SYMBOLISM

The evolution of representational capacities and symbolic expression has contributed essentially to human thought, language, and culture. There are different symbolic processes, and the symbolism particularly described and interpreted in psychoanalysis differs, in many respects, from what is designated by the same term in other disciplines. While psychoanalysis is interested in language and other forms of symbolism, psychoanalytic or unconscious symbols were early recognized as universal and ubiquitous expressions of the dynamic unconscious mind. In ordinary linguistic usage, a flag may represent a country, and a cross may represent a Christian religious reference. In the case of the flag and the cross and other emblems or pictorial metaphors, the relationship between the signifier and its referent is both within conscious awareness and in accord with social and cultural convention. In contrast to psychoanalytic symbols, these symbols are consciously understood by the individuals within a society in which they are used. They are not disguised, and they serve conscious communication.

In contrast, psychoanalytic symbols are usually disguised by and from the individual who uses them and may not serve any conscious or intended internal or external communication. The meanings of psychoanalysis symbols are relatively independent of social, cultural, and historical settings and are neither taught nor learned. Psychoanalytic symbolism is not a product of education and evolves spontaneously in human development. Given the fact that these symbols are universal in individuals as well as cross-cultural, the capacity for such symbols is innate, though their development depends upon human development and experience.

Psychoanalytic symbols emerge as a result of the interaction of the instinctual drives, defenses, and other ego functions with the developmental experience of the infant and child. Although psychoanalytic symbols may take on additional meanings in later phases of development and may become linked to metaphor, they are essentially products of archaic, infantile processes. These symbols emerge in conjunction with the development of the body ego and object relations, so that there are symbols of both body parts and of the parents and siblings. Spontaneous in origin and typically sensorial, the symbols create a concrete bridge between the body and the primary object world. In a "symbolic equation" (Segal, 1978), the person cannot distinguish between the symbol and the thing symbolized. The symbolic equation denies separateness between self and object, whereas symbolic representation bridges prior loss.

Psychoanalytic symbols are typically linked to external, perceptual reality, manifest in the closesness of the symbol perceptually toward what is signified. Thus, sticks, swords, and wands resemble the phallus; tunnels, caves, houses, boxes have a perceptual similarity to the female genitalia. The body image and body surface are the locus of initial, symbolic representation of self and object, which are then extended or projected to other surfaces. Symbols thus arise in the potential to other surfaces. Symbols thus arise in the potential space between the "I" and the "non-I," more closely related to the primary process rather than to verbal language and rational thought.

As Freud (1900a) noted, psychoanalytic symbolism is ubiquitous in myths, legends, art, literature, slang, jokes, obscenities, etc. Psychoanalytic symbols unconsciously represent, in addition to aspects of the self and childhood objects, coitus, pregnancy, birth, rebirth, castration, and death. Symbolism is utilized in symptom-formation, for example, a paralyzed limb representing impotence or castration. The name Oedipus or "swollen foot," unconsciously represents erection and mutilation-castration.

Ernest Jones (1916) summarized that only what is repressed is symbolized and needs symbolic expression as a psychoanalytic or unconscious symbol. The symbol condenses unconscious wish and defense, a compromise formation permitting disguised "symbolic gratification." The most frequent symbols are probably those of the male and female genitals, and these symbols more commonly appear in regressive states such as daydreams and dreams. Psychoanalytic symbols, however, may be found in association with all developmental phases. There are symbols referring to the breast as well as to the mouth, tongue, and teeth; similarly, feces may represent money, gifts, and denigrated aspects of the self or object. Psychoanalytic symbols are often overdetermined as in the bisexual and biparental symbolism of animals, exemplified in the many meanings of rats for the "Rat Man" (Freud, 1909d). The rat was interpreted to mean penis, feces, money (rates), baby, as well as despised greed, rate, etc.

Psychoanalytic symbols may have multiple stratified meanings and, in contemporary analysis, there is appreciation of overdetermination and possible change of function. For example, the "pit and the pendulum" may symbolically represent the vagina and the penis but also castration and the threat of castration. In oral terms, the pit may represent the mouth, and the pendulum the tongue.

That symbols may acquire cultural and religious significance and take on other metaphorical meanings does not alter the original and primary meaning of the symbol (Blum, 1978). A cave may represent a grave without losing its earlier meaning of a womb or female genital, with the earth having acquired the meaning of mother.

Clinically, symbols are not pursued as an end in itself and are not the primary locus of psychoanalytic interpretation. There are no rigid formulas for symbolic decoding or interpretation, and patients may not directly associate to symbolic expressions. Symbols are interpreted in the context of the psychoanalytic process.

Comparable to an ancient language, symbolism may be adaptively appropriated in linguistic communication inside and outside psychoanalysis (Blum, 1995).

Harold P. Blum

See also: Cinema criticism; "Dreams and myths"; Disque vert, Le ; Functional phenomenon; Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego ; Obsessional neurosis; Psychoanalysis of Children, The ; Psychoanalyse des nevroses et des psychoses ; Symbol.

Bibliography

Blum, Harold P. (1978). Symbolic process and symbol formation. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 59, 455-471.

——. (1995). Symbolism. In B. Moore and B. Fine (Eds.), Psychoanalysis. The Major Concepts. (pp. 149-154). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Freud, Sigmund. (1900a). The interpretation of dreams. SE, 4-5.

Jones, Ernest. (1916). The theory of symbolism. In Papers on Psychoanalysis. Boston: Beacon Press.

Segal, Hanna. (1978). On symbolism. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 59, 303-314.

Symbolism. A loosely organized movement in literature and the visual arts, flourishing c. 1885–c. 1910, characterized by a rejection of direct, literal representation in favour of evocation and suggestion. It was part of a broad anti-materialist and anti-rationalist trend in ideas and art towards the end of the 19th century and specifically marked a reaction against the naturalistic aims of Impressionism. Symbolist painters tried to give visual expression to emotional experiences, or as the poet Jean Moréas put it in a Symbolist Manifesto published in Le Figaro on 18 September 1886, ‘to clothe the idea in sensuous form'. Just as Symbolist poets thought there was a close correspondence between the sound and rhythm of the words they used and their meaning, so Symbolist painters thought that colour and line in themselves could express ideas. Symbolist critics were much given to drawing parallels between the arts, and Redon's paintings, for example, were compared with the poetry of Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe and with the music of Claude Debussy. Many painters were inspired by the same kind of imagery as Symbolist writers (the femme fatale is a common theme), but Gauguin and his followers chose much less flamboyant subjects, often peasant scenes. Religious feeling of an intense, mystical kind was a feature of the movement, but so was an interest in the erotic and the perverse—death, disease, and sin were favourite subjects. Stylistically, Symbolist artists varied greatly, from a love of exotic detail to an almost primitive simplicity in the conception of the subject, and from firm outlines to misty softness in the delineation of form. A broad tendency, however was towards flattened forms and broad areas of colour—in tune with Post-Impressionism in general.

Although chiefly associated with France, Symbolism had international currency, and such diverse artists as Hodler and Munch are regarded as part of the movement in its broadest sense. Symbolist sculptors include the Belgian Georg Minne and the Norwegian Gustav Vigeland. George Heard Hamilton comments that ‘the Symbolists, by freeing painting from what Gauguin called “the shackles of probability”, created the philosophical as well as practical premises for much twentieth-century art'.

Symbolism. A loosely organized movement in literature and the visual arts, flourishing c.1885–c.1910, characterized by a rejection of direct, literal representation in favour of evocation and suggestion. It was part of a broad anti-materialist and anti-rationalist trend in ideas and art towards the end of the 19th century and specifically marked a reaction against the naturalistic aims of Impressionism. Symbolist painters tried to give visual expression to emotional experiences, or as the poet Jean Moréas put it in a Symbolist Manifesto published in Le Figaro on 18 September 1886, ‘to clothe the idea in sensuous form’. Just as Symbolist poets thought there was a close correspondence between the sound and rhythm of words and their meaning, so Symbolist painters thought that colour and line in themselves could express ideas or feelings. Symbolist critics were much given to drawing parallels between the arts, and Redon's paintings, for example, were compared with the poetry of Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe and with the music of Claude Debussy. Many painters were inspired by the same kind of imagery as Symbolist writers (the femme fatale is a common theme), but Gauguin and his followers (see Synthetism) chose much less flamboyant subjects, often peasant scenes. Religious feeling of an intense, mystical kind was a feature of the movement, but so was an interest in the erotic and the perverse—death, disease, and sin were favourite subjects. Stylistically, Symbolist artists varied greatly, from a love of exotic detail to an almost primitive simplicity in the conception of the subject, and from firm outlines to misty softness in the delineation of form. A general tendency, however, was towards flattened forms and broad areas of colour—in tune with Post-Impressionism in general. By freeing painting from what Gauguin called ‘the shackles of probability’ the movement helped to create the aesthetic premisses of much 20th-century art. Although chiefly associated with France, Symbolism had international currency, and such diverse artists as Burne-Jones, Hodler, and Munch are regarded as part of the movement in its broadest sense. Symbolist sculptors include the Norwegian Gustav Vigeland and the Belgian Georg Minne (1866–1941).

Symbolism. A loosely organized movement in literature and the visual arts, flourishing c.1885–c.1910, characterized by a rejection of direct, literal representation in favour of evocation and suggestion. It was part of a broad anti-materialist and anti-rationalist trend in ideas and art towards the end of the 19th century and specifically marked a reaction against the naturalistic aims of Impressionism. Symbolist painters tried to give visual expression to emotional experiences, or as the poet Jean Moréas put it in a Symbolist Manifesto published in Le Figaro on 18 September 1886, ‘to clothe the idea in sensuous form’. Just as Symbolist poets thought there was a close correspondence between the sound and rhythm of words and their meaning, so Symbolist painters thought that colour and line in themselves could express ideas or feelings. Symbolist critics were much given to drawing parallels between the arts, and Redon's paintings, for example, were compared with the poetry of Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe and with the music of Claude Debussy. Many painters were inspired by the same kind of imagery as Symbolist writers (the femme fatale is a common theme), but Gauguin and his followers (see Synthetism) chose much less flamboyant subjects, often peasant scenes. Religious feeling of an intense, mystical kind was a feature of the movement, but so was an interest in the erotic and the perverse—death, disease, and sin were favourite subjects. Stylistically, Symbolist artists varied greatly, from a love of exotic detail to an almost primitive simplicity in the conception of the subject, and from firm outlines to misty softness in the delineation of form. A general tendency, however, was towards flattened forms and broad areas of colour—in tune with Post-Impressionism in general. By freeing painting from what Gauguin called ‘the shackles of probability’ the movement helped to create the aesthetic premisses of much 20th-century art. Although chiefly associated with France, Symbolism had international currency, and such diverse artists as Burne-Jones, Hodler, and Munch are regarded as part of the movement in its broadest sense. Symbolist sculptors include the Norwegian Gustav Vigeland and the Belgian Georg Minne (1866–1941).

Symbolism, symbolist, a movement associated with a group of French writers during c.1880–95. It may be seen as a reaction against dominant realist and naturalist tendencies in literature generally and, in the case of poetry, against the descriptive precision and ‘objectivity’ of the Parnassians. The symbolists stressed the priority of suggestion and evocation over direct description and explicit analogy. Symbolist writers were particularly concerned to explore the musical properties of language, through the interplay of connotative sound relationships, but were deeply interested in all the arts and much influenced by the synthesizing ideals of Wagner's music dramas. Other influences on the movement were the mystical writings of Swedenborg, and the poetry of Nerval, Baudelaire, and Poe.

Generally associated with the symbolist movement are: the poets Mallarmé, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Laforgue; the dramatists Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and Maeterlinck, and the novelists Huysmans and Édouard Dujardin. The movement exercised an influence on painting and on a wide range of 20th-cent. writers including Pound, T. S. Eliot, W. Stevens, Yeats, Joyce, V. Woolf, Claudel, Valéry, Stefan George, and Rilke. It was the subject of A. W. Symons's The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899) and played a part in the development of the Russian symbolist movement and of the modernista movement in Latin America.

Symbolism (Metapsychical)

A term used by psychical researcher Ernesto Bozzano in relation to:

"… cases in which, by subconscious or mediumistic methods, an idea is expressed by means of hallucinatory perceptions, or ideographic representations, or forms of language differing from the ideas to be transmitted, but capable of suggesting them indirectly or conventionally. In other words, there is metapsychical symbolism every time an idea is transmitted by means of representations which are not reproductions."

F. W. H. Myers included one instance of such symbolic communication in his book, Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death (1903): A botanical student passing inattentively in front of the glass door of a restaurant thought he saw "Verbascum Thapsus" printed on it. The real word was "Bouillon," and that happens to be the trivial name in French for the plant Verbascum Thapsus. The actual optical perception was thus subliminally transformed.

Symbolism often occurs in occultism, particularly in prophetic dreams, which are sometimes represented in visual or etymological puns. Sigmund Freud drew attention to such symbolic imagery in his psychoanalytical theory of dreams. Many psychics find their visions of future events occur in symbolic form. Traditional astrological predictions used to be presented in symbolic pictures called hieroglyphs.

symbolism. Artistic movement that flourished in the late C19 as a reaction to French Impressionism and Realism in painting. The poet Jean Moréas (1856–1910) published a manifesto in 1886 in which he stated the essential aim of art was to clothe ideas in sensual forms and to resolve the dichotomy between the real and the spiritual world. In painting this often gave expression to mysticism and occultism and the idea that line and colour could express ideas by suggestion and evolution rather than by depiction or description. Symbolist painting was often full of femme-fatale and death imagery, the erotic, the occult, the diseased, and the decadent. Among Symbolist painters may be mentioned Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901), Ferdinand Hodler (1853–1918), Gustave Moreau (1826–1980), and Franz von Stuck (1863–1928). In architecture it was associated with Art Nouveau and Expressionism. Perhaps its greatest architectural exponents were Rudolf Steiner and Henry van de Velde.

Bibliography

Cassou (1984);
Chilvers, Osborne, & Farr (eds.) (1988);
Jane Turner (1996)

Symbolism. Symbols have been used on the stage since the earliest times. Much of Elizabethan ‘stage furniture’ was symbolic, a throne standing for a Court, a tent for a battlefield, a tree for a forest. Symbolic elements are found in Chekhov and in the later plays of Ibsen and Strindberg. But Symbolism as a conscious art-form, conceived as a reaction against realism, came into the theatre with Maeterlinck, writing under the influence of Mallarmé and Verlaine. His characters have no personality of their own, but are symbols of the poet's inner life. This aspect was intensified in the early plays of Yeats. Other dramatists to come under the influence of Symbolism include Andreyev and Evreinov in Russia, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the later Hauptmann (with Die versunkene Glocke) in Germany, Synge (The Well of the Saints) and O'Casey (Within the Gates) in Ireland, and O'Neill in the United States.

symbolism European art and literary movement. Symbolism has its origins in France in the 1880s, where it arose as a reaction against the pragmatic realism of Courbet and impressionism. Its exponents wanted to express ideas or abstractions, rather than simply imitate the visible world. The most powerful tendency in the movement stemmed from Gauguin and Émile Bernard (c.1888). Another less dynamic trend introduced formal innovations into traditional painting. Its chief exponents were Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, and Puvis de Chavannes. Outside France, Burne-Jones and Munch are considered as symbolists. In literature, the movement included a group of poets active in the 19th century, who were followers of Verlaine and Baudelaire, such as Mallarmé and Rimbaud in France, and Poe and Swinburne in the US and Britain.

sym·bol·ism / ˈsimbəˌlizəm/ • n. the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities: in China, symbolism in gardens achieved great subtlety. ∎  symbolic meaning attributed to natural objects or facts: the old-fashioned symbolism of flowers. ∎  (also Symbolism) an artistic and poetic movement or style using symbolic images and indirect suggestion to express mystical ideas, emotions, and states of mind. It originated in late 19th century France and Belgium, with important figures including Mallarmé, Maeterlinck, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Redon. DERIVATIVES: sym·bol·ist n. & adj.

symbolism (sim-bŏl-izm) n. (in psychology) the process of representing an object or an idea by something else. Psychoanalytic theorists hold that conscious ideas frequently act as symbols for unconscious thoughts and that this is particularly evident in dreaming, in free association, and in the formation of psychological symptoms.
—symbolic (sim-bol-ik) adj.

Symbolism an artistic and poetic movement or style using symbolic images and indirect suggestion to express mystical ideas, emotions, and states of mind. It originated in late 19th century France and Belgium, with important figures including Mallarmé, Maeterlinck, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Redon.

Symbolism

symbols collectively, 1882.