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John Addington Symonds (; 5 October 1840 – 19 April 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. Although he married and had a family, he was an early advocate of male love (homosexuality), which he believed could include pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships. He referred to it as ''l'amour de l'impossible'' (love of the impossible). A cultural historian, he was known for his work on the Renaissance, as well as numerous biographies about writers and artists. He also wrote much poetry inspired by his homosexual affairs. ==Early life== John Symonds was born at Bristol, England in 1840. His father, the senior John Addington Symonds, M.D. (1807–1871), was the author of ''Criminal Responsibility'' (1869), ''The Principles of Beauty'' (1857) and ''Sleep and Dreams''. Considered delicate, the younger Symonds did not take part in games after age 14 at Harrow School, and he showed no particular promise as a scholar. Symonds's mother died when he was only four years old, and his father had a powerful influence upon the formation of his character. The fashionable Freudian theory that a man's homosexuality is caused by a close-binding-intimate mother and a weak-or-absent father is put to rout by Symonds's childhood, in which the opposite was the case. Admittedly there were mostly women in the household, governesses, aunts, and eventually four sisters, but he records no sense of being overwhelmed by the feminine atmosphere, and was fairly indifferent to their presence.〔Norton, Rictor (1997) ''The Life of John Addington Symonds''. The John Addington Symonds Pages http://rictornorton.co.uk/symonds/symonds.htm〕 In January 1858 Symonds received a letter from his friend Alfred Pretor (1840–1908), telling of Pretor's affair with their headmaster, Charles John Vaughan. Symonds was shocked and disgusted, feelings complicated by his growing awareness of his own homosexuality. He did not mention the incident for more than a year until, in 1859 and a student at Oxford University, he told the story to John Conington, the Latin professor. Conington approved of romantic relationships between men and boys. He had earlier given Symonds a copy of ''Ionica,'' a collection of homoerotic verse by William Johnson Cory, the influential Eton College master and advocate of pederastic pedagogy. Conington encouraged Symonds to tell his father about his friend's affair, and the senior Symonds forced Vaughan to resign from Harrow. Pretor was angered by the younger man's part and never spoke to Symonds again.〔Kaplan, Morris B. (2012) ''Sodom on the Thames: Sex, Love, and Scandal in Wilde Times''. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801477921. p. 112〕 In the autumn of 1858, Symonds went to Balliol College, Oxford as a commoner but was elected to an exhibition in the following year. In spring of that same year, he fell in love with William Fear Dyer (1843–1905), a Bristol choirboy three years younger. They engaged in a chaste love affair that lasted a year, until broken up by Symonds. The friendship continued for several years afterward, until at least 1864. Dyer became organist and choirmaster of St Nicholas' Church, Bristol. At University of Oxford, Symonds became engaged in his studies and began to demonstrate his academic ability. In 1860 he took a first in Mods and won the Newdigate prize with a poem on "The Escorial"; in 1862 he obtained a first in ''Literae Humaniores'', and in 1863 won the Chancellor's English Essay. In 1862 Symonds was elected to an open fellowship at the conservative Magdalen. He made friends with a C.G.H. Shorting, whom he took as a private pupil. When Symonds refused to help Shorting gain admission to Magdalen, the younger man wrote to school officials alleging "that I () had supported him in his pursuit of the chorister Walter Thomas Goolden (1848–1901), that I shared his habits and was bent on the same path."〔Phyllis Grosskurth (ed.). (1986) ''The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226787834. p. 131〕 Although Symonds was officially cleared of any wrongdoing, he suffered a breakdown from the stress and shortly thereafter left the university for Switzerland. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Addington Symonds」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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