Symbolism as a conscious art-form, conceived as a reaction against realism, came into the theatre with Maeterlinck, writing under the influence of Mallarme and Verlaine. The symbolism in drama signified a departure from the traditional conventions gov...
Symbolism as a conscious art-form, conceived as a reaction against realism, came into the theatre with Maeterlinck, writing under the influence of Mallarme and Verlaine. The symbolism in drama signified a departure from the traditional conventions governing both theme and technique in theatre. The symbolists wished to liberate the technique of versification in every way that would make for fluidity, holding that the function of poety was to evoke, that its matter should be impressionistic and intuitive, and poetic images should be symbols of the state of the dramatist soul.
The conventional theatre purported to present an illusion or copy of experience, a mirror of the world of common day. The symbolists set forth a freer, more imaginative conception of the drama, in keeping with a new awareness of the role of dream, reverie, and mystical conception, not simply as a reaction to a stale and outworn realism, but as a positive assertion of a new mode of art.
Symbolist drama sought to replace the description of external events by the depiction of revelation of inner life. Suggestiveness and associations displaced anecdotal statement and linear narrative. Symbolist drama was generally indirect, evocative rather than referential, with little or no plot action. It often took the forms of lyric drama, in its attempt to fuse poetry and theatrical expression, and static drama, in its reduction of narrative. In keeping with the values of symbolist poetry, it sought to present the mystry of being, the presence of the infinite in the finite, not directly and literally, but through analogies and correspondences.