Symbolism, comparison between new poetry and victorian novel, Freud’s psychoanalysis

Symbolism, comparison between new poetry and victorian novel, Freud’s psychoanalysis

As concerning Symbolism, it was a movement which had started in France with Baudelaire. What were the most important features of those poets?
These poets paid attention not only to the meaning of the word, but also to the way this word sounds like, so they paid attention to the music every word may reproduce. For this reason, they used allusive language, with the use of
association of words and ideas. So, they gave a lot of importance to the musical aspect of the words. They also loved making a lot of quotations, taken from greek culture, to offer a variety of universal literature and they used free verses. Differently from the romantic poets (for example Wordsworth said that writing poems means writing about emotions recollected in tranquillity), this kind of poetry is not involved with emotions. When these poets wrote poems, they
run away from emotions. So, they tried to write about their daily life in realistic terms, and their writings were also very difficult to be understood by the uneducated.

Comparison between the new poetry and the victorian novel

Both for the novel and for the poetry features are more or less the same at the turning of the century, so they share the same atmosphere and aspects, so many poets (for example the War poets) found themselves completely absolved in their task of destroying and undermining a reality that they saw completely false.
As for the poets, also the writers were attached to traditional culture, to the victorians, but at the same time they wanted to break the link with the past, because they considered this past as completely false.

Victorian novel - features

The victorian novel was a kind of transcription of life in the same way reality was seen. There was a well defined plot, characters, situations. Moreover, the Victorian writer shared the opinions of the reader. While the novels written during the victorian age can be defined social novels, because they described society in the same way they wanted to see it, the 20th century novels can be described as psychological novels, because there was described the atmosphere of the time, the problems of the war, the disillusionment, so the writers of that time tried to express these conditions. Their task was that of denouncing the frustration of that time. Every single writer chooses a language of his own to describe these feelings.

Freud’s psychoanalysis

This is also the period of Freud's psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis gives importance to individuals' reaction and sensitivity. The individual reacts and his soul or personality is seen as having a multiplicity of aspects. Individual's soul is made up of different aspects. So, the job of the writer is that of trying to represent, to write about this discontinuity of the human's psychology.

In which way it could be done?

It's time to break down with the traditions, so the writer uses a new technique, based on association of ideas, which follow in random, not in a logical order.
Freud is responsible for an important thing, he revealed the importance of the unconscious, this is the reason why everything is totally different now, because he said that the unconscious is particularly important in human's mind.
Unconscious is a hidden part of people's mind, and most of people's actions are dictated by the unconscious. People's actions are motivated by instincts. However, these instincts are not free, because they are controlled by the superego (school, teachers, society.…. ), so in other words, school, family, society control everything that has something to do with our instincts, but leave very little space to the ego (what appears of us).