Poetry Guide: Symbolist Poetry

Symbolism, as a type and movement in poetry, emphasized non-structured "internalized" poetry that, for lack of better words, describe thoughts and feelings in disconnected ways and places logic, formal structure, and descriptive reality in the back seat. Influences on the Symbolist poets included the dark, introspective romanticism of William Blake and Edgar Allan Poe, as well as the Parnassianism of Théophile Gautier and Charles Leconte de Lisle. Charles Baudelaire is often perceived as the foremost precursor of Symbolist poetry. Symbolist poetry influenced the 20th century "modernist" poets such as Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, as well as the movements of French Surrealism and Imagism.

See also

• Symbolism