Symbolism

What is symbolism? A method of making a character or an action, a situation or a setting, stand for more than itself.

· What was the origin of symbolism, and how did it evolve?

§ romanticism

§ Wagnerian music-drama

§ Edgar Allen Poe

§ Charles Beaudelare

§ A European movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in reaction to realism and naturalism.

What fundamental theatrical problem did romanticism pose, and how did symbolism address that problem?

· Symbolist theater attempted to dramatize more poetic or metaphorical situations, often using unusual stage setting and ethereal dramatic action and language.

Who was Stephane Mallarme? A French poet, symbolism rooted in his work. The most important symbolist poet/thinker who sought to make drama reflect the mental or spiritual life rather than the crude world of the senses

§ under Mallarmé's theory, the symbolists saw art not only as expression, but primarily as a mode of expression

What was his importance in the development of the basic concepts of symbolism in the theatre?

§ the rejection of any representation of realistic place and time

§ the focus on inner, subjective, emotional experience

§ the abandonment of rational "meaning"

§ the use of indirection

§ the exploration of music, poetry, and dance in the symbolist theatre

§ the use of formal elements

· To what extent did symbolism in the theatre represent

§ new forms of staging

§ new dramatic forms

§ new social movements

· Who was Paul Fort?

An 18-year-old poet who founded the Art Theatre in 1890

o he committed the theatre to a symbolist repertoire in 1891

o his most notable productions were Maeterlick's The Intruder and The Blind.

Paris Sunset from the Louvre window

Metro de París

Alabama Theatre / Alabama Theater / Birmingham

o these plays represent the interior life of the characters through atmospheric effect

Playwright Maurice Maeterlinck asked "Is a static...