Editing Symbolism (movement) (section)

===Prose fiction===
Symbolism's style of the [[wikt:static|static]] and [[wikt:hieratic|hieratic]] adapted less well to narrative fiction than it did to poetry. [[Joris-Karl Huysmans]]' 1884 novel ''[[À rebours]]'' (English title: ''Against Nature'' or ''Against the Grain'') explored many themes that became associated with the symbolist aesthetic.  This novel, in which very little happens, catalogues the psychology of Des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive [[antihero]]. [[Oscar Wilde]] was influenced by the novel as he wrote ''[[Salome (play)|Salome]]'', and Huysmans' book appears in ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'': the titular character becomes corrupted after reading the book.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Decadent novel ''A rebours, or, Against Nature'' |url=https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/decadent-novel-a-rebours-or-against-nature |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807203804/https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/decadent-novel-a-rebours-or-against-nature |archive-date=Aug 7, 2020 |website=The British Library}}</ref>

[[Paul Adam (French novelist)|Paul Adam]] was the most prolific and representative author of symbolist novels.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}} ''Les Demoiselles Goubert'' (1886), co-written with [[Jean Moréas]], is an important transitional work between [[naturalism (literature)|naturalism]] and symbolism. Few symbolists used this form.  One exception was [[Gustave Kahn]], who published ''Le Roi fou'' in 1896.  In 1892, [[Georges Rodenbach]] wrote the short novel ''[[Bruges-la-Morte]]'', set in the Flemish town of [[Bruges]], which Rodenbach described as a dying, medieval city of mourning and quiet contemplation: in a typically symbolist juxtaposition, the dead city contrasts with the diabolical re-awakening of sexual desire.<ref>[[Alan Hollinghurst]], "[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jan/29/featuresreviews.guardianreview30 Bruges of sighs]" (''[[The Guardian]]'', 29 January 2005, accessed 26 April 2009.</ref> The cynical, misanthropic, misogynistic fiction of [[Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly]] is sometimes considered symbolist, as well. [[Gabriele d'Annunzio]] wrote his first novels in the symbolist manner.