SOURCE: Fowlie, Wallace. “The Background of Symbolism: From Romanticism to Art for Art's Sake,” and “The Legacy of Symbolism.” In Poem & Symbol: A Brief History of French Symbolism, pp. 1-14, 109-19. University Park, Penn.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990.

In the following excerpt, Fowlie examines the relationship between Parnassian l'art pour l'art, literary Decadence, and Symbolist poetry, then summarizes the enduring influence of French Symbolist verse.

The Background of Symbolism: from Romanticism to Art for Art's Sake

Romanticism has always been looked upon as a literary revolution. It was the first in the history of French literature that cannot be separated from a comparable revolution in painting. The Salon of 1827, the painting exhibit held the same year the Préface de Cromwell was read and published by Victor Hugo, showed Delacroix's Le Christ au jardin des Oliviers and the work of a twenty-one-year-old artist, Louis Boulanger, a painting...