SYMONDS, JOHN ADDINGTON

born Oct. 5, 1840, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Eng. died April 19, 1893, Rome English essayist, poet, and biographer best known for his cultural history of the Italian Renaissance. After developing symptoms of tuberculosis while a fellow at Oxford, Symonds travelled extensively for his health. He finally settled in Davos Platz, Switz., where he did most of his writing. Symonds' chief work, Renaissance in Italy, 7 vol. (187586), is a series of extended essays rather than a systematic history. Fluent and picturesque, it was deeply indebted to such continental interpreters of the Renaissance as Jacob Burckhardt. With the diverse range of interests of the Victorian man of letters, Symonds diffused his literary energies over English literature, Greek poetry, travel sketches, translations, and studies of such literary and artistic personalities as Shelley (1878), Ben Jonson (1886), Sir Philip Sidney (1886), Michelangelo (1893), and Walt Whitman (1893), of whom he was one of the first European admirers. His translations of The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Tommaso Campanella (1878, first English translation of the poetry of Michelangelo) and of Cellini's autobiography, 2 vol. (1888), also were notable. Symonds' own personally revealing poetry received little critical attention; it served primarily as a release from his difficult emotional life. His A Problem in Greek Ethics (written, 1871; privately printed, 1883) and A Problem in Modern Ethics (privately printed, 1881) were two of the first serious works on the subject of homosexuality.