Ursula Brumm
SYMBOLISM AND THE NOVEL
We live in the age of symbolism in literature. But we accept
the fact calmly, if with no particular enthusiasm. For symbolism
makes no burdensome demands on us; it exacts neither tragic partici–
pation
~or
the effort of precise reflection, above all it entails no
decision for or against anything. Indeed we are scarcely conscious
of its ascendency. Symbolism has pervaded poetry long enough for us
to be perfectly accustomed to it. Its conquest of the novel and the
drama has been gradual and unobtrusive. And in both these fields
its ascendency has for the most part been discreetly camouflaged
under a deliberate show of realism. The triumph of symbolism as a
habit of thought is most strikingly evidenced by the considerable
number of critics who, in their enthusiasm for symbols, more and
more unqualifiedly equate literature with symbolism. The symbol
has come to be the major criterion of literary value. "Since symbolism
is the necessary condition of literature, all novels are symbolic," says
William York Tindall in his
The Literary Symbol
(1955). So far
as I am aware, this flat statement and others similarly dogmatic have
not so far aroused objections except from Philip Rahv in his essay
"Fiction and the Criticism of Fiction"
(Kenyon Review,
Spring
1956). To support his thesis Tindall adduces a number of modern
novels (by Henry Green, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce), the
symbolic elements in which he merely assembles and presents without
critical evaluation. To go symbol hunting in the novel is a highly
popular sport these days.
If
a novel contains symbols that you can
pick out like raisins from a bun,
it
can
claim
to be literature.
The purpose of this essay is to examine the nature and function
of symbols in the novel. Lyric poetry, which is governed by wholly
different laws, lies outside the scope of the discussion. Our
aim
is to
