John Addington Symonds Jr. (/ˈsɪməndz/; 5 October 1840 – 19 April 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. A cultural historian, he was known for his work on the Renaissance, as well as numerous biographies of writers and artists. Although married with children, Symonds supported male love (homosexuality), which he believed could include pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships, referring to it as l’amour de l’impossible (love of the impossible). He also wrote much poetry inspired by his same-sex affairs.
Books in order of publication:
The Renaissance. An Essay (1863)
Miscellanies by John Addington Symonds, M.D., Selected and Edited with an Introductory Memoir, by His Son (1871)
Introduction to the Study of Dante (1872); Symonds, John Addington (June 2002). 2002 reprint of 1899 4th edition. The Minerva Group.
Studies of the Greek Poets, 2 vol. (1873, 1876)
Renaissance in Italy, 7 vol. (1875–86)
Shelley (1878)
Sketches in Italy and Greece (London, Smith and Elder 1879)
Sketches and Studies in Italy (London, Smith and Elder 1879)
Animi Figura (1882)
Sketches in Italy (Selections prepared by Symonds, arranged, so as to, in his own words in a Prefatory Note, “adapt itself to the use of travelers rather than of students”; Leipzig, Bernhard Tauchnitz 1883)
A Problem in Greek Ethics (1883)
Shakespeare’s Predecessors in the English Drama (1884)
New Italian Sketches (Bernard Tauchnitz: Leipzig, 1884)
Wine, Women, and Song. Medieval Latin Students’ Songs (1884) English translations/paraphrases.
Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (1887) An English translation.
A Problem in Modern Ethics (1891)
Our Life in the Swiss Highlands (1892) (with his daughter Margaret Symonds as coauthor)
Essays: Speculative and Suggestive (1893)
In the Key of Blue (1893)
The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1893)
Walt Whitman. A Study (1893)
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