A life between British and French literature
Born in Milford Haven, Symons grew up in the West of England and began writing criticism as a young man. Frequent visits to France deepened his interest in its literature. His poetry drew on urban life, theatres and music halls; his essays explained writers whose effects depended on suggestion rather than straightforward description. The Symbolist Movement in Literature appeared in 1899.
In 1896 he edited The Savoy, working alongside its art editor Aubrey Beardsley. The magazine brought literary and visual experiments into the same publication. He married Rhoda Bowser in 1901 and later lived at Wittersham in Kent. A mental breakdown in 1908 interrupted his career. He returned to writing, although his later life was more secluded and much of his work revisited earlier interests.
Introducing Sarojini Naidu
Symons’s contribution to The Golden Threshold is its introduction; the poems are Naidu’s. He recalls hearing her early work in London in 1896 and receiving further poems after her return to India. His account presents the collection’s publication as the outcome of a continuing exchange, supported by extracts from her letters.
His praise also frames Naidu through an imagined East, turning observations about one writer into broad cultural claims. This is part of the introduction’s historical outlook. Naidu’s quoted letters retain a voice distinct from his portrait, while poems such as Indian Weavers and Palanquin-Bearers give a more particular expression to the musical qualities he admired. The volume records his influence as an advocate as well as the limits of the categories through which he offered that advocacy.
