Tag Archives: Arthur Symons

creating pose and gesture out of repressed ferocity

The author of fifty plus books, including the translations in “literal” detail of all the graphic possibilities that could be mustered and blustered against the edifice of late Victorian England in a raging torrent of works that could be regarded … Continue reading

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waiting for the wanderer: of mountains and moons

Hidden, unknowable, unthinkable. The rebel Victorian. Sir Richard Burton and his explorations, eccentric tastes and ever watchful wife… But Burton is a Romany name, and as Richard Burton had certain gipsy characteristics, some persons have credited him with gipsy lineage. … Continue reading

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up in smoke: end of the long distance romancer

Posthumously burned for the sake of propriety. All the hiddens. Al the unknowables. All the unthinkables. The explorations. The eccentric tastes. Her reputation! Yes it all had to go up in smoke. The eroticism, the open sexuality transferred onto the … Continue reading

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eccentric tastes and ever watchful wife

The unthinkable. The unknowable. The hidden. The explorations of SirĀ  Richard Burton…. Burton married Isabel Arundel in 1861, in an almost secret ceremony in the Bavarian Catholic Church. “We will have no show,” Burton insisted, “for a grand marriage ceremony … Continue reading

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richard burton : cities of the saints

Breaking Victorian taboos, one expedition at a time… …In a later book, Explorations of the Highlands of the Brazil, Richard Burton described a village with 20 per cent more males than females and noted jovially” Is it not a waste … Continue reading

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manifestly not the third

Sir Richard Francis Burton. Explorations, eccentric tastes, and an ever-watchful wife… Burton had often said “he required two, and only two qualities in a woman, namely beauty and affection.” He had also written that he admired them “soft-bending and relaxed.” … Continue reading

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odd couple: moons and mountains and source of the matter

Captain Sir Richard Burton and the “Speke-easy” … Burton went to Africa in late 1858 with the thirty year old John Speke, who had been wounded with him in Somaliland. This was to prove a disastrous choice. Speke was a … Continue reading

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house of the holies: in the footsteps of the man’s man

Although at least twelve Europeans had penetrated the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in disguise and lived to tell of the experiences, the risk of death if caught was real, and Burton took every precaution, including that of having … Continue reading

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anti-hero

Sir Richard Burton, the great anti-hero and his explorations, his eccentric tastes, and his ever watchful wife. … In later life Burton’s reputation for telling the truth, even when it was supremely tactless, nevertheless continued to be paralleled by his … Continue reading

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GAZING AT THE COLD SLOW TERRORS OF THE WORLD

Yet who reads to bring about an end however desirable? Are there not some pursuits that we practice because they are good in themselves, and some pleasures that are final? And is not this among them? I have sometimes dreamt, … Continue reading

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