SOURCE: Scott, Clive. “The Poetry of Symbolism and Decadence.” In Symbolism, Decadence, and the Fin de Siècle: French And European Perspectives, edited by Patrick McGuinness, pp. 57-71. Exeter, England: University of Exeter Press, 2000.

In the following essay, Scott contrasts approaches to theme, versification, and aesthetics in Symbolist and Decadent poetry.

The purpose of this [essay] is to trace, with a broad brush, the pursuit by Symbolist and Decadent poets—or Symbolist and Decadent aspects of the same poet—of a verse-art adequate to their metaphysical and existential perceptions, and to ask what these developments in verse-art can tell us about the difference between the two terms. The sense of a change in oral and aural needs was widely shared:

En quelques années, l'oreille française s'est transformée. Elle qui n'était accessible qu'aux rythmes solides, réguliers, frappés à intervalles égaux à l'infinie variété des...