Symbolism/BA III/Special English/Literary Criticism/Semester V

                                                       (E-content developed by Dr N. A. Jarandikar)

Symbolism

Symbolism is a literary and artistic movement that originated with a group of French poets in the late 19th century. It spread to painting and the theatre, and influenced the European and American literatures of the 20th century. Symbolist artists expressed individual emotional experience through the subtle and suggestive use of symbolized language. Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud are the important French poets who influenced the symbolism.

The term ‘symbolism’ is derived from the word ‘symbol’ which means a sign of identification. For instance, a ‘rose’ given by one character to another may function as a symbol of their love. A ‘caged bird’ might be a symbol of the longing for freedom. The ‘conch shell’ in Golding’s Lord of the Flies symbolizes the rule of law. Some symbols are conventional or public. For example, ‘the Cross’, a ‘Swastika’, or a ‘nation’s flag’ have meanings that are widely recognized by the concerned society or culture. Writers use conventional symbols to reinforce meanings.

Symbolism originated in the revolt of certain French poets against the traditional French poetry. The symbolists were greatly influenced by the poetry and thought of Charles Baudelaire, particularly by the poems in his The Flowers of Evil (1857). Jean Moreas published the symbolist manifesto in Le Figaro in 1886.

The experimental techniques of the French symbolists greatly enriched the modern British and American poetry of W.B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot and the modern novel of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. The symbolists attacked the descriptive tendencies of the Realist theatre and the Naturalistic novels. So the symbolist movement is regarded as a reaction against Realism and Naturalism. Many symbolists focused on subjective impressions, internal moods, and spiritual sentiments in reaction against objective, external and concrete realities. Symbolism was also a reaction against the urbanization and materialism of the Victorian Age. The main characteristics of symbolism are as follows:

a) Symbolism was largely a reaction against Realism and Naturalism.

b) It sought to express individual emotional experience through the use of symbols and the symbolized language.

c) Symbolism was against plain meanings and matter-of-fact description.

d) Symbolic imagery was used to signify the state of the poet's soul.

e) Symbolism was in many ways a reaction against the urbanization and materialism of the Victorian Age.

f) The symbolists liberated the techniques of versification and allowed greater room for free verse.

g) Symbolism was concerned with expressing various elements of the internal life of the individual.

h) The Symbolist writers describe various journeys, voyages, or quests as metaphors for internal explorations of the individual.

The Symbolist movement in poetry reached its peak around 1890. But its popularity declined around 1900. However Symbolist works had a strong and lasting influence on much British and American literature in the 20th century,.