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What is Symbolism in Literature?

The development of symbolism was a reaction to realism, naturalism, and the Parnassian movement, which attempted to develop a precise and definitive language. Baudelaire is the founder of French symbolism. Symbolism occurred in 19th-century France, Russia and Belgium. It depicts the symbol of truths symbol metaphorical images. French poets founded a loosely organized literary and artistic movement known as symbolism.


Symbolist artists sought to express an individual's emotional experiences through highly symbolic language. The style is credited to Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal, published in 1857. Baudelaire's admiration and translation of Edgar Allan Poe's works had a significant impact and provided a source of many stock tropes and images. Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine developed this aesthetic in the 1860s and 1870s. A series of manifestos articulated the aesthetic in the 1880s, attracting a generation of writers.


In the 19th century, the critic Jean Moréas coined the term to distinguish between the Symbolists of literature and art and the Decadents. The principal Symbolist include:

  • Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal (1857),

  • Stéphane Mallarmé,

  • Paul Verlaine,

  • Arthur Rimbaud,

  • Edgar Allen Poe

  • Yeats' "Byzantium",

  • Eliot's The Waste Land,

  • Hart Crane's The Bridge,

  • Wallace Stevens' "The Comedian as the Letter C."

  • Dylan Thomas' series of sonnets Altarwise by Owl-light.

  • James Joyce's Finnegans Wake,

  • Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.

According to MH, Abraham's symbolism influenced poets such as:

  1. Arthur Symons,

  2. Ernest Dowson,

  3. W.B. Yeats,

  4. Ezra Pound,

  5. Dylan Thomas,

  6. Hart Crane,

  7. E.E. Cummings,

  8. Wallace Stevens.



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