Studies of the Greek Poets: Volume 1
John Addington Symonds
Jan 1880 · Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Ebook
244
Pages
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About this ebook
The chapters on Æschylus and Sophocles have already introduced the reader to some of the principal questions regarding Attic tragedy in general. Yet the opening of a new volume justifies the resumption of this subject from the beginning, while the peculiar position of Euripides, in relation to his two great predecessors, suggests the systematic discussion of the religious ideas which underlay this supreme form of national art, as well as of the æsthetical rules which it obeyed in Greece. Critics who are contented with referring the origin of the Greek drama to the mimetic instinct inherent in all humanity are apt to neglect those circumstances which render it an almost unique phenomenon in literature. If the mimetic instinct were all that is requisite for the origination of a national drama, then we might expect to find that every race at a certain period of its development produced both tragedy and comedy.
About the author
John Addington Symonds was born in Bristol on 5 October 1840. Symonds attended first a private tutor's in Clifton, then to Harrow, then to Balliol and later to Magdalen. In 1860 he took a first in " Mods," and won the Newdigate with a poem on The Escorial; in 1862 he was placed in the first class in Literae Humaniores, and in the following year was winner of the Chancellor's English Essay. In 1862 he had been elected to an open fellowship at Magdalen. The strain of study unfortunately proved too great for him, and, immediately after his election to a fellowship, his health broke down, and he was obliged to seek rest in Switzerland. Symonds was plagued by ill health, and he would die of tuberculosis at the age of 52. During his last term at Oxford, in 1863 his health collapsed altogether, partly due to stress caused by the spread of rumours that he was having a homosexual affair with one of the students. His academic career was at an end, and for three years he was unable to do any work. He thought he might study law, but in 1865 it was discovered that his left lung was diseased, and after a complete rest it was decided that he could never follow a profession, but would have to go to a warmer, climate and become a writer. He spent the rest of his years between Switzerland and Venice, Italy. For many years Symonds's energy was wasted by trying to suppress his homosexuality. Essentially he wished to make homosexuality acceptable, both to himself and to society by idealizing it in his works. It is for his studies in the history of art that Symonds has been most highly praised and remembered, as well as his Rennaissance work. John Addington Symonds died at Rome on April 8, 1893.
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