Page 214 - DENG402_HISTORY_OF_ENGLISH_LITERATURE

Unit 28: Didacticism, Symbolism, Impressionism and Expressionism

sexuality and taboo topics, but in their case this was mixed with Byronic romanticism and the Notes
world-weariness characteristic of the fin de siècle period.
The symbolist poets have a more complex relationship with Parnassianism, a French literary
style that immediately preceded it. While being influenced by hermeticism, allowing freer
versification, and rejecting Parnassian clarity and objectivity, it retained Parnassianism’s love of
word play and concern for the musical qualities of verse. The symbolists continued to admire
Theophile Gautier’s motto of “art for art’s sake”, and retained — and modified — Parnassianism’s
mood of ironic detachment. Many symbolist poets, including Stephane Mallarmé and Paul
Verlaine, published early works in Le Parnasse contemporain, the poetry anthologies that gave
Parnassianism its name. But Arthur Rimbaud publicly mocked prominent Parnassians, and
published scatological parodies of some of their main authors, including François Coppee —
misattributed to Coppee himself — in L’Album zutique.

Task Write a short note on symbolism.

Self Assessment
Fill in the blanks:
1. Political, religious and even personal satire became in the .................... the vogue of the day.
2. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal (The
flowers of Evil, 1857) by .................... .
3. The aesthetic was developed by Stephane Mallarme and .................... during the 1860s and
1870s.
4. .................... was a reaction in favour of spirituality, the imagination and dreams.
5. The .................... have a more complex relationship with parnassianism, a French literary
style that immediately preceded it.

28.3 Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based
artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s.
The name of the style is derived from the title of a Claude Monet work, Impression, soleil levant
(Impression, Sunrise), which provoked the critic Louis Leroy to coin the term in a satiric review
published in the Parisian newspaper Le Charivari.
Characteristics of Impressionist paintings include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes;
open composition; emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often
accentuating the effects of the passage of time); common, ordinary subject matter; the inclusion
of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience; and unusual visual
angles. The development of Impressionism in the visual arts was soon followed by analogous
styles in other media which became known as Impressionist music and Impressionist literature.

Did u know? The term “Impressionism” can be used to describe art created in this style,
but not during the late 19th century.
Radicals in their time, early Impressionists violated the rules of academic painting. They began
by constructing their pictures from freely brushed colours that took precedence over lines and
contours, following the example of painters such as Eugene Delacroix. They also painted realistic
scenes of modern life, and often painted outdoors. Previously, still lifes and portraits as well as

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 207