The Symbolist Movement in Literature

by Arthur Symons, Richard Ellman (Introduction)

Literary Studies

Genres: Poetry, Literary Criticism, Nonfiction, Literature, 19th Century, British Literature, Theory

164 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1899

About the author

Born in Milford Haven, Wales, of Cornish parents, Symons was educated privately, spending much of his time in France and Italy. Between 1884 and 1886 he edited four of Bernard Quaritch's Shakespeare Quarto Facsimiles, and in 1888 - 1889 seven plays of the "Henry Irving" Shakespeare. He became a member of the staff of the Athenaeum in 1891, and of the Saturday Review in 1894, but his major editorial feat was his work with the short-lived Savoy.

His first volume of verse, Days and Nights (1889), consisted of dramatic monologues. His later verse is influenced by a close study of modern French writers, of Charles Baudelaire, and especially of Paul Verlaine. He reflects French tendencies both in the subject-matter and style of his poems, in their eroticism and their vividness of description. Symons contributed poems and essays to the Yellow Book, including an important piece which was later expanded into The Symbolist Movement in Literature, which would have a major influence on William Butler Yeats and T. S. Eliot. From late 1895 through 1896 he edited, along with Aubrey Beardsley and Leonard Smithers, The Savoy, a literary magazine which published both art and literature. Noteworthy contributors included Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, and Joseph Conrad.

In 1892, The Minister's Call, Symons's first play, was produced by the Independent Theatre Society – a private club – to avoid censorship by the Lord Chamberlain's Office.

In 1902 Symons made a selection from his earlier verse, published as Poems. He translated from the Italian of Gabriele D'Annunzio The Dead City (1900) and The Child of Pleasure (1898), and from the French of Émile Verhaeren The Dawn (1898). To The Poems of Ernest Dowson (1905) he prefixed an essay on the deceased poet, who was a kind of English Verlaine and had many attractions for Symons. In 1909 Symons suffered a psychotic breakdown, and published very little new work for a period of more than twenty years. His Confessions: A Study in Pathology (1930), has a moving description of his breakdown and treatment.

Reviews

[J. Alfred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good, very interesting in a number of ways. Firstly, probably, you've heard of it because TS Eliot apparently formed his conception of the type of poetry he wanted to write from it. That makes it pretty important in the history of literature.
Secondly, its subject matter, the French literature of the 1800s, is something that you may not know anything about. This, in addition to supplying you with a helpful reminder of the importance of humility, will also serve as a memorable bridge to your eventual contact with the authors he writes about.
Third, the writing is so clear and forthright, it will sweep you along with it even if you happen to know no French, which is helpful in that long passages remain in the original. The introduction and conclusion are worth reading in their own right as a commentary on the --what's the phrase-- fin de siecle and how it looked and felt to the people living through it. They even have what seems to me to be a very workable, livable philosophy of art and life given in about twenty pages.

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I now see John Senior’s Way Down and Out is a blatant copy of Arthur Symons. Senior rewrites this book exactly like Symons, even quoting French Literature at length without translation, just as Symons does- except he goes further. Where Symons hints that he is intrigued by esoteric, Senior makes that the focal point. Symons greatly inspired TS Eliot. This book should be more widely read.

[Maxwell Foley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really quirky. Symons gives brief outlines of several figures involved in, well, the Symbolist movement in literature, only he seems somewhat disinterested in these authors biographical details, or even discussing the specifics of their works. Instead, he discusses at great length what he believes to be these authors' unique spiritual persuasion - their orientation towards the universe and the divine. There was something thrillingly eccentric about this, though I think if it was any longer it would have gotten very tiresome.

[Tiago Filipe Clariano · Rating 3 out of 5]

É um roteiro da literatura simbolista que elege alguns dos nomes cujos projectos poéticos mais contornos deram a esta gaveta de literaturas.

Para explicar o movimento, Symons baseia-se na arbitrariedade linguística estruturalista acabando por justificar que tudo o que é linguagem é símbolo, furando o próprio pé. Enquanto objecto estético, enquanto beco sem saída de toda a linguagem e toda a literatura, o símbolo procede a ser equacionado a obscurantismo, dificultando novamente a compreensão da sua fenomenologia. Fala-se de incorporação do infinito, de moral literária, de coisas que não me parecem descrever bem mas esta dificuldade descritiva não me assimilar-se aos efeitos de uma margem de erro estatística: não é por alguns se desviarem do padrão que deixam de fazer parte deles, o caso aqui é não haver elementos que o padronizem. Diz-se que a forma sempre apontou à precisão, ao dizer acima do sugerir, mas logo a seguir diz-se que os simbolistas se fartaram da atitude realista de tudo dizer, alegando que nada sobrava para dizer (que falta de visão panorâmica): então, para os simbolistas, é trabalho do leitor adivinhar a sua intenção.
É então atirada uma descrição do que seria, por outro lado, a Decadência: o resultado de perversões da forma e da matéria associadas aos excessos do Parnasianismo que só podiam culminar na degradação do próprio conceito de arte, uma decadência. Então, para o simbolismo, a forma deve ser "cuidadosamente elaborada", nada o que o Barroco não tivesse feito antes, e a justificação encontra-se na proximidade de um verso de Verlaine ao cantar de um pássaro e os versos de Mallarmé ao som de uma orquestra: portanto, os poetas continuam a imitar e a não fazer nada de novo; mas em Villiers de l'Isle-Adam o drama é uma incarnação de forças espirituais e para Maeterlinck o oposto de uma incarnação, o esvaziar do remoto som da voz.
De certo modo, vê-se o simbolismo como um progressivo caminho em direcção à condição artística da música, onde forma é indistinta de conteúdo e se constitui como pura conotação sem denotação possível.

O que se pode dizer é que esta constrição da música ao discurso é tendencial à época, ao fin-de-siècle, e que a má interpretação sintáctica (já constrangida pelas cedências que uma linguagem tem de fazer para se constituir como música) de elementos pouco gramaticais e puramente estéticos levou a crítica a solucionar o problema estético com um recurso à noção de símbolo.

É interessante pelas curiosidades a respeito da estilística dos poetas e mesmo detalhes de vidas privadas: Gérard de Nerval tinha uma lagosta que passeava nas ruas do Palais-Royal com um laço azul porque "não ladrava e conhecia os segredos do mar"; Villiers de l'Isle-Adam era tão obcecado com a sua própria aristocracia que se cria um continuador das cruzadas, Rimbaud apaixonou Verlaine e o mundo para se considerar demasiado bom para continuar a ser poeta, Verlaine era uma pessoa extremamente alegre e apaixonada pela vida, com a cara de um sonâmbulo, Jules Laforgue declarou brilhantemente "Il n'y a pas de type, il y a la vie", Mallarmé era tão cheio de si mesmo que a sua vida privada era dar conferências públicas, Huysmans escreveu coisas maravilhosas no início da sua carreira poética que só compreendeu no fim e Maeterlinck contribuiu para a dificuldade que é lidar com pessoas que pensam que o seu silêncio diz alguma coisa.

A conclusão é uma tentativa de ensinar uma lição de como viver a vida à maneira de Walter Pater e pede que se ignorem todos os elementos da estética simbolista (substituições, crenças religiosas em ligações, tendências para piorar, misticismo do silêncio) para se poder acreditar numa felicidade ou no alcançar de alegrias no nosso dia-a-dia. Pareceu-me contraditório para com o resto do livro.

[Kevin Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Well, the doctrine of Mysticism, with which all this symbolical literature has so much to do, of which it is all so much the expression, presents us, not with a guide for conduct, not with a plan for our happiness, not with any explanation of any mystery, but with a theory of life which makes us familar with mystery, and which seems to harmonise those instincts which make for religion, passion, and art, freeing us at once of a great bondage. (Symons, pg. 336).

Thus ends a comprehensive, literate, and sagacious exploration of the beginnings, middle, and end (decadence) of the Symbolist movement in French literature, which animated French literature from the early years of the nineteenth century to turn of the 20th century. This book itself, first published in 1919, was written in the waning days of the movement, just in time to influence thinkers as diverse as T.S. Eliot and T.E. Hulme. Basically a survey of a whole class of literature, Mr. Symons book encompasses writers from Balzac, in the early years of the 19th century; to Stephane Mallarme', whose salon was as famous and influential as his poems, few are far between as they are; and Joris-Karl Hysmans, whose 'decadent' novel "A Rebours" was the 'Bible' for aesthetes such as Oscar Wilde and his ilk at the cusp of the 20th century. However, the book is no mere popularizing 'vehicle,' bland and serviceable only. Rather its prose elucidates its subject matter with a grace and beauty such that reading the book is like reading the works it describes: a joy to experience! Be prepared to wade through prose that, by its complexity of syntax and diction, reaches the height of fine poetry itself! Finally, as the quote cited above so clearly attests to, the 'message' of this work is ultimately spiritual in nature, pointing to a 'higher' (and different) reality than ordinary, banal existence. This seems to be a weighty 'vein' common to all these works, serve as a basis for Mr. Symons' critique, and, to this reader at least, serves to lift up the whole tone of the works being described. Additionally, the authors whose work is being so delectably described are among the most important writers and thinkers in the French pantheon of intellectuals. And considering the value and worth of the cultural output of France, this is another high selling 'point' of Mr. Symons work, saving it from irrelevancy due to its age or the age of the subject matter involved. Read this book to be instructed and entertained. Read this book to be in the hands of a master stylist. Read this book to enjoy!

[Rod Zinkel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arthur Symons writes symbolism is “the affirmation of an eternal, minute, intricate, almost invisible life” (80), revealing something of the mystical quality Symon praises for nearly all the poets, novelists, and dramatists he writes of. These French symbolist authors include Gerard de Nerval, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Mellarme, and Maeterlinck. This book includes additional essays by Symons on Balzac, Theophile Gautier, Gustave Flaubert, Charles Baudelaire, and Emile Zola. Symons writes in praise of every author but Zola, who “writes very badly” (158).

Literary criticism of the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries is often rather vague and lacks illustrations from the literature criticized. Close reading came later. So Symons writes in generalities, especially since he writes of the authors, and only cites a few works by each as their best or best representation of their entire work. His choice of authors, however, is useful as a guide to some of the most prominent French authors of the latter half of the nineteenth century.

[Bill Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of the writers of the symbolist/decadent school, more interesting because Symons apparently knew some of them well. The text pointed me toward a number of unfamiliar works that I'll try to find in translation. I really should have learned French a long time ago.

[yana · Rating 3 out of 5]

"somebody should have told zola to shut the hell up every once in a while" - arthur symons, 1893

[Micha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another bit of essential reading for my thesis, but not the kind of thing I'd stick out for miscellany. Does make me think how lucky I am that so much of my prospectus book list is stuff I genuinely care about and would read even if I didn't have to write dozens of pages about.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Acquired 1996
The Word, Montreal, Quebec

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Introduction and Chapter 1

[Steven Felicelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

one of the least read and most important books in (affecting) literary history