What is LITERARY SYMBOLISM and its most important CHARACTERISTICS [SUMMARY]

The symbolism in literature It arose with the aim of overcoming the foundations of realism and naturalism in order to create artistic works in which the authentic reality of people appeared. A reality that cannot be objective because, after all, we all perceive it in different ways, depending on how the images suggest ideas, emotions, sensations, etc.

In a teacher we will discover you what is literary symbolism and its characteristics so that, thus, you can better understand this movement that appeared in France in the mid-nineteenth century.

Index

1. What is symbolism in literature?
2. Literary symbolism in Spain and Latin America
3. Characteristics of literary symbolism
4. Authors and works of symbolism in literature

The literary symbolism is a stream that appeared to mid-nineteenth in France and that it began in the field of literature and later extended to other arts such as painting, architecture, and so on.

The name of the current itself already suggests the basis of aesthetics: it is committed to the

The movement arose in opposition to the preceding aesthetics, that is, against the naturalism and realism that reflected reality in an objective and flat way. The symbolists perceived reality subjectively and sought in real and external objects, a deeper, spiritual and metaphorical significance.

Jean Moréas was the author of manifest symbolist who appeared in 1886; In the text, the author defined literary symbolism as follows:

"Enemy of teaching, declamation, false sensitivity and objective description.”

Researchers place the point of the literary symbolist movement with the publication of one of the top works of this current: The flowers of Evilby Charles Baudelaire. This poet, greatly influenced by Poe, created a sinister, symbolic and stunningly beautiful collection of poems that managed to be the reference for later Symbolist poets.

Edgar Allan Poe, forerunner of symbolism in literature

It is important to mention the antecedents of literary symbolism, since scholars have detected that the sources of these authors should be sought by writers such as Edgar Allan Poe. The French Symbolist writers became known as "cursed poets"because, under the influence of styles like Poe's, they created a somewhat gloomy type of literature, sinister, but beautiful at the same time, with a language full of metaphor and where the symbol was essential.

We must not forget that Poe was a precursor of symbolism, since he has short stories loaded with symbolism; one of the best known stories of him is The well and the pendulum, a story that, with only the title itself, evokes a lot what we will find in its lines.

Within Spanish literature, we have a well-known poet who described literary symbolism in a very successful way. We talk about Juan Ramon Jimenez, who said the following:

«(Symbolism is) the precision of the imprecise, that is what symbolism means, to specify in a very beautiful image the imprecise, by means of symbols, relationships, correspondence between some things and others »

It is important to highlight an important fact that took place regarding the Symbolist movement in Hispanic literature. And it is that this movement was plunged into the Literary modernism, a current that began in Latin America at the hands of Ruben Dario, a poet who was very symbolist.

The journey of literary symbolism in Hispanic letters was, therefore, closely linked to the modernist movement. Authors such as José Martí, Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera, Juan Ramon Jimenez or Manuel Machado assimilated this symbolist aesthetic and used it in their literary works.

All these poets were based on the current that emerged in France and where symbols were used to represent ideas, thoughts or human emotions.

Now that we know what literary symbolism is, we are going to discover what were the elements of this current and what made it so surprising and unique in its kind. Therefore, below we are going to leave a complete list with the most striking and important characteristics of literary symbolism. Here you have them:

• Symbology of reality. The main characteristic of symbolism in literature is that reality ceases to be something objective to become a subjective interpretation of the poet. Now, that well is no longer a well, but depending on who looks at it, it can be something gloomy, a hope, the purity of the water, etc. Reality transforms depending on the eye that looks at it and, therefore, there is nothing external that is common to all.
• Universal truth. Unlike the materialism driven by the realist movement, literary symbolism wants to find the universal truth of our reality and, therefore, delves into the symbolism of objects and the external to the human being to find the most spiritual part of life.
• New interpretation of beauty. For the symbolists there is beauty in pain and death and in all aspects of life. Poets tend to represent reality from a sinister point of view to emphasize that beauty exists in every corner.
• Reaction to naturalism and realism. One of the characteristics of literary symbolism is that it arises because of the preceding aesthetics. With realism and naturalism, a materialistic, objective and emotionless art is advocated; Symbolists want to recover the essence of the world and, therefore, turn to objects to find their own spirit and essence.
• Freedom of creation. The Symbolist authors also wanted to experiment with art and, for this reason, they bet on breaking the established norms and giving free rein to their style and their creation.
• Importance of subjectivity. We have already commented that for the symbolists reality ceases to be objective to become objective. Therefore, literature cannot be objective because, in reality, nothing is. The presence of the "I" and the experience of the author and the reader is essential for the literary work to be completed, as well as its meaning.
• Mystery tone. Because reality no longer exists as a "whole", poets find themselves immersed in a new world in which everything is possible. This feeling is very present in his poems and in his writings in which we find feelings such as fear, mystery, but at the same time fascination and beauty.
• Use of rhetorical figures. And we end with another of the characteristics of literary symbolism and that is that poets use literary resources with the aim of awakening emotions in readers and being able to better describe their point of view or his experience with reality.

We cannot conclude this lesson without talking about the authors and works of literary symbolism, as they will help us understand all the above theory with practical examples that can be read.

It is important to mention that the French symbolist authors were the "cursed poets", a nickname given to them because they created poems loaded with sinister, gothic images, mysterious... Images that moved among all that world separated from literature and that, now, prostrated before the eyes of the readers as a world that liked and disliked in equal parts.

Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Paul Verlaine were the three best-known cursed poets within the Symbolist movement. But, then, we are going to discover them in a more individualized way so that you know what their outstanding works are.

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)

We are before the father of French symbolism. In fact, the publication of his work is what is considered to have started this literary movement so important for the history of the arts in general. As he himself affirmed, he was a faithful follower of Edgar Alan Poe and the mark of the English writer is felt in his The flowers of Evil. This is the most outstanding collection of poems by the symbolist author and, so that you can better know his work, here are some verses:

The sky the proud bones looked,

That it was a skull or a flower.

And your body on the grass almost fainted

So strong was the stench!

The flies on the belly gave the buzzing of him,

while they went out in black battalions

the larvae that ran like an ugly liquid

on those tatters.

Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)

Among the outstanding authors of literary symbolism we cannot fail to mention Rimbaud, one of the great writers of this aesthetic. Rimbaud, in addition to being a symbolist, is known as the predecessor of the literary surrealism. A season in hell (1873) e Illuminations (1874) are the two most outstanding works of him and with which he achieved great recognition.

I summoned the executioners to bite the butts of their rifles while I was dying. I called the plagues to drown in the sand, in the blood. Misfortune was my god. I lay down in the mud. I let myself dry in the air of crime. And I did very bad tricks on madness. And spring brought me the hideous laugh of the idiot.

Paul Valery (1871-1945)

He is another of the great names of this trend: writer, poet, philosopher and essayist. He was a symbolist, but critics have included him in another category, that of "pure poetry." Within his extensive literary production we highlight Monsieur Teste (1896) and The marine cemetery (1920).

The wind rises! Time to be alive!

Blast open and close my book!

Rise, bold, the pulverized wave

from the rocks! Fly, blind pages!

Break, swell! From the joyful water it breaks

the ceiling that the candles pecked!

Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)

Paul Verlaine is another of the most prominent poets of literary symbolism. He was greatly influenced by Baudelarie and Rimbaud and, therefore, his poems abound in the use of metaphors and musicality. Verlaine greatly influenced European modernists and, for some critics, he is the father of the movement. Saturnian poems (1866) and Gallant parties (1869) are two of his most outstanding works.

The wise men of old, who were worth as much as those of today,

they believed and this is a point still poorly elucidated,

read in heaven both bliss and disasters

and that each soul was united to the stars.

(Much has been joked, without thinking that often

laughter is as ridiculous as it is misleading

about this explanation of the nocturnal mystery.)

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898)

We finished with Mallarmé, one of the top authors within literary symbolism. This author is considered as the precursor of the later avant-gardes of the XX, since he managed to completely renew literature and overcome Modernism with a unique style. He was the author who introduced innovations such as free verse or creating poems that focused on a symbol centrally.

Today I do not come to defeat your body, oh full beast

of all the sins of a people who love you,

nor to raise sad storms in your impure mane

under the incurable boredom that my lip spills.

I ask your bed for sleep without dreams or torments

what do you sleep with after your deception, exhausted,

behind the unknown curtain of regrets,

you who, more than the dead, know what nothing is.

If you want to read more articles similar to What is literary symbolism and its characteristics, we recommend that you enter our category of History of Literature.

• Almería, L. B. (2015). Symbolism and modernity. Secretariat of Culture and the Arts of Yucatán.
• Brodskaya, N. (2012). The symbolism. Parkstone International.
• Cabral, M. TO. L. (2011). The teaching of values ​​through literary symbolism and artistic integration (Doctoral dissertation, Complutense University of Madrid).
• OF FINALS, D. S. X. THE SYMBOLISM.