SOURCE: "The Problem of Gérard de Nerval," in The Fortnightly Review, Vol. LXII, No. CCCLXXIII, January, 1898, pp. 81-91.

Symons was a critic, poet, dramatist, short story writer, and editor who first gained notoriety in the 1890s as an English decadent. Eventually, he established himself as one of the most important critics of the modern era. In his book The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899), Symons provided his English contemporaries with an appropriate vocabulary with which to define the aesthetic of symbolism; furthermore, he laid the foundation for much of modern poetic theory by discerning the importance of the symbol as a vehicle by which a "hitherto unknown reality was suddenly revealed. " In the following excerpt, Symons discusses the effect of madness on Nerval's works, concluding that Nerval is "only inspired, only really wise, passionate, collected, only really master of himself, when he is insane."

It is not necessary...