ARTHUR SYMONS was born in Milford Haven in 1865. He lived in London, where he frequented the Rhymers' Club, a group of writers who met at the Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street between 1891 and 1894. A friend of Ernest Dowson, Lionel Johnson and Wilde, he was an important influence on Yeats, with whom he shared lodgings for a time. He contributed to The Yellow Book and became editor of The Savoy. Symons was fluent in French and Italian; his The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899)was influential in introducing French Symbolism to English readers. He was also a translator of Baudelaire and Zola, and a leading critic. Symons died in 1945. MATTHEW CREASY is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Glasgow. He has published essays and articles on the work of James Joyce, William Empson and Virginia Woolf.
