Symbolism (shocho shugi or sanborizumu), a late 19th-century French literary movement, is primarily a reaction against naturalism and realism. Symbolist poets sought an art form that would reflect a deeper experience of existence. The symbolists also reacted against the growth of science as a means to explain reality, using symbols in their writing to evoke and suggest rather than to explain. Japanese writers and poets saw affinities between the symbolists’ vagueness and traditional Japanese aesthetics that favored ambiguity and indirectness. One of the main vectors of symbolism between East and West was the poet Ueda Bin whose translations of Western symbolist poets, found in his anthology Kaichoon (The Sound of the Tide, 1905), introduced symbolism to Japan.
See also POETRY.
Historical dictionary of modern Japanese literature and theater. J. Scott Miller. 2009.