In the early 1890s, both John Addington Symonds and Arthur Symons were fascinated by Paul Verlaine's sonnet “Parsifal” (1886)—in particular, by its final line, which dwells on the voices of singing children. Symonds enthused to Symons that it was “a line [to] treasure forever,” while, nevertheless, noting his reservations to Horatio Forbes Brown that “fine as it is, [it] looks like it […] must be rather of the sickly school.” In an article on Verlaine, Symons praised the poem as a “triumph [of] amazing virtuosity,” echoing the sentiments of his friend George Moore, who inConfessions of a Young Man(1886) exclaimed that he “kn[ew] of no more perfect thing than this sonnet.” With its repetition of assonant vowel sounds, Verlaine's closing line captures the gentle rise heavenward of the ethereal voices of Richard Wagner's offstage choristers, resounding above the stage at the conclusion of the opera. The hiatus with which the line opens functions as a sigh of renunciation, as the listeners abandon themselves to the inexpressible force of the transcendent. In Verlaine's sonnet, these children's voices become the epitome of the “disembodied voice” that Symons sees as so characteristic of Decadent poetics. They sing of the delicate immateriality of spiritual experience, the transient fragility of existence.

中文翻译：

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无形的声乐天真：约翰·阿丁顿·西蒙兹、维多利亚时代的唱诗班和酷儿音乐消费

在 1890 年代初期，约翰·阿丁顿·西蒙兹和亚瑟·西蒙斯都对保罗·魏尔兰的十四行诗“Parsifal”（1886 年）着迷——尤其是它的最后一行，它讲述了唱歌儿童的声音。Symonds 对 Symons 表示热情，称这是“永远珍藏的台词”，然而，尽管如此，他对 Horatio Forbes Brown 的保留意见是，“尽管如此，[它] 看起来 [...] 一定是病态的学校。” 在一篇关于 Verlaine 的文章中，西蒙斯称赞这首诗是“令人惊叹的精湛技艺的胜利”，这与他的朋友乔治·摩尔的观点相呼应，后者在一个年轻人的自白(1886) 惊呼他“知道没有比这首十四行诗更完美的东西了。” 随着元音元音的重复，魏尔兰的结尾台词捕捉到了理查德·瓦格纳（Richard Wagner）台下唱诗班的空灵声音向天堂的温柔升起，在歌剧结束时在舞台上空回荡。当听众将自己投身于不可言喻的超然力量时，这首诗开始的中断起到了放弃的叹息的作用。在魏尔兰的十四行诗中，这些孩子的声音成为了西蒙斯所认为的颓废诗学特征的“无形声音”的缩影。他们歌唱精神体验的微妙的非物质性，存在的短暂脆弱。