Representative figures are Baudelaire, Wei Erlun, Rambo and Malamei.
Baudelaire's sonnet He Ying first put forward the famous symbolism theory He Ying. He believes that everything in nature is a symbol of each other, forming a "symbol forest", and all human senses are also corresponding and communicating with each other. Most importantly, human mind and nature also correspond and communicate with each other, and poetry is the product of this symbol and harmony. Therefore, this poem is called "Symbolism Charter".
Valerie's symbolic poetics with musicalization as the core
Paolo Valerie (187 1- 1945), a Frenchman, published Old Poems in 19 12.
The realistic existence of symbolism
First, symbolism pursues a rich spiritual world higher than the real world and its inherent vitality.
Symbolist poets think that the real world is contemptible and unreal, and they try to transcend reality and enter the transcendental spiritual world and "the entity of inner life". They think that what really exists is the passion given by "some aspects of nature and life and some works of human beings", from which people can learn "precious feelings, infinitely rich thoughts, wonderful combinations of thoughts, emotions and rigorous fantasies, as well as the pleasure and vitality associated with mystery" and cultivate them.
Second, symbolism pursues a kind of free artistic innovation of "creating readers".
Symbolic poetry should choose readers with elegant taste as interlocutors, and at the same time, through formal exploration and experiments, break the old aesthetic customs and inertia of readers and cultivate and "create" creative new readers.
Third, although there are many differences in writing styles, skills, opinions, feelings, writing styles and aesthetic ideals, symbolist poets have a high degree of spiritual consistency and strong cohesion, that is, they oppose writing only about the universality of human beings, and attach great importance to individuality, individual inner activities and reactions, and human uniqueness, trying to reconstruct individual spiritual history.
The definition of symbolism: musicalization
First of all, musicalization refers to a harmonious overall feeling effect produced by the relationship between words in poetry when readers appreciate poetry, that is, the harmonious relationship between words and people's overall feelings and emotions.
He said: "Poetry is the art of language, and the combination of some words can produce feelings that other words can't." This is "poetic sentiment", and the so-called "poetic sentiment" is "a feeling of excitement and ecstasy. It is caused by the coincidence of some emotions, physical and psychological, and some exciting environment (material or ideal) to some extent. It is to use "language means" to "arouse similar feelings and artificially promote such feelings", that is, to achieve a tacit understanding and harmony between "language structure" and "poetry". The poet is to "create a fictional ideal order with the most common materials" through personal efforts. The language of this poem can be "creative"
Poetry should emphasize the beauty of music, not only rhythm and melody, but also be as harmonious, rigorous and complete as music, and think in the language of music.
Example: Eliot's "The Waste Land" uses symphonies to organize the whole poem, giving people a harmonious sense of wholeness;
Chapter one: the motif of the funeral of the deceased: (waterless-death) (theme)
Chapter two: the anti-motif of "game": (desire-although death still exists)
Chapter three: the variation motif of the fire commandment: (fire-calling for help) (fire symbol: sun, light and purification)
Chapter 4: Death in Water repeats the theme: (Too much water-death) (dual)
Chapter five: Lei's life repeats the motif: (Clear water from heaven-the possibility of redemption) (combined topic)
Secondly, musicalization also means that there is some internal connection between the poetic world and the dream world.
The world of poetry is similar to the world of dreams, and the image of external things is in complete harmony with the feelings and mood of the subject.
(2) All the familiar creatures seem to be accompanied by music; They coordinate with each other and form a sound relationship, which seems to completely adapt to our feelings. From this perspective, the poetic world looks like a dream or at least sometimes a dream.
In addition, musicalization also includes the musicalization of poetic language.
In a word, Valerie's mission to symbolism is to "let us feel the close combination of words and hearts"; The core of his symbolism poetics is that "the world of poetry" is essentially a harmonious musical relationship among language (word), meaning (image) and feeling (emotion).
Emphasize abstract thinking and rationality
First of all, Valerie emphasized that poets should have abstract thinking ability.
In his view, "every real poet's ability of correct reasoning and abstract thinking is much stronger than most people think."
Secondly, Valerie pointed out the important role of abstract thinking in poetry creation: first, abstract thinking, as a poet's "philosophy", plays a role in creative activities and is the source of symbolic meaning and philosophical connotation of poetry; The second is the conception process of poetry. "It is not only the existence of what I call' the world of poetry', but also many thoughts, decisions, choices and combinations."
Thirdly, Valerie emphasizes that poetry should pursue infinite and universal value beyond the individual, pointing out that "what is valuable only to one person is worthless." This is the iron law of literature. "
Ye Zhi's Symbolic Theory of the Unity of Reason and Perception
William Butler Yeats (1865- 1939), an Irishman, is famous for his poems such as Essien Wandering, Wind of Lucong, Bell Tower, Spiral Ladder and Sailing to Byzantium, as well as Hu Li's poetic dramas Sweet Wish, Fantasy Spring and Fantasy Spring.
The Connotation of Symbolism and Its Aesthetic Style
It is pointed out that the difference between "metaphorical symbol" and symbolic "fantasy symbol" in poetry is that "the latter is woven into a complete system", that is, symbolic fantasy symbol contains metaphorical factors, but is organized into a complete image system in poetry, that is, compared with metaphor, symbol is not individual, but whole and systematic, and symbol is a metaphorical system.
The difference between metaphor and symbol;
It is believed that "metaphor is not profound enough to impress people when it is not a symbol, but it is the most perfect when it becomes a symbol." That is to say, (1) symbol is metaphorical, or metaphor is the basis of symbol; (2) Symbol is higher than metaphor, which is the promotion of metaphor, and it is more profound, perfect and moving than metaphor.
Regarding the connotation of symbolism, he said: "All voices, all colors, all forms, or because of their internal strength, or because of their profound associations, will arouse some feelings that are difficult to explain in words, but they are very accurate." The relationship between all forms and accurate feeling is the corresponding symbolic relationship. In addition, "an emotion is looking for its manifestation-color, sound, shape or some form." It does not exist, or it is imperceptible and lifeless. " In other words, there is a corresponding symbolic relationship between form and emotion. On the one hand, form can evoke corresponding feelings through symbols; On the other hand, feelings also need to find corresponding forms to express and inject life. Therefore, Ye Zhi believes that "poetry touches us because it is symbolic."
Ye Zhi also put forward specific requirements for the aesthetic style of symbolism poetry:
(1) The practice of "giving up describing nature for the sake of nature and describing moral laws for the sake of moral laws" is not satisfied with expressing the external world, but making poetry "reveal its inner picture"; (2) get rid of the interference of external will, strive for "the recovery of imagination, and realize that only the artistic law (which is the internal law of the world) can control imagination"; (3) With this kind of imagination, we can "find out those wobbly, thought-provoking and energetic rhythms" and discover the beauty of "various forms" and "full of mysterious vitality"; (4) "the form of sincere poetry" and "the perfection that cannot be analyzed and the exquisiteness of endless new ideas". These four requirements are actually to fully express the subtle inner world with the richest imagination, the most perfect form and rhythm under the premise of excluding the interference from the outside world and daily will.
Symbol of emotion and symbol of reason
He believes that the so-called "emotional symbol" is "a symbol that only evokes feelings", while the "rational symbol" is "a symbol that only evokes ideas or is mixed with feelings". In Ye Zhi's view, only by combining the two can we give full play to the infinite charm of symbols. Ye Zhi's requirement for symbols is that rational symbols contain emotional symbols.
Creating symbols in the combination of reason and charm
On the one hand, Ye Zhi realized that the creation of symbols often has an irrational and mysterious side. Ye Zhi believes that the acquisition and creation of artistic symbol experience needs a mental state of waking up from sleep and ecstasy. "When creating and understanding a work of art, especially if it is full of forms, symbols and music, it will lead us to the edge of sleep." This is naturally an almost unconscious irrational state, and the real symbol must be in this seemingly.
On the other hand, Ye Zhi emphasized the role of reason in cultivating inspiration and symbols. He believes that all outstanding artists usually have some kind of philosophical or critical talent. He said, "It is often this philosophy or this criticism that inspires them the most amazing inspiration, and endows some parts of sacred life or some parts of past reality with real life. These parts can emotionally cancel what their philosophy or criticism rationally cancels. " So "inspiration appears in an amazing and beautiful form". He profoundly revealed the internal consistency between them and the role of reason in stimulating, catalyzing and cultivating inspiration.
From the viewpoint of attaching importance to rationality, Ye Zhi also criticized some irrational aesthetics.
On "Pure Poetry" of Symbolism
The core of symbolism "pure poetry" theory has two points: first, poetry cannot be contaminated with prose factors, and pure poetry is a kind of poetry obtained by gradually eliminating prose factors in poetry by exhaustive means. Second, poetry should be full of musical beauty. This idea advocated by Baudelaire is the consistent creed of symbolist poets. Wei Erlun demanded that "music is above everything else" and created "romantic music without words". Gippius proposed it. " He wrote a poem, which is as beautiful as a cloud and implies magic as witchcraft. Valerie asked poetry to form a pure musical world with novel sounds, rhythms and rhythms. In short, it is two sentences: pure poetry rejects prose culture and wants musicalization.
As an important theoretical category of symbolism poetics, the western theory of "pure poetry" experienced a gradual historical process from Poe, Baudelaire to Malamei, and was finally put forward by Valerie. In 2008+0920, Valerie put forward the concept of "pure poetry" for the first time in the preface written for Fabres's poetry collection "Goddess of Companion". By 65 million. 36000 . 6866666667
"What I call' purity' is the same as what physicists call pure water. I want to say that the problem we have to solve is whether we can create a work that completely excludes non-poetic elements. I used to think that this goal could not be achieved, and I still think that any poem is just trying to get close to this pure ideal.
"The word" pure poetry "is not appropriate, because in people's minds, it is related to the concept of moral purity, and we don't involve this issue here. On the contrary, I think the idea of pure poetry is completely analytical. In a word, pure poetry is an idea gained from observation, which will certainly help us understand the general principles of poetry works and guide us to carry out very arduous and important research. Study the various and multifaceted relationships between language and its influence on people. It may be more correct to use absolute poetry instead of purified poetry. Absolute poetry should be understood here as: exploring the relationship between words, or the effect formed by the relationship between words. In fact, it first requires the study of the whole sensory field dominated by language. "
Here, Valerie focuses her thoughts on "pure poetry" on language, and makes it clear that "pure poetry" is only a "pure ideal realm" that is attempted to approach but difficult to achieve. Later, Valerie improved and supplemented her theory of "pure poetry" by emphasizing the significance of poetry.
Pound and Hume's Poetics of Images
Pound's Imagism Poetry Theory
Ezra pound (1885- 1972), an American, published a collection of poems, Dying Light and Poetry. His major theoretical criticism works include The Serious Artist, Romantic Spirit, How to Read, Reading ABC and Pound's Literary Essays.
"Imagism" was formally put forward in the early 20th century. Pound published the poems of Dorian and Aldington in the name of "Imagism" in the fourth issue of Poetry Magazine 19 13, and made comments in the sixth issue, putting forward three principles of poetry creation that he and they have always pursued: "65438+" should be dealt with directly. 2. Never use any words that have no influence on expression. 3. About rhythm: Write poems according to the order of musical words, not according to the beat of metronome. This "three principles" was later called "Imagism Declaration".
Pound s definition of "image";
(Pound's imagery poetics transcends the western tradition and accepts many oriental aesthetic principles. He compiled Li Bai's poem "Shenzhou Collection". This poem is an image on the surface, but it actually contains profound meaning. )
(1) Image is the core category of Imagism.
(2) Pound thinks: "An image is a combination of rationality and emotion that appears instantly." (press: also explain "complex").
(3) This definition contains two levels of image structure. The inner layer is "meaning", which is the combination of the poet's subjective reason and emotion, and the outer layer is "image", which is an image "presentation", and both are indispensable.
Pound accepted some viewpoints of expressionism and thought that poetry was the expression of thoughts and feelings, especially feelings. "Poetry is the expression of great emotional value" and "emotion is the organizer of form", and the rhythm and rhythm of poetry are organized by emotion. It can be seen that he emphasized the "complexity" or "combination" of the subject's thought or the combination of reason and emotion, which can also be said to be image.
Example: Pound wrote in his poem "Subway Platform":
"The faces in the crowd/the petals on the wet and dark branches"
The outer layer uses metaphor to write the images of faces in the crowd, and the inner layer shows the perishable feeling of urban life.
Pound also made a psychological analysis of the creation and acceptance of images, incisively pointing out that it is the sudden appearance of images that "this' complex' gives people the feeling of sudden liberation; The sense of freedom that is not limited by time and space, a feeling that we suddenly get when facing the greatest works of art. So he thinks that "it is better to describe the image of a person's life than to write endless works."
In connection with this, Pound also attached great importance to the symbolic meaning of poetry, which may be influenced by Ye Zhi.
Accordingly, he also has strict requirements on the form and skills of poetry. Specifically, he should be as concise as possible in the use of language, "don't use words and adjectives that can't explain anything in Mandarin"; In prosodic arrangement, "prosodic structure should not damage the formation of language or its natural sound or meaning", which makes poetry more musical.
From the above-mentioned imagist standpoint, Pound's outlook for future poetry is: "It will definitely oppose nonsense and become more solid and sober. Its strength lies in its truth and explanatory power (which has always been the charm of poetry). It is simple and straightforward, and there is no emotional vacillation. "
Hume's Poetics of Images
Thomas Ernest Hume (1883- 19 17), whose main thesis is included in Meditation and Meditation.
First of all, he pursues poetic images and advocates expressing the poet's subtle and complicated thoughts and feelings through images (mainly visual images). He believes that the living image is the soul of poetry, and the difference between poetry and prose lies in the image. He believes that "images are born in poetry and gradually die in prose". He put forward the standard that the sincerity of a poet can be measured by the number of his images. He mainly regards images as accurate visual images and provides them with this.
Secondly, Hume also emphasized the accuracy of image description. He said that the most important purpose of poetry is correct, accurate and clear description. He suggested that in order to fight against everyday language and overcome its limitations, we must use fresh metaphors and fantasies.
In addition, it also echoes the symbolism view that emphasizes analogy, suggestion and induction, and requires the poet to "find something to supplement each analogy and produce a sense of miracle and connection with another mysterious world."