The innovative, rebellious, and revolutionary spirit of mod-
ern Western literature descends, in many respects, from Symbolist
writings. The Symbolist moved language away from the task of the
journalist, away from the emotive excess of the Romantic, and to-
ward an ideal realm where the poet, freed from the necessity to de-
scribe reality, could create language that referred to itself, poetry
chiefly about poetry. Accordingly, semioticians and deconstruc-
tionists have justifiably turned to Symbolist literature because of
their natural inclination to study the complexity of poetic dis-
course. The paradoxical shoals and eddies of poetry show up with
unusual clarity and brilliance in Symbolist poetry. Because of its
importance for modern critics, Symbolism needs to be carefully
studied in its original cultural context. This context cannot be fully
revealed without a careful comparison of Symbolism with the his-
torical development of nineteenth-century music, for ambiguity in
Symbolist writing was a tendency that was linked to an interest in
music as a pure art form. This book is a contribution to the uncov-
ering and reevaluation of that context as it can be discerned from
the study of historical documents such as the Revue Wagnérienne
and the recognition of that context within specific works of art.

Any style or tendency in the arts is best defined through an
examination of the ubiquitous dialectic between form and content,
structure and meaning. Symbolism is characterized by two basic
features in this universal dialectic. The first has to do with form.
Symbolist style is marked by a hostility to periodic differentiation.
The second has to do with content. Symbolist style features a kind
of open-ended evocation of meanings. This is achieved by assem-
bling unresolved actions and questions, as well as conflicting blocks
of images, in the text. Tonal ambiguity in music parallels this liter-
ary tendency. These notions are developed throughout the seven
essays of the book, but chapter 1 introduces and explains them in
some detail.

Symbolist style successfully thwarts the feeling of periodicity
in both poetry and music. I am convinced that the older ways of
making music and poetry involved the linking of closed, symmetri-
cal phrases. With High Romanticism we see the breaking of the
rhythm of the phrase in music and poetry. Symbolist style is charac-
terized by a continued inclination to form open-ended, fractured
phrases, but the Symbolist phrase creates an aura of subtle mystery
and expressive ambiguity, an introspective style that suggests

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