Check out Impression Sunrise on Google.
Monet's work relies mainly on light, his inspiration. The Impressionists, who were like the Symbolists and went against Realism, received harsh criticism for their work. The Impressionist Sunrise look upon a harbor, perhaps just outside Monet's window. Its subject is the light that comes from the bright orange sun that is in the upper right. Monet is a genius in his work because he paints exactly as he sees. This looks like a foggy morning, and therefore is gray and blue; it does not have a lot of symbolism in it, but is pure nature. The Symbolists thought that there did not necessarily have to be meaning, just feeling. One has a strong connection to this painting, because of a memory or a longing for something in it. It is simple but so complex. The way he arranges everything in the painting makes one feel at peace; there is no rush, just an elegant connection to nature . There are not a lot of different colors used. The main ones are gray, blue, orange, and green. He is not trying to show off his artistic ability. It is only how he feels and sees.

Research

Symbolism began in France; Jean Morleas was the person who first used the phrase for the poetic movement. It began in the later part of the eighteen hundreds. It was in response to realism and to idealism that the movement first came into being.

Symbolism stresses the importance of the individual and the individuals’ life as the most vital part of poetry. It does not embrace conventionality, and reject religion overall. The poets of the Symbolist Movement believed that what the larger group thought could not compare in significance to what the individual thought. They were the polar opposite of the Naturalists, who believed that one should find humanity through the physical world. The Symbolists believed that one should find humanity through the emotions and sentiments that they expressed in their writing, not in any physical forms. The movement came largely from the Decadents, who wanted to stretch the limits that language had, and who received a lot of criticisms from other artists. The motto for the movement was and still is “individualism in literature, liberty in art.”

The movement evolved into a movement for the obscure; the poets became infatuated with erotic topics. They believed that there was a connection between the physical and spiritual. They later developed musical capabilities in their poetry, such as constant refrains. They wanted mood to have more effect than meaning. Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Mallarme were the starters of the movement, and it ended in two decades.

The poems that I have read so far have been very erotic. They do not really connect to any other poems that I have read before. I liked only the ones that are comical, and not so intense. I think that this part of poetry is largely ignored for having such a large effect on writing as a whole. The symbolists were really the first to ask the question “Why does all poetry have to be the same?” in such a radical way. Poets like the Proto-Modernists (Dickinson, Hopkins) definitely went against the grain, but did not explore so much beyond.

Initial Response

The initial response to these poems was one of complete shock. These poems were written in the 1880's mainly, but were very explicit in what they described. One of my favorites was also one that was very risqué, "I get all muddled." It was written by Yvette Guilbert, and talks about all of the speaker’s lovers. It is obvious that she is talking about sex from the very first refrain: “When I want to talk of all my lovers, I don’t know why, I get all muddled.” I was shocked that she "lost her cherry while gathering grapes." The speaker also talks about how she does not know her son's father, because she slept with so many people It is not hiding its meaning (or lack thereof) in any way. I love that she is "thumbing her nose" at all of the "prude" poets of the time.

I always thought of the French as very comfortable with whom they were sexually, but I had no idea that they were so promiscuous in poetry. I admire and respect writers like Bronte, but I am glad that they were not all like her in the 1800's. There is a great lack of honesty in books that romanticize life too much, or those that try to hide the fact that people are sexual beings. This style of poems is the rebel of the time. They did not in any way try to conceal their sexuality: other poems try to hide it.

Another of the poems I read, “To the Officers of the White Guard,” by Francis Vilmorin, is very empowering and humorous. She, the speaker, is asking the officers of the White Guard to keep her from feeling the pain of falling in love with someone. They are very appealing, but she cannot be with them because she is married, or because she fears being overcome by another. I thought that this poem was sweet. All the other poems we read were not as connected to the human experience or reality as this one. They seemed like they were not supposed to be relatable. If I could choose any of the categories of this year’s poets to read, it would be the Symbolists.

Explication of a great Symbolist poem

To the Officers of the White Guard

By Francis Poulenc

Officers of the White Guard,
Protect me from certain thoughts by night,
Protect me from bodily combat and the resting
Of a hand on my hips.
Protect me especially from him
Who draws me away by the sleeves
Towards the challenge of full hands,
And the shifting places of shining water.
Spare me the stormy torments
Of loving him one day more deeply than today,
And the clamminess of expectation
That will imprint on window panes and doors
My profile of a lady long dead.
Officers of the White Guard,
I don't want to weep for him
On earth, I want to weep as the rain
On his earth, on his star adorned with boxwood
When later I will float, transparent,
Above the hundred stages of boredom.
Officers of pure conscience,
You who make faces beautiful,
Trust in space, by the flight of birds,
A message for those who seek out standards,
And forge for us seamless chains.

“To the Officers of the White Guard” begins with a direct command from the speaker, or rather, a plea, for the officers of the white guard to protect her from falling in love. The White Guard consisted of the White Army Officers during the Finnish Civil War. Even though Francis Poulenc was a French author, she could be speaking as one of the Finnish women.

The second line, “Protect me from certain thoughts by night,” may be referring to the speaker’s longing for companionship and the comfort of a lover. She switches to the thought of bodily combat, suggesting that a war is occurring. It shows that even while there is war, there is still love. She is in pain, because she does not even want someone to “Rest a hand on her hips.” She wants to avoid all the tumult that love brings.

The “him” she is referring to may be a lover that she does have, or a future one. She wants to stay away from him, because it would make her weak. The challenge that awaits in full hands may refer to the challenges that come with love. She does not want to have to possibly love this man more each day than she already does. The speaker cannot bear to sweat against the door waiting for him to come home. When she says “his earth” she may be saying the lover’s, probably not God’s (Otherwise this would be capitalized). This suggests that if she falls in love with him, then everything will be his. She does not want to lose herself because she is madly in love with another human being. The man she is talking about is most likely an officer, because she tells the White Guard to “trust in space” and to forge seamless chains. The chains may be those that confine women. Love is often referred to as a “chain” so the chain may be what binds her. She does not want love.

My soul is a child

Albert Samain

My soul is a child in a parade robe

Who reflects on itself, eternal and majestic,

To the big mirror deserted from an old Escurial,

Like a forgotten gallery in the roads.

By foot of the armchair, laying with dignity,

Two greyhounds of Ecosse with melancholy eyes

Hunt, when he pleases, the symbolic fools/beasts

In the forest of Enchanted dreams.

His favorite page, who is called Naguere,

Reads him glamorous poems half way,

However not moving, a tulip to fingers,

She waits to die in mystery.

The park around her extends her foliage,

Her marble, her basins, her banisters and ballisters,

And, grave, she intoxicates to the illustrated dreams

That possess for us the noble horizons.

She is the resigned, and sweet, and without surprise,

Knows too much for struggling for all that is fatal,

And feels, despite natural born smirks,

Responsive to the pity like the sea breeze.

She is the resigned, and sweet in her sobbing,

More somber only when she evokes in song

What somber armada to the eternal message,

And so much to the beautiful hopes asleep in the streams.

Of the nights too much heavy crimson where her pride sighs,

the portraits of Van Dyck in beautiful fingers long and pure,

Pale in black velvet on the gold aged from the seas,

In their grand large airs defunct the well dreams of the influence.

The old gold mirages are unruly in her mourning,

And in the visions where her boredom slips,

Suddenly— celebrity or sun—a ray that hits

Illuminates in her all the rubies of pride.

But in her sad smiles she calms some fevers;

And, fearing the mob with tumults of fear,

She listens to the life—from afar—like the ocean…

And the secret she makes sounds on her lips.

Never moved from a shudder the pale water of her eyes

Where sits the cloth Espirit from the dead cities;

And for the rooms, where without the sounds turning the doors,

She goes, enchanted with the mystery of words.

The vain water of fountains of water falls low in waterfalls (cascades),

And, pale at the crisscross, a tulip of fingers,

She is there, reflected in the mirrors of the former time,

Like a galley that forgets the harbor.

My soul is a child in a parade dress.

This is a poem I translated. Some of it may be "lost in translation" along with my small explication.
It was romantic that the speaker likened a lover to his soul.I did not really like how the poem changed subjects to the point where I was confused over who he was talking about (He may have done this to perplex the reader purposely). I am convinced that he relied too much upon imagery (even though that is the point of the poem) to get a point across that does not exist. He is in love with a woman (perhaps himself), and that is all that is apparent. Still, this was one of the more perceptible ones that was true to the movement.

Initial

The poems I read were:
Soft Caramel by Mallarme
Wish by de Regnier
The Bachelor of Salamanca by Chalupt
Response From a Prudent Wife by Roch
The Boy from Liège* by Louise Vilmorin
Beyond by Louise Vilmorin
Toreador by Dellage
Fan by Mallarme
I Get All Muddled by Yvette Guilbert
I'm Looking for a Millionaire by N.H Brown