The Symbolist Movement in Literature

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About this book

The Symbolist Movement in Literature by Arthur Symons has a contents list that names, among others, Gustave Flaubert, Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine. The introduction quotes a line saying that it is in and through Symbols that man, consciously or unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being. The text says there is one little phrase to be noted about Balzac, La passion est toute l’humanité, and that all Balzac is in that phrase.

The text says that with Mallarmé the work has only begun, and that in the final result there must be no sign of the making, only the thing made. A poem headed ANGUISH has the speaker say, To-night I do not come to conquer thee, O Beast that dost the sins of the whole world bear.

About the author

Arthur Symons

Arthur Symons, born in Wales, was a poet, critic, editor, and an important interpreter of European symbolism for English readers. The Art of Aubrey Beardsley combines Symons's personal recollection of the illustrator with a critical account of Beardsley's rapidly changing visual style.