The Symbolist Manifesto '' by
Henri Fantin-Latour (1872); left to right:
Paul Verlaine,
Arthur Rimbaud, Léon Valade, Ernest d'Hervilly,
Camille Pelletan (seated); Pierre Elzéar, Emile Blémont,
Jean Aicard (standing)
Jean Moréas published the
Symbolist Manifesto ("Le Symbolisme") in
Le Figaro on 18 September 1886 (see
1886 in poetry). The
Symbolist Manifesto names
Charles Baudelaire,
Stéphane Mallarmé, and
Paul Verlaine as the three leading poets of the movement. Moréas announced that symbolism was hostile to "plain meanings, declamations, false sentimentality and matter-of-fact description", and that its goal instead was to "clothe the Ideal in a perceptible form" whose "goal was not in itself, but whose sole purpose was to express the Ideal." :
Ainsi, dans cet art, les tableaux de la nature, les actions des humains, tous les phénomènes concrets ne sauraient se manifester eux-mêmes; ce sont là des apparences sensibles destinées à représenter leurs affinités ésotériques avec des Idées primordiales. :(Thus, in this art movement, representations of nature, human activities and all real life events don't stand on their own; they are rather veiled reflections of the senses pointing to archetypal meanings through their esoteric connections.) In essence, as Mallarmé writes in a letter to his friend
Henri Cazalis, 'to depict not the thing but the effect it produces'. In 1891, Mallarmé defined Symbolism as follows, "To name an object is to suppress three-quarters of the delight of the poem, which consists in the pleasure of guessing little by little; to
suggest is, that is the dream. It is the perfect use of this mystery that constitutes the symbol: to evoke an object, gradually in order to reveal a state of the soul or, inversely, to choose an object and from it identify a state of the soul, by a series of deciphering operations... There must always be enigma in poetry." While describing the pre-
World War I friendship, which defied the pervasive
anti-German sentiment and
revanchism of the
Belle Époque, between French symbolists
Paul Verlaine and
Stéphane Mallarmé and young and aspiring German symbolist poet
Stefan George, Michael and Erika Metzger have written, "For the Symbolists, the pursuit of '
art for art's sake', was a highly serious – nearly a sacred – function, since beauty, in and of itself, stood for a higher meaning beyond itself. In their ultimate higher striving, the French Symbolists are not far from the
Platonic ideals of
the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, and this idealistic aspect was undoubtedly what appealed to George far more than the
Estheticism, the
Bohemianism, and the apparent
Nihilism so often superficially associated with this group."
Techniques (c. 1862), whose writing was a precursor of the symbolist style The symbolist poets wished to liberate techniques of versification in order to allow greater room for "fluidity", and as such were sympathetic with the trend toward
free verse, as evident in the poems of
Gustave Kahn and
Ezra Pound. Symbolist poems were attempts to evoke, rather than primarily to describe; symbolic imagery was used to signify the state of the poet's
soul.
T. S. Eliot was influenced by the poets
Jules Laforgue,
Paul Valéry and
Arthur Rimbaud who used the techniques of the Symbolist school, though it has also been said that '
Imagism' was the style to which both Pound and Eliot subscribed (see Pound's
Des Imagistes).
Synesthesia was a prized experience; poets sought to identify and confound the separate senses of scent, sound, and colour. In
Baudelaire's poem
Correspondences (which mentions
forêts de symboles ("forests of symbols") and is considered the touchstone of French Symbolism): :''Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,– Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,Ayant l'expansion des choses infinies,Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens,Qui chantent les transports de l'esprit et des sens.'' ::(There are fragrances that are fresh like children's skin, calm like oboes, green like meadows– And others, rotten, heady, and triumphant,having the expansiveness of infinite things, like amber, musk, benzoin, and incense,which sing of the raptures of the soul and senses.) and
Rimbaud's poem
Voyelles: :
A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu : voyelles… ::(A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels…) – both poets seek to identify one sense experience with another. The earlier
Romanticism of poetry used
symbols, but these symbols were unique and privileged objects. The symbolists were more extreme, investing all things, even vowels and perfumes, with potential symbolic value. "The physical universe, then, is a kind of language that invites a privileged spectator to decipher it, although this does not yield a single message so much as a superior network of associations." Symbolist symbols are not
allegories, intended to represent; they are instead intended to
evoke particular states of mind. The nominal subject of Mallarmé's "Le cygne" ("The
Swan") is of a swan trapped in a frozen lake. Significantly, in French,
cygne is a homophone of
signe, a sign. The overall effect is of overwhelming whiteness; and the presentation of the narrative elements of the description is quite indirect: :''Le vierge, le vivace, et le bel aujourd'huiVa-t-il nous déchirer avec un coup d’aile ivreCe lac dur oublié que hante sous le givreLe transparent glacier des vols qui n’ont pas fui!Un cygne d’autrefois se souvient que c’est luiMagnifique mais qui sans espoir se délivre…'' ::(The virgin, lively, and beautiful today – Will it tear us up with a drunken wingbeatThis hard forgotten lake that lurks beneath the frost,The transparent glacier of flights not takenA swan of long ago remembers that it is heMagnificent but without hope, who breaks free…)
Paul Verlaine and the poètes maudits Of the several attempts at defining the essence of symbolism, perhaps none was more influential than
Paul Verlaine's 1884 publication of a series of essays on
Tristan Corbière,
Arthur Rimbaud,
Stéphane Mallarmé,
Marceline Desbordes-Valmore,
Gérard de Nerval, and "Pauvre Lelian" ("Poor Lelian", an anagram of Paul Verlaine's own name), each of whom Verlaine numbered among the
poètes maudits, "accursed poets." ,
The Shore of Oblivion, 1889 Verlaine argued that in their individual and very different ways, each of these hitherto neglected poets found
genius a curse; it isolated them from their contemporaries, and as a result these poets were not at all concerned to avoid
hermeticism and idiosyncratic writing styles. They were also portrayed as at odds with society, having tragic lives, and often given to self-destructive tendencies. These traits were not hindrances but consequences of their literary gifts. Verlaine's concept of the
poète maudit in turn borrows from Baudelaire, who opened his collection
Les fleurs du mal with the poem
Bénédiction, which describes a poet whose internal serenity remains undisturbed by the contempt of the people surrounding him. In this conception of genius and the role of the poet, Verlaine referred indirectly to the
aesthetics of
Arthur Schopenhauer, the philosopher of
pessimism, who maintained that the purpose of art was to provide a temporary refuge from the world of strife of the
will.
Philosophy Schopenhauer's aesthetics represented shared concerns with the symbolist programme; they both tended to consider Art as a contemplative refuge from the world of strife and
will. As a result of this desire for an artistic refuge, the symbolists used characteristic themes of
mysticism and otherworldliness, a keen sense of
mortality, and a sense of the malign power of
sexuality, which
Albert Samain termed a "fruit of death upon the tree of life." Mallarmé's poem
Les fenêtres expresses all of these themes clearly. A dying man in a hospital bed, seeking escape from the pain and dreariness of his physical surroundings, turns toward his window but then turns away in disgust from '', by
Félicien Rops, etching and
aquatint, 1878 :''… l'homme à l'âme dureVautré dans le bonheur, où ses seuls appétitsMangent, et qui s'entête à chercher cette ordurePour l'offrir à la femme allaitant ses petits, …'' ::(… the hard-souled man,Wallowing in happiness, where only his appetitesFeed, and who insists on seeking out this filthTo offer to the wife suckling his children, …) and in contrast, he "turns his back on life" (
tourne l’épaule à la vie) and he exclaims: :''Je me mire et me vois ange! Et je meurs, et j'aime– Que la vitre soit l'art, soit la mysticité –A renaître, portant mon rêve en diadème,Au ciel antérieur où fleurit la Beauté!'' ::(I look at myself and I seem like an angel! and I die, and I love– Whether the mirror might be art, or mysticism –To be reborn, bearing my dream as a crown,Under that former sky where Beauty flourishes!)
Symbolists and decadents The symbolist style has frequently been confused with the
Decadent movement, the name derived from French literary critics in the 1880s, suggesting the writers were self indulgent and obsessed with taboo subjects. While a few writers embraced the term, most avoided it. Jean Moréas'
manifesto was largely a response to this polemic. By the late 1880s, the terms "symbolism" and "decadence" were understood to be almost synonymous. Though the aesthetics of the styles can be considered similar in some ways, the two remain distinct. The symbolists were those artists who emphasized dreams and ideals; the Decadents cultivated
précieux, ornamented, or
hermetic styles, and
morbid subject matters. The subject of
the decadence of the Roman Empire was a frequent source of literary images and appears in the works of many poets of the period, regardless of which name they chose for their style, as in Verlaine's "
Langueur": :''Je suis l'Empire à la fin de la Décadence,Qui regarde passer les grands Barbares blancsEn composant des acrostiches indolentsD'un style d'or où la langueur du soleil danse.'' ::(I am the Empire at the endgame of decadence, watching the great pale barbarians passing by, all the while composing lazy acrostic poems in a gilded style where the languishing sun dances.)
Periodical literature ,
The Knight at the Crossroads, 1878 A number of important literary publications were founded by symbolists or became associated with the style. The first was
La Vogue initiated in April 1886. In October of that same year,
Jean Moréas,
Gustave Kahn, and
Paul Adam began the periodical
Le Symboliste. One of the most important symbolist journals was
Mercure de France, edited by
Alfred Vallette, which succeeded
La Pléiade; founded in 1890, this periodical endured until 1965.
Pierre Louÿs initiated
La conque, a periodical whose symbolist influences were alluded to by
Jorge Luis Borges in his story
Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote. Other symbolist literary magazines included
La Revue blanche,
La Revue wagnérienne,
La Plume and
La Wallonie.
Rémy de Gourmont and
Félix Fénéon were
literary critics associated with symbolism. The symbolist and decadent literary styles were
satirized by a book of poetry, ''Les Déliquescences d'
Adoré Floupette'', published in 1885 by
Henri Beauclair and
Gabriel Vicaire. ==In other media==