Symbolism

May 1884 saw the publication in Paris of a fin de siècle novel that became a perverse sensation on the European cultural scene. 'A Rebours' by Joris-Karl Huysmans was written as a seductive textbook of decadence, an antidote to the 'banality' of the dominant literary styles, naturalism and realism. Symbolism, whose influence would endure well into the modernist era, was an artistic religion-substitute, a spiritually charged cult of beauty. This book explores symbolism.