Symonds left his papers and his autobiography in the hands of Brown, who wrote an expurgated biography in 1895, which
Edmund Gosse further stripped of homoerotic content before publication. In 1926, upon coming into the possession of Symonds's papers, Gosse burned everything except the memoirs, to the dismay of Symonds's granddaughter. Symonds was morbidly introspective, but with a capacity for action. In
Talks and Talkers, the contemporary writer
Robert Louis Stevenson described Symonds (known as "Opalstein" in Stevenson's essay) as "the best of talkers, singing the praises of the earth and the arts, flowers and jewels, wine and music, in a moonlight, serenading manner, as to the light guitar." Beneath his good fellowship, he was a
melancholic. This side of his nature is revealed in his
gnomic poetry, and particularly in the
sonnets of his
Animi Figura (1882). He portrayed his own character with great subtlety. His poetry is perhaps rather that of the student than of the inspired singer, but it has moments of deep thought and emotion. It is, indeed, in passages and extracts that Symonds appears at his best. Rich in description, full of "
purple patches", his work lacks the harmony and unity essential to the conduct of philosophical argument. His translations are among the finest in the language; here his subject was found for him, and he was able to lavish on it the wealth of colour and quick sympathy which were his characteristics.
Homosexual writings In 1873, Symonds wrote
A Problem in Greek Ethics, a work of what would later be called "
gay history". He was inspired by the poetry of
Walt Whitman, with whom he corresponded. The work, "perhaps the most exhaustive eulogy of
Greek love," remained unpublished for a decade, and then was printed at first only in a limited edition for private distribution. Although the
Oxford English Dictionary credits the medical writer
C. G. Chaddock for introducing "homosexual" into the English language in 1892, Symonds had already used the word in
A Problem in Greek Ethics. Aware of the taboo nature of his subject matter, Symonds referred obliquely to pederasty as "that unmentionable custom" in a letter to a prospective reader of the book, but defined "Greek love" in the essay itself as "a passionate and enthusiastic attachment subsisting between man and youth, recognised by society and protected by opinion, which, though it was not free from sensuality, did not degenerate into mere licentiousness." Symonds studied classics under
Benjamin Jowett at
Balliol College, Oxford, and later worked with Jowett on an English translation of Plato's
Symposium. Jowett was critical of Symonds's opinions on sexuality, but when Symonds was falsely accused of corrupting choirboys, Jowett supported him, despite his own equivocal views of the relation of Hellenism to contemporary legal and social issues that affected homosexuals. Symonds also translated classical poetry on homoerotic themes, and wrote poems drawing on ancient Greek imagery and language such as
Eudiades, which has been called "the most famous of his homoerotic poems". By the end of his life, Symonds's bisexuality had become an open secret in certain literary and cultural circles. His private memoirs, written (but never completed) over a four-year period from 1889 to 1893, form the earliest known self-conscious gay autobiography. Symonds's daughter, Madge Vaughan, was writer
Virginia Woolf's adored friend ; they exchanged many intimate letters. Woolf was the cousin of her husband
William Wyamar Vaughan. Another daughter, Charlotte Symonds, married the classicist
Walter Leaf.
Henry James used some details of Symonds's life, especially the relationship between him and his wife, as the starting-point for the short story "
The Author of Beltraffio" (1884). Over a century after Symonds's death, in 2007, his first work on homosexuality,
Soldier Love and Related Matter, was finally published by Andrew Dakyns (grandson of Symonds's associate,
Henry Graham Dakyns), in Eastbourne, E. Sussex, England.
Soldier Love, or
Soldatenliebe since it was limited to a German edition. Symonds's English text is lost. This translation and edition by Dakyns is the only version ever to appear in the author's own language. ==Works==