Symbolist literature is a literary genre that originated in France in the mid-19th century and expanded to European and American countries in the early 20th century. It is the embodiment of symbolism in literature and a core of modernist literature. Branches, mainly covering the two fields of poetry and drama, its influence continues to this day. Mainstream Western academic circles believe that the birth of symbolism literature is the watershed between classical literature and modern literature.
Symbolism, which officially took off in France in the mid-1880s, was a backlash against the positivist philosophy represented by Comte and the naturalistic literature represented by Zola. In the view of symbolists, positivism only knows how to mechanically demonstrate the causal relationship between actual things, while naturalism focuses on the influence of heredity and environment on the formation of human nature. None of these can reveal the essence of art. Symbolists advocated exploring the world of ideas hidden behind nature and creating supernatural art based on personal sensitivity and imagination. The ideas of Nietzsche, Freud and Bergson can be seen as the philosophical foundations of Symbolism.
3. Representative writers: French Valéry, German Rilke, American Pound, Irish Yeats and British T. S. Eliot. 1. British T.S. Eliot: "The Waste Land" (1922)
2. French poet Valéry: "Seaside Cemetery" (1926), thinking about the meaning of life and never ending praise The cosmic movement expresses the joy after transcending the consciousness of death. Philosophical contemplation and novel and symbolic images blend in seamlessly, with harmonious and beautiful phonology and profound artistic conception.
3. Irish poet and playwright Yeats: "Sailing to Byzantium", Yeats won the 1923 Nobel Prize for Literature for "expressing the spirit of the entire nation".
4. Maeterlinck: The representative writer of symbolist drama, "The Blue Bird" (1908, Tytier, Mytier, Bai Lilian). The blue bird symbolizes happiness, and the theme is to praise people's love for happiness and happiness. The pursuit of light.
5. Blok: Russia's "extremely sincere poet", "Twelve" (long poem)
Imagism (a variant of symbolism)
< p>1. Characteristics of Imagist poetry: clear, precise, condensed, concrete, not expressing emotions or preaching truth. The focus is on expressing the poet's intuitive image, but the author's intuitive feelings are not directly expressed, but are hinted through imagery.2. Representative: American Ezra Pound, "Metro Station" (a typical image poem)
Hermitism (another poetry school of symbolism)
< p>1. Founder: Ongaretti2. Representative writers (two disciples of Ongaretti): Quasimodo and Montale