‘The Universe’: An Unpublished Sonnet by Arthur Symons

Abstract

A steady trickle of sonnets permeates Arthur Symons’s poetical oeuvre. Some of the most iconic pieces from his early volumes are sonnets; examples include ‘The Opium-Smoker’, ‘The Absinthe Drinker’, ‘Nerves’, and ‘Idealism’. In the Arthur Symons Papers held in Firestone Library at Princeton University is an unknown and previously unpublished sonnet entitled ‘The Universe’. The typescript, found among miscellaneous poems, is undated and spattered with blotches (strikethroughs) and a couple of typographic errors. It bears a thematic affinity with some post-Nineties volumes by Symons, comporting with his fixation with evil, sin, and damnation. From these clues we can hazard that Symons penned ‘The Universe’ after his mental breakdown period, possibly in the twenties or the thirties, although the sonnet’s central concept could have originated much earlier. ‘The Universe’ expands and transforms the theme of urban sensuality of Symons’s early work, plotting it on a more abstract plane. It is built around ideas of world-making and Judeo-Christian cosmogony. This is not a slapdash effort; it is an intriguing, puzzling piece, to say the least, and one that realizes the full potential of the sonnet form.