(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.
