Kryhoski is currently employed as a freelance writer. In this essay, Kryhoski considers the influence of classic conventions and thought on the work of the symbolist poets.

Although most expressive in its Greek and Roman origins and perhaps its manifestations during the French, German, and English revivals, Classicism has still managed to wind its way forward, leaving behind it a trail of "new classics." The works of the symbolist poets in some ways rely on a classical tradition to provide powerful imagery and symbolism in order to evoke a response in the reader, juxtaposing them with more contemporary images. Gilbert Highet, in "The Classical Tradition," has also given great consideration to the factors that define a classic in order to find some common ground with Classicism. Is the work of T. S. Eliot, among others, classical?

Many examples can be found in the body of symbolist poetry...