Symbolism · Aestheticism · Decadentism — Quick Reference

Representative works list both Western and Japanese examples. Japanese titles include standard English renderings with romaji in parentheses when helpful.

Movement	Representative works (West / Japan)	Core themes	Keywords
Symbolism	West: Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du mal); Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell / Illuminations; Stéphane Mallarmé, A Throw of the Dice Never Will Abolish Chance (Un coup de dés...) Japan: Kitahara Hakushū, Jashūmon (邪宗門); Miki Rofū, Haien (廃園, “The Ruined Garden”); Kambara Ariake, Dokugen Aika (独絃哀歌, “Elegy on a Single String”)	Suggestion and association over direct statement Inner life, dream, the spiritual and numinous Musicality of verse; synesthetic effects	symbol, metaphor, correspondences fragrance, fog, night, bells melancholy / spleen
Aestheticism	West: Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray; Walter Pater, Marius the Epicurean; A. C. Swinburne, poetry collections Japan: Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, The Tattooer (Shisei), Naomi (Chijin no Ai); Nagai Kafū, A Strange Tale from East of the River (Bokutō Kidan); Satō Haruo, Rural Melancholy (Den’en no Yūutsu)	Autonomy of art; form, style, and surface Adornment, sensuality, cultivated taste Artificial/constructed beauty over nature	art for art’s sake, beauty, pleasure ornament, costume, mask, performance eroticism, Orientalism
Decadentism	West: J.-K. Huysmans, Against Nature (À rebours); Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray; Gabriele D’Annunzio, Pleasure (Il Piacere); Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil Japan: Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, Quicksand (Manji); Nagai Kafū, A Strange Tale from East of the River; Sakaguchi Ango, Discourse on Decadence (Darakuron)	Ennui, nihilism, cultivated weariness Transgression, moral inversion, self-indulgence Urban twilight; illness and “artificial paradises”	decay / decadence, ennui transgression, vice, hedonism poison, perfume; dusk, decline

Rule of thumb: Symbolism = suggestion & musicality; Aestheticism = the worship of beauty; Decadentism = ennui & transgressive elegance. Overlaps are common (e.g., Baudelaire, Wilde, Tanizaki) and many works straddle categories.