Symbolism and Poetry

SYMBOLISM AND POETRY Lours CAZAMIAN T HE subject, 'which is·wide, and no doubt ambitious, will be here adumbrated both in its general bearing, and in its special application to English Iiterature. I t is involved in so many-difficulties, mostly verbal, that a few preliminary remarks, however trite, may not be amiss. A symbol is an indirect representation of a thing; not an image of the thing itself, but some' other ima'ge, whose power is such that when we"see it, we do-or may -think of the object. The r'elation thus implied is not one of similitude or even of direct resemblance, but of analogy. The perception of analogy is an intuitive process of the mind; and the recognition of a symbol is an intuitive inference. W~ lise the symbolical method for one or other of three reasons, or for all three. First, the mind, always finds a pleasure in the exercise of its own subtlety, within limits. Next, the object to be represented may have no distinct features, be too vague for direct presentment . It may be, for instance, an elusive idea of the mind. In such a case, we have recourse generally to an explanation; we convey through many words an abstract sense of the thing. But a presentment, even indirect, is always more vivid, if it can work; it possess'es the virtue' of concreteness; it is an all-sufficient, an almost immediate revelation; and that is why we sometimes ' prefer the symbolical method, at the price it demands, of finding a proper equivalent for the object. The third reason is by no means the least important. The analogy between the symbol and the object inc1udes a margin of difference. So in the very act of recalling 520 SYMBOLISM AND POETRY the object, the symbol stresses some of its features at the expense of the others. One aspect of the thing is emphasized-the one the author has in mind. The symbol thus not only suggests the thing meant, but at the same time it reveals the intellectual or emotional bias of the author, as a portrai t hardly does, or does against its very aim of being a portrait. By the symbolist method the door is opened wide for the expression of the subjective element in art; that is to say, of lyricism and poetry. Allegories are an inferior species of symbols, symbols that we recognize by a rather intellectual inference. The analogy at work in them partakes more of resemblance ; the meaning is something definite. Inferior varieties of the allegory would be simply children's riddles. Needless to say, "inferiority" here is taken in a purely aesthetic sense. In symbols of the more intere,stin'g class, there is a wider margin of uncertainty; the inference is partly emotional, or more imaginative than intellectual; the whole process is more intuitive; there persists to ihe end some indefiniteness of meaning.. A poetical sYD1boi is a growing, an expansive power; the limit of its significance is not reached at once, is indeed never reached. We have here to do with a pure suggestion, something dynamic; while the allegory is static, and exhausted in the discovery of the thing Ineant. Symbolism in literature 1s exclusively concerned with symbols of the latter, the more interesting class. The use of symbols is, of course, as old as the natural exercise of thought. I t began with language; words were originally the symbols of things. A symbolical tendency has been active in the development of religion, philosophy, and art) which are concerned with ideal values. Symbols 521 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY ,were needed to represent the things of the spirit, 'which are not directly perceived. Mysticism so often had recourse to them that an association was established between the use of symbols and a mystical trend of thought. In literature-the art whose instrument is words-symbols have been rife from the oldest times. But until the modern period, they belonged almost exclusively to the inferior or allegorical kind. A more subtle handling of symbols is to be found, no doubt, in some chapters of ancient or medieval literature; -but as a method, that more complex...