continues on, waxing poetic about Autolycus’s features. Symonds then gives a second example of passionate attraction in Symposium: Critobulus accounting his feelings for Cleinias. “I would rather be the slave of Cleinus,” Critobulus says, “than live without him; I would rather toil and suffer danger for his sake than live alone at ease and in safety. I would go through fire with him, as you would with me.”⁴

In the very next section, Xenophon’s Memorabilia is used to provide additional historical context. Symonds explains that there were morally distinct categories of pederasts, recounted by Xenophon as well as other writers such as Aristophanes, who said in Plutus, there were χρηστοὶ, “the good,” and πόρνοι “the strumpets.” Symonds then cites in a footnote Xenophon’s exact definition : “τήν τε γὰρ ὥραν ἐὰν μέν τις ἀργυρίου πωλῇ τῷ βουλομένῳ.”⁵ In English: “For to offer one’s beauty for money to all comers is called prostitution.”⁶

Symonds illustrates this difference with an example from Anabasis, where Xenophon describes at length how Strategus Menon was morally bankrupt for having achieved the rank of general by sleeping his way up the ranks with Aristippus and Ariaeus (the latter a barbarian). Xenophon describes a number of unproblematic relationships; he makes clear that the issue is not with those relations themselves. Xenophon describes Strategus Menon unfavorably because he “debases virtuous qualities” and “pursued selfish and mean aims” by having sexual relations for money.⁷ In other words, what should be a pure and passionate relationship is sullied by Strategus Menon’s use of sex as currency.

As mentioned before, despite his extensive usefulness in “Greek Ethics,” Xenophon does not appear at all in the pages of Symonds’ Memoirs. For this reason, it is difficult to determine exactly when he first encountered Xenophon. The only references to Xenophon are in Symonds’ letters to his close friend Henry Graham Dakyns. Dakyns was a good friend of Symonds—they met at Clifton College in Spring of 1864.⁸ His primary project was translating the complete works of Xenophon, which he would eventually finish in 1883.

Like Symonds, Dakyns had an interest in men, although it does not come up in his scholarly work. All of the Xenophon references in Symonds’ letters are very broad, and in reference to Dakyns’ work. Symonds often asked him to send translations or essays and encouraged him to finish his projects, saying once: “I am burning to see Xenophon either in proof or in mature print.”⁹ Paiderastia also came up occasionally in their letters, although the only one which mentions both Xenophon and Greek love came towards the end of Symonds’ life. However, discussed Symonds’ Greek love project in other letters. Dakyns’ side of the correspondence has not survived as well as Symonds, but it seems probable that Dakyns had to some extent furnished Symonds’ knowledge of specific examples of paiderastia in Xenophon’s works. 

Ultimately, Xenophon was a fruitful source for Symonds in terms of examples of socially acceptable, and sometimes expected, same-sex relations in ancient Greece. Symonds drew on four separate Xenophon texts, scattered throughout the essay; Xenophon’s status as a historian-philosopher, rather than a classical poet or playwright, positions him as a vital source for Symonds in the sense that his writings remove the level of extrapolation required in drawing social and cultural conclusions from literary sources.

Footnotes
¹ John Addington Symonds and Sean Brady, ed. “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and Homosexuality: a Critical Edition of Sources, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 51.
² Symonds and Brady, “Greek Ethics”, 52.
³ Ibid, 81.
⁴ Ibid, 82.
⁵ Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes. E. C. Marchant, trans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1923), 1.6.13.
⁶ Symonds and Brady, “Greek Ethics,” 87
⁷ Ibid, 88.
⁸ John Addington Symonds and Amber K. Regis, ed. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: a Critical Edition, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 240.
⁹ John Addington Symonds and Horatio F. Brown. Letters and Papers of John Addington Symonds, (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1923), 1160.

Works Cited
Booth, Howard J. “Same-Sex Desire, Ethics and Double-Mindedness: The Correspondence of Henry Graham Dakyns, Henry Sidgwick and John Addington Symonds.” Journal of European Studies 32, no. 125–126 (September 2002): 283–301. doi:10.1177/004724410203212514.

Browing, Eve A. “Xenophon (430—354 B.C.E.),” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed March 6, 2019. https://www.iep.utm.edu/xenophon/.

Collection: Henry Graham Dakyns Papers | Archives at Yale. Accessed March 7, 2019. https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/resources/812.

Symonds, John Addington. “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” essay, in John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and Homosexuality: a Critical Edition of Sources. Edited by Sean Brady. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Symonds, John Addington. 1923. Letters and Papers of John Addington Symonds. Edited by Horatio F. Brown. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons.

Symonds, John Addington. 2016. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: a Critical Edition. Edited by Amber K. Regis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Xenophon. 1925. “Agesilaus.” Xenophon in Seven Volumes. Volume 7. Translated by E. C. Marchant and G. W. Bowersock. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, in the Perseus Digital Library, accessed March 6, 2019.
http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0032.tlg009.perseus-eng1:1.1 h

Xenophon. 1922. “Anabasis.” Xenophon in Seven Volumes. Volume 3. Translated by Carleton L. Brownson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, in the Perseus Digital Library, accessed March 6, 2019.
http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0032.tlg006.perseus-eng1:1.1.1

Xenophon. 1923. “Memorabilia.” Xenophon in Seven Volumes. Volume 4. Translated by E. C. Marchant. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, in the Perseus Digital Library, accessed March 6, 2019.
http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0032.tlg004.perseus-eng1:1.1

Xenophon. 1979. “Symposium.” Xenophon in Seven Volumes. Volume 4. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, in the Perseus Digital Library, accessed March 6, 2019.
http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0032.tlg004.perseus-eng1:1.1

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Often dubbed the “Father of Tragedy”, Aeschylus wrote some of the most well-known Greek plays that survive from the ancient world, including the Oresteia and the Persians. Over the course of his life from 523 BCE to 456 BCE, Aeschylus wrote numerous plays about a variety of subjects and changed the way that theater was performed in ancient Greece, such as increasing the number of actors in a play as well as the way they interacted with each other.[1]

            Therefore, it is no surprise that the renowned playwright is featured heavily in the works and letters of John Addington Symonds. Like many who study the Classics, Symonds read many of Aeschylus’ plays and they greatly influenced the way he approached the topic of same-sex relationships both in the ancient world as well as 19^th century London. Aeschylus and his plays are mentioned in Symonds’ letters, A Problem in Greek Ethics (1883), as well as his Memoirs (1889-91).

            In his letters, Symonds primarily mentions Aeschylus not in relation to his views on homosexuality but with reference to the difficulty of his Greek. In some of his earlier letters dating to 1860-65, Symonds wrote extensively to his sister Charlotte about the complex and sometimes tedious nature of translating ancient texts. In one letter to Charlotte written in 1860, Symonds writes at the end, “I must end now: for one of the most corrupt choruses in the “Choëphorae” of Aeschylus is awaiting my attention” (Letters I:125).[2] The date of this letter makes John Addington Symonds twenty years old and, as I am only one year older than he was at the time that this letter was written and a Classicist myself, I can more than relate to this feeling of being bogged down by challenging passages of Greek. In his later letters that date to the very end of his life, Symonds continues to mention Aeschylus to his friends and family but rather than griping about the difficult nature of the tragedian’s Greek, he quotes short passages from some of Aeschylus’ works, such as the Agamemnon and the Persians, that relate to whatever topic he is writing about and show off his rounded education as a connoisseur of the Classics.

            For similar reasons as in his letters, Symonds also makes reference to Aeschylus in his Memoirs, which were written from 1889-91. The Memoirs provide a detailed account of Symonds’ life and include all of the details about Symonds’ love of the Classics as well as his sexual awakening, as it were. In this text, Symonds mentions Aeschylus only a handful of times and most notably (and charmingly) with reference to his father and grandfather. Symonds writes, “These three generations of men—my grandfather, my father and myself—correspond to the succession of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, to the transition from early pointed Gothic through Decorated to Flamboyant architecture. Medio, tutissimus ibis. ‘You will go most safely by the middle course.’ The middle term of such a series is always superior to the first and vastly superior to the third. How immeasurably superior my father was to me, as a man, as a character, as a social being, as a mind, I feel, but I cannot express”.[3] As I wrote in my introduction, Aeschylus is often considered the “Father of Tragedy” and one of the three great Greek tragedians, along with Sophocles and Euripides. The works of Sophocles and Euripides would not be what they are without Aeschylus and it is hard to consider one author without the other two. This is sweet sentiment that, in my mind, links the two triads throughout history.

Symonds also mentions Aeschylus in A Problem in Greek Ethics, written in 1883, but references him in a way that differs from his more personal texts like his letters and the Memoirs. In this book, Symonds writes about a kind of “Greek love” that existed in the ancient world and what ancient authors had to say on the subject of same-sex relationships. In the second section of this book, Symonds includes Aeschylus, Pindar, and Sophocles among the poets of “an age when paiderastia was prevalent, (and they) spoke unreservedly upon the subject”.[4] Paiderastia is the Greek word that literally means “love of boys” and refers to a sexual relationship between a man and a younger boy, usually in his teens. Paiderastia was very common in the ancient world and is the subject of many of Symonds’ works. As a homosexual man himself and someone who was witness to a relationship of this sort while attending boarding school in his youth, Symonds writes extensively on paiderastia in A Problem in Greek Ethics. Symonds argues that this was characteristic of ancient Greece and Aeschylus was only one of many authors who “spoke unreservedly on the subject”.

            Symonds references Aeschylus’ lost play the Myrmidones as a popular example of a play that included examples of paiderastia. Numerous playwrights included the story of Achilles and Patroclus and the possible sexual nature of their relationship in their plays and the Mymidones is one example of such. While this play has been lost, its subject matter nevertheless has survived. This play deals with the same subject matter as is presented in Iliad 9-18 but Aeschylus has changed the nature of the relationship between the two men from Homer’s Illiad, making Patroclus older than Achilles but making Achilles the dominant lover. This was criticized by Plato due to the diversion from the original legend but, according to Symonds, “sufficiently establishes the fact that paiderastia was publicly received with approbation on the tragic stage”.[5] Symonds conjectures that Aeschylus may have written his play based off of a non-Homeric source, which would account for the change in the relationship between the characters, but does not change the fact that paiderastia was prevalent and accepted in ancient Greece. Regardless, it is a fascinating comparison to draw that reveals much about Symonds’ own opinion on the subject and on the work of Aeschylus in general, especially with regard to Symonds’ personal relationship to the author and the subject matter about which he writes.
             

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[1] Daniel J. Campbell, “Aeschylus and Aristotle’s Theory of Tragedy” (1946). Master’s Theses. 88. 
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/88.

[2] John Addington Symonds, Herbert M. Schueller, and Robert L. Peters, The Letters of John Addington Symonds, vol. 1, 3 vols. (Detroit, MI: Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1969), 223.

[3] John Addington Symonds and Amber K. Regis, The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: a Critical Edition (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 86.

[4] Sean Brady and John Addington Symonds, “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” essay, in John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and Homosexuality: a Critical Edition of Sources (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 44.

[5] ibid, 71-2.

John Addington Symonds frequently cites Lucian, a prolific author from the 1^st century A.D (see biography below). According to his Memoirs, he first read the “erotic dialogues” of Lucian as an adolescent at the family residence of Clifton. This is the only mention of Lucian within the Memoirs. I will analyze the influence of Lucian in Symonds’ Letters and in A Problem in Greek Ethics.

In A Problem in Greek Ethics, the author mentions only Amores, also known as Affairs of the Heart or Erōtes. In Amores, Lucian wrote a dialogue comparing the difference between love for women and love for boys. Some argue this text was not written by Lucian and should, therefore, be characterized as “Pseudo Lucian,” of which fact Symonds was aware when he wrote his essay. According to James Jope, Lucian’s text received little attention from the first theorists of sexuality. John Addington Symonds is apparently one of the few people to use this text before Michel Foucault and David M. Halperin.

Symonds writes almost two pages about Amores in section XVI of A Problem in Greek Ethics, praising its comprehensive description of erotic passion. In the extracts he mentions, two characters are engaged in a discussion: Charicles defends the cause of women and Callicratides that of boys. Symonds considered the former to have had some “curiously mixed arguments”. He makes no comment on the position of Callicratides, who thinks the love of boys is a mark of sophistication. The final word is given to a third character named Theomnestus who considers that both loves are acceptable for pleasure without accepting the arguments of Callicratides.

Symonds seems to be more inclined to Callicratides’ vision. For Symonds, Lucian ultimately “support[s] a thesis of pure hedonism.” Even if Symonds refuses the ultimate conclusion of Lucian through the character of Theomnestus, he seeks to describe what he thought was one of the most important texts on the matter. Symonds wants to highlight that argumentation in favor of boy-love existed. Lucian’s texts prove that “boy-love” was a matter of debate in Ancient Greece and not necessarily seen as deviant.

Symonds also mentions Amores in section XV. In this section, Lucian describes the attitude toward marriage of one character: marriage is just a way of perpetuating mankind. In this situation, the love of males is the only true, noble love. The main idea of the extracts can be summed up in one sentence: “Let women be ciphers and be retained merely for child-bearing; but in all else away with them, and may I be rid of them.” (Amores, 38)

Symonds quotes these passages in order to illustrate the way in which people like Lucian opposed the position of Plato in the Laws. Plato argues that pleasure is only acceptable during intercourse between men and women By contrast, Lucian thinks men have a complex life, and cannot be reduced to animals simply looking to reproduce. Thus, using Lucian as an example, Symonds demonstrates that the Platonic doctrine was not highly praised by every Ancient Greek. This supports the notion that boy-love is more complicated than a simple question of tolerance or rejection.

Lucian also served as a source for Symonds in a letter where he referred to the Dialogues of the Courtesans but does not use the proper name. He refers to it as Brothel Dialogues, which is a cruder translation. Lucian wrote Dialogues of the Courtesan as a series of comedy sketches about the life of prostitutes. The picture on the left illustrates the kind of activities prostitutes performed. It shows a symposium that includes both a female prostitute playing music (hetairai) and a young male recognizable by his lack of beard.

The letter written by Symonds is addressed to Havelock Ellis and dated from 1892. Ellis was an English physician and a pioneer in sexology who would later co-author Sexual Inversion with Symonds. A Problem in Greek Ethics came to be part of Sexual Inversion, and the letter is about the general organization of this book.

In this letter, Symonds broadly summarizes the thesis of A Problem in Greek Ethics, which he frequently refers to as “My Problem.” He quotes Strato, Plato, and Lucian as basic references on the question of ancient conceptions of sex. He emphasizes that Ancient Greeks were not shocked by relationships between men because they were often attracted to both males and females. He also uses Lucian’s dialogues to describe “female Sexual Inversion”. Symonds stresses the lack of historical information on the topic. This question is not really treated in A Problem in Greek Ethics, in which Symonds focuses on men. It seems important to point out that Lucian would indeed be used later by scholars such as Kenneth J. Dover. Symonds already pointed out Lucian’s importance in the 19th century.

            In conclusion, Lucian’s writings had a crucial impact on the thinking of John Addington Symonds. Using the debate between Charicles and Callicratides he proved that paiderastia was debated and could be associated with positive values. He also mentioned Lucian as a promising lead to explain love between women. Overall, these texts enable him to consider sexual relations in Ancient Greece with a comprehensive and nuanced approach making A Problem in Greek Ethics a major essay on the matter.

Some information about Lucian:

Lucian’s life is not fully described. What little information we have on him comes from his own works, which are not always reliable. Lucian was born around 120 A.D. in present-day Turkey and he died in Athens around 180 A.D. He was a rhetorician and a writer established in Athens. He is well-known for his satirical commentaries on the life of Greeks in the Classical (423-323 B.C.) and Hellenistic (323-30 B.C.) periods. A lot of his works have survived for centuries because of their popularity among Romans.

Works Cited and useful links

A complete translation of the works of Lucian can be found on public domain thanks to the University of Adelaide (follow the link)

Blondell, Ruby & Boehringer, Sandra. “Revenge of the Hetairistria: The Reception of Plato’s Symposium in Lucian’s Fifth Dialogue of the Courtesans.” Arethusa, vol. 47 no. 2, 2014, pp. 231-264. (not open access)

Jope, James. “Interpretation and Authenticity of the Lucianic Erotes.” Helios, vol. 38, no. 1, 2011, pp. 103–120. (not open access)

Regis, Amber K. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: A Critical Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK , 2016.

Symonds, John Addington. A Problem In Modern Ethics: Being an Inquiry Into the Phenomenon of Sexual Inversion. London, 1896.

Symonds, John Addington, and Horatio F Brown. Letters and Papers of John Addington Symonds. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1923.