The Symbolist Movement in Literature

Without symbolism there can be no literature; indeed, not even language. What are words themselves but symbols, almost as arbitrary as the letters which compose them, mere sounds of the voice to which we have agreed to give certain significations, as we have agreed to translate these sounds by those combinations of letters?
THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE was a vital influence on W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot-a note that, for nothing else, would assure its historical place with the most important early Modernist criticism. The book is a collection of short essays on various authors:
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
PROSPER MÉRIMÉE
GÉRARD DE NERVAL
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT
VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM
LÉON CLADEL
ÉMILE ZOLA
STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ
PAUL VERLAINE
JORIS-KARL HUYSMANS
ARTHUR RIMBAUD
JULES LAFORGUE
MAURICE MAETERLINCK Many of the essays in this edition were initially published as individual articles between 1897 and 1899 in periodicals such as The Star or The Athenaeum, before being revised and collated for this final monograph.