She argues that this play is "avant-garde
Symbolist in theme" because of "the emphasis on `style' in the work of art, the idea of correspondence between form (appearance) and content (reality), [and] Aestheticism as the critical force to break through the inert status-quo" (92).
Because the ambivalence she detects in Rilke's modernism is understood in terms of a tension between 'a concept of poetry as essence that extends the
Symbolist notion of "pure poetry"' and 'a revival of the classical German poets' elegaic invocation of more coherent traditions' (p.
Florensky's major themes include Sophia and friendship and with these he incorporates Russian Orthodox traditions important to the
Symbolist thinkers.
Bartlett does introduce critical concepts from Russian folk tradition, for example, the khorovod (ancient "mystical choral dance") and the obshchina (the commune), and explain how these cultural rites and features, especially as interpreted by Russian
symbolists, equate to planks in Wagner's aesthetic platform.
Cohen's examples are taken from romantic or
symbolist poetry, especially Baudelaire and Mallarme.
The life of Arthur Symons, author of one of the most significant volumes of modern criticism, The
Symbolist Movement in Literature, has been rather completely covered by biographers.
It does not do to group together indiscriminately the
symbolist and Acmeists, who had very different, even contradictory, programmes for the reform of Russian poetry.
Caption: A total of 167 prominent
Symbolist works of art from several leading Baltic art galleries are currently on display at the internationally renowned Musee d'Orsay in Paris.
A key problem facing scholars of Symbolism is who should be included as
Symbolist. La Litterature symboliste et la langue takes an expansive view toward Symbolism to include precursors such as Baudelaire and those impacted by the esthetic, such as Proust.
Van Gogh to Kandinsky:
Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880-1910
He argues that their theoretical use of music was a way these
symbolist poets questioned "dualistic oppositions" and separated the style from Idealism.
Just as no one today longs for the art of the 1990s, so the
Symbolist art of the 1890s never fared well in the public opinion polls of the twentieth century.
It would be easy to qualify Wallace's position, which evokes
Symbolist interiority alongside Constructivism, as fatally compromised; and in superficial ways the exhibition does feel conservative, characterizing contemplation as, in part, a form of withdrawal.
While scholars have offered some fresh insight on Russian Silver Age opera in recent years, it still remains a relatively neglected topic, making Simon Morrison's Russian Opera and the
Symbolist Movement a welcome publication in this area.
