The essay aims at a re-evaluation of Arthur Symons, a major figure not simply in the English, but also in the European passage from fin-de-siècle literature and culture to Modernism. Far from being “one of the ghosts of literary history” – as argued in a famous early-1980s assessment by Eric Warner and Graham Hough – Symons had a crucial impact on Modernist poetics which goes much further than his usual association with W. B. Yeats or James Joyce. In this essay, Symons is reconsidered as a mediator between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, a fundamental catalyst in making the transition between the last expressions of Aestheticism and proto-Modernism nearly seamless. The essay traces lines of continuities, rather than discontinuities, between the two epistemes through the art of Symons and proposes a corrective to the traditional narratives of the histories of Aestheticism and Modernism. It also uncovers some usually neglected connections between Symons and the literature of the early twentieth century.

Re-crediting Arthur Symons, Decadent-Modernist Literary Ghost

BIZZOTTO, ELISA
2017-01-01

Abstract

The essay aims at a re-evaluation of Arthur Symons, a major figure not simply in the English, but also in the European passage from fin-de-siècle literature and culture to Modernism. Far from being “one of the ghosts of literary history” – as argued in a famous early-1980s assessment by Eric Warner and Graham Hough – Symons had a crucial impact on Modernist poetics which goes much further than his usual association with W. B. Yeats or James Joyce. In this essay, Symons is reconsidered as a mediator between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, a fundamental catalyst in making the transition between the last expressions of Aestheticism and proto-Modernism nearly seamless. The essay traces lines of continuities, rather than discontinuities, between the two epistemes through the art of Symons and proposes a corrective to the traditional narratives of the histories of Aestheticism and Modernism. It also uncovers some usually neglected connections between Symons and the literature of the early twentieth century.
2017
9781138640771
9781315636450
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11578/267909
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