SYMBOLISM AND THE NOVEL
Grail, which-and James alludes to this-traditionally expresses the
sublime and supernatural meaning of human relations.
Symbolism, which has been considered "one of the most soph–
isticated movements
in
literary history,"2 still actually draws its basic
sustenance from the faith of a magic-mythical past. The presupposi–
tions for a symbolic literature in our time are two, an imagination
hungry for images, and a vague idea that our lives are somehow
determined by indefinable principles which operate outside the do–
main of cause and effect but which have a hidden meaning that
manifests itself in external phenomena. This is more or less the credo
at which modem man has arrived, and to it the symbolic novel ad–
dresses itself. Here lies the secret of its origin and its success. In our
souls we are still, or once again, romantics, whether we like it or not.
The basic tendency of symbolic literature is its orientation toward the
intuited, intangible, indeterminate. To be a Christian is as out of
fashion .as to be an atheist; one is simply a symbolist, for that leaves
all roads open and involves no commitment. "Indirection," "sugges–
tion," and "allusion" are key words of symbolistic criticism and are
used as positive criteria in literary appraisal. W. Y. Tindall defines
the symbolic novel thus: "As tight and reflexive as poems, symbolist
novels
insinuate
their meanings by a concert of elements. Images,
allusions, hints,
changes of rhythm, and tone-in short
all the devices
of suggestion-support
and sometimes carry the principal burden"
(italics mine). Here vagueness of content has become a criterion
of value. It demands the counterbalancing effect of concise form,
which hence has assumed such great importance today.
We have tried to reduce the innumerable variations of the sym–
bol in the novel to its two major types: the cause-linked "realistic"
symbol, and the transcendent or magic symbol of the poetic novel.
Both are creatures of man's imagination in its quest for meaning,
and
in
some of their variants they approach each other quite closely.
Thus, for example, we find the realistic symbol for the sake of which
reality has to be decidedly tampered with, and the transcendent
symbol which is convincingly anchored in reality. Nevertheless, these
two
types
of symbol are of different origin, and it would be false
to assume that one has evolved from the other. That they have not
2 Charles Feidelson,
Symbolism and American Literatu.re,
1953, p. 4.
