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Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realism. In literature, the style originates with the 1857 publication of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal.
Literary movements are a way to divide literature into categories of similar philosophical, topical, or aesthetic features, as opposed to divisions by genre or period. Like other categorizations, literary movements provide language for comparing and discussing literary works. These terms are helpful for curricula or anthologies. [1]
In literature, such as novels, plays, and poems, symbolism goes beyond just the literal written words on a page, since writing itself is also inherently a system of symbols. Artistic symbols may be intentionally built into a work by its creator, which in the case of narratives can make symbolism a deliberate narrative device .
Name Definition Example Setting as a form of symbolism or allegory: The setting is both the time and geographic location within a narrative or within a work of fiction; sometimes, storytellers use the setting as a way to represent deeper ideas, reflect characters' emotions, or encourage the audience to make certain connections that add complexity to how the story may be interpreted.
A symbol may be an object, a person, a situation, an action, a word, or an idea that has literal meaning in the story as well as an alternative identity that represents something else. [4] It is used as an expressive way to depict an idea. The symbol generally conveys an emotional response far beyond what the word, idea, or image itself dictates.
Cover of the first edition of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal (1729). Cannibalism comes up frequently in European literature during the High Middle Ages.The symbolism of cannibalism and representation of cannibals is used "as a literary response to the politics of external conquest, internal colonization, and territorial consolidation".
Literary alchemy appears throughout the history of English literature from Shakespeare to modern Fantasy authors. Here, characters or plot structure follow an alchemical magnum opus. In the fourteenth century, Chaucer began a trend of alchemical satire that can still be seen in recent fantasy works like those of Terry Pratchett.
Symbolism means to imbue objects with a certain meaning that is different from their original meaning or function. It is a representative of other aspects, concepts or traits than those visible in literal translation. Other literary devices, such as metaphor, allegory, and allusion, aid in the development of symbolism.