Editing Symbolism (movement) (section)

===The Symbolist Manifesto===
[[File:Henri Fantin-Latour - By the Table - Google Art Project.jpg|thumbnail|[[Henri Fantin-Latour]], ''By the Table'', 1872, depicting: [[Paul Verlaine]], [[Arthur Rimbaud]], Léon Valade, Ernest d'Hervilly and [[Camille Pelletan]] (seated); Pierre Elzéar, Emile Blémont, and [[Jean Aicard]] (standing)]]

[[Jean Moréas]] published the [[Symbolist Manifesto]] ("Le Symbolisme") in ''[[Le Figaro]]'' on 18 September 1886 (see [[1886 in poetry]]).<ref name="Figaro 1886">[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2723555/f2.item.r=%22Un%20Manifeste%20litt%C3%A9raire%22 Jean Moréas, ''Un Manifeste littéraire'', ''Le Symbolisme'', Le Figaro. Supplément Littéraire, No. 38, Saturday 18 September 1886, p. 150], Bibliothèque nationale de France, Gallica</ref> The '''Symbolist Manifesto''' names [[Charles Baudelaire]], [[Stéphane Mallarmé]], and [[Paul Verlaine]] as the three leading poets of the movement. Moréas announced that symbolism was hostile to "plain meanings, declamations, false sentimentality and matter-of-fact description", and that its goal instead was to "clothe the Ideal in a perceptible form" whose "goal was not in itself, but whose sole purpose was to express the Ideal."
:''Ainsi, dans cet art, les tableaux de la nature, les actions des humains, tous les phénomènes concrets ne sauraient se manifester eux-mêmes; ce sont là des apparences sensibles destinées à représenter leurs affinités ésotériques avec des Idées primordiales.''

:(Thus, in this art movement, representations of nature, human activities and all real life events don't stand on their own; they are rather veiled reflections of the senses pointing to archetypal meanings through their esoteric connections.)<ref name="Figaro 1886" /><ref>[[Jean Moréas]], [http://www.ieeff.org/manifestesymbolisme.htm Le Manifeste du Symbolisme], ''[[Le Figaro]]'', 1886.</ref>

In a nutshell, as Mallarmé writes in a letter to his friend [[Henri Cazalis]], 'to depict not the thing but the effect it produces'.<ref>Conway Morris, Roderick "The Elusive Symbolist movement" – ''International Herald Tribune'', 17 March 2007.</ref>

In 1891, Mallarmé defined Symbolism as follows, "To name an object is to suppress three-quarters of the delight of the poem, which consists in the pleasure of guessing little by little; to ''suggest'' is, that is the dream. It is the perfect use of this mystery that constitutes the symbol: to evoke an object, gradually in order to reveal a state of the soul or, inversely, to choose an object and from it identify a state of the soul, by a series of deciphering operations... There must always be enigma in poetry."<ref> [[Edward Hirsch]] (2017), ''The Essential Poets Glossary'', Mariner Books. Page 314.</ref>

While describing the pre-[[World War I]] friendship, which defied the pervasive [[anti-German sentiment]] and [[revanchism]] of the ''[[Belle Époque]]'', between French symbolists [[Paul Verlaine]] and [[Stéphane Mallarmé]] and young and aspiring German symbolist poet [[Stefan George]], Michael and Erika Metzger have written, "For the Symbolists, the pursuit of '[[art for art's sake]]', was a highly serious – nearly a sacred – function, since beauty, in and of itself, stood for a higher meaning beyond itself. In their ultimate higher striving, the French Symbolists are not far from the [[Platonism|Platonic]] ideals of [[Transcendentals|the Good, the True, and the Beautiful]], and this idealistic aspect was undoubtedly what appealed to George far more than the [[Aestheticism|Estheticism]], the [[Bohemianism]], and the apparent [[Nihilism]] so often superficially associated with this group."<ref>Michael and Erika Metzger (1972), ''Stefan George'', Twayne's World Authors Series. Page 21.</ref>