Symbolism / Aestheticism / Decadentism — Quick Reference

Symbolism / Aestheticism / Decadentism — Quick Reference

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.

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