John Addington Symonds
John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) was an influential English writer, scholar, and early advocate for homosexuality. Born in Bristol and educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford, he faced numerous personal challenges, including a fragile health condition and the emotional turmoil of navigating his sexuality in a restrictive society. Symonds's early life was marked by a chaste romance with a younger choirboy and later a complicated heterosexual marriage with Janet Catherine North, with whom he had four daughters. His health issues, particularly tuberculosis, significantly impacted his life, leading him to settle in the tuberculosis sanitarium in Davos, Switzerland.
Symonds is best known for his extensive literary contributions, including the seven-volume work "The Renaissance in Italy," which is highly regarded in academic circles. He was also a pioneer in the discourse surrounding homosexuality, writing seminal texts such as "A Problem in Greek Ethics" and "A Problem in Modern Ethics." His autobiography is considered one of the first significant accounts of a British homosexual's life. Despite often being overshadowed by contemporaries like John Ruskin and Robert Browning, Symonds's work was celebrated during his lifetime and remains relevant for scholars today, particularly in the fields of literature and LGBTQ+ studies.
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John Addington Symonds
Poet
- Born: October 5, 1840
- Birthplace: Bristol, England
- Died: April 19, 1893
- Place of death: Rome, Italy
Biography
John Addington Symonds was born on October 5, 1840, in Bristol, England, to Dr. John Addington Symonds and his wife Harriet Sykes. Symonds’s mother died in 1844. Young Symonds was a sickly child who tried hard to live up to his father’s ideals for him.
He was sent to Harrow in 1854 for his education and found the experience excruciating. His health prevented him from participating in sports. His unhappiness was further exacerbated by the open sexuality among older and younger boys. When his friend Alfred Pretor revealed to Symonds that he was having an affair with the headmaster, Charles Vaughan, Symonds reported this to his father. The elder Symonds forced Vaughan’s resignation. Ironically, soon afterward, Symonds fell in love with Willie Dyer, a choirboy three years younger than Symonds, and their chaste affair lasted through 1858.
In 1858, Symonds went to Balliol College, Oxford. There he studied with Benjamin Jowett, who inspired his work. He received his B.A. in 1862 and was awarded a fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was accused of inappropriate sexual behavior soon after and suffered a serious breakdown.
In 1864, he met Janet Catherine North while in Switzerland. He married her the same year. The couple had four daughters. Symonds’s health continued to deteriorate, and it became clear that he had contracted tuberculosis. This, along with the emotional struggle of maintaining a heterosexual marriage, led to another emotional breakdown for Symonds. He ultimately reached an agreement with his wife that while he would continue the marriage, he would also be free to engage in homosexual affairs.
In 1877, with his health once again a serious concern, Symonds traveled to Switzerland, visiting the new tuberculosis sanitarium at Davos. He was so taken with what he found there that he moved permanently to the town. He produced a prodigious amount of work while at Davos, ranging from histories to biographies to poetry and to his autobiography. In addition, he frequently traveled to Italy. On one such trip in 1893, he fell ill with influenza, and died from a combination of pneumonia and tuberculosis on April 19 of that year.
Symonds was clearly a great mind of his generation. In 1860, he won the Newdigate Prize for English verse, he graduated with honors in 1862, and he won the chancellor’s prize for an essay in 1863. Scholars consider his seven-volume work, The Renaissance in Italy, as masterful. Moreover, he was one of the first English scholars to write defenses of homosexuality, first in his 1883 A Problem in Greek Ethics and later in A Problem in Modern Ethics. His autobiography, written between 1889 and 1893, is one of the earliest documents detailing the life of a British homosexual. In all, Symonds published more than forty books, including a biography of Walt Whitman, a poet who deeply influenced Symonds’s life and work.
Symonds often suffers from comparison with the giants of his generation, including John Ruskin and Robert Browning. Nevertheless, his work was immensely popular in his own day. In addition, his insightful and scholarly work on homosexuality make him an important subject for contemporary scholars.