Arthur Symons was born on 28 February 1865 at Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales, into a household shaped by religious discipline, frequent movement, and intellectual aspiration. He was the son of the Reverend Arthur Symons, a Wesleyan Methodist minister, and Mary Ann Symons. His father’s ministry required the family to move from place to place, and the boy’s childhood was therefore less rooted in one local communit…
“Have you ever thought of the frightful thing it is to shift one's centre? That is what it is to love a woman.”
Neighbourhood:
Decadent Poets, Edwardian Poets, Symbolist Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Wonder
Charles-Pierre Baudelaire was born in Paris on 9 April 1821 and died there on 31 August 1867, leaving a body of work comparatively small in quantity but seismic in effect. Few writers have altered the possibilities of lyric poetry so decisively. Baudelaire inherited the grandeur and rhetoric of French Romanticism, yet he redirected poetry away from nature, historical spectacle, and heroic confession toward the nervou…
“Être un homme utile m’a toujours paru quelque chose de bien hideux.”
Neighbourhood:
Decadent Poets, French Symbolists, Symbolist Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
