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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
symbolism
noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ The symbolism was obvious, as the rebel leader removed bullets from his gun in front of hundreds of cameras.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Aside from all the technical differences, the symbolism is also different.
▪ One is driven to the conclusion that here, too, the charge has most to do with symbolism.
▪ Praise, symbolism, and token rewards will be used to reinforce results and behavior of value to the company.
▪ Religious symbolism is preferred for each day.
▪ The somewhat heavy-handed symbolism of the watch not withstanding, the work is a fine contemplation on death.
▪ This hymn is full of symbolism.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Symbolism

Symbolism \Sym"bol*ism\, n.

  1. The act of symbolizing, or the state of being symbolized; as, symbolism in Christian art is the representation of truth, virtues, vices, etc., by emblematic colors, signs, and forms.

  2. A system of symbols or representations.

  3. (Chem.)

    1. The practice of using symbols, or the system of notation developed thereby.

    2. A combining together of parts or ingredients. [Obs.]

  4. (Theol.) The science of creeds; symbolics.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
symbolism

1650s, "practice of representing things with symbols," from symbol + -ism. Applied to the arts by 1866; attested from 1892 as a movement in French literature, from French symbolisme (see symbolist).

Wiktionary
symbolism

n. 1 Representation of a concept through symbols or underlying meanings of objects or qualities. 2 (context obsolete English) A combining together of parts or ingredients.

WordNet
symbolism
  1. n. a system of symbols and symbolic representations

  2. the practice of investing things with symbolic meaning [syn: symbolization, symbolisation]

  3. an artistic movement in the late 19th century that tried to express abstract or mystical ideas through the symbolic use of images

Wikipedia
Symbolism (arts)

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style originates with the 1857 publication of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal. The works of Edgar Allan Poe, which Baudelaire admired greatly and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock tropes and images. The aesthetic was developed by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine during the 1860s and 1870s. In the 1880s, the aesthetic was articulated by a series of manifestos and attracted a generation of writers. The name "symbolist" itself was first applied by the critic Jean Moréas, who invented the term to distinguish the symbolists from the related decadents of literature and of art.

Distinct from, but related to, the style of literature, symbolism of art is related to the gothic component of Romanticism.

Symbolism

Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:

Usage examples of "symbolism".

Though in his technique he is almost free from symbolist influences, the general spirit of his poetry is much more akin to symbolism than to that of the younger school, for, alone of the younger poets, he is a mystic.

This extraordinary thirteen-page text, which is generally most appreciated as an example of poetic talent, also encompasses astrological, allegorical and alchemical symbolism.

Besides the Cathars, the region was, and always has been, a centre of alchemy, and several villages attest to the alchemical preoccupations of its former residents, notably Alet-les-Bains near Limoux, where the houses are still decorated with esoteric symbolism.

The alchemical symbolism is lavish: base and precious metals, kings and queens.

Some of the secret is given away by the preponderance of sexual symbolism in alchemical literature.

Petrified in art, they accept to the very letter the symbolism of the academical dithyrambic, which places an aureola about the heads of poets, and, persuaded that they are gleaming in their obscurity, wait for others to come and seek them out.

Their symbolism, like that of every other Deity, was coextensive with nature, and with the mind of man.

My fateful meeting with diabetes often reminds me of the ancient Chinese character for crisis, a graceful nest of brush strokes, space, and symbolism that combines the elements of both challenge and opportunity.

Its astronomical and leonine symbolism does not make any sense unless it was built as an equinoctial marker for the Age of Leo.

As we have already seen, both Leonardo and Cocteau employed heterodox symbolism in their supposedly Christian paintings.

It was the ultimate fountainhead of all horror on this earth, and the symbolism shewed only too clearly how integral a part of it Marceline was.

Unlike the religion of books or creeds, these mystic shows and performances were not the reading of a lecture, but the opening of a problem, implying neither exemption from research, nor hostility to philosophy: for, on the contrary, philosophy is the great Mystagogue or Arch-Expounder of symbolism: though the interpretations by the Grecian Philosophy of the old myths and symbols were in many instances as ill-founded, as in others they are correct.

Naturally it followed that Symbolism soon became more complicated, and all the powers of Heaven were reproduced on earth, until a web of fiction and allegory was woven, which the wit of man, with his limited means of explanation, will never unravel.

In general, Sartre was suspicious of psychoanalysis, put off by what he saw as dogmatic symbolism, mechanistic explanation, a preponderant role for the unconscious and sexuality, and an analytic method dividing the personality into hermetic components rather than attempting to comprehend it both in its singularity and, synthetically, as an indivisible totality.

The original feminine meaning is correct, but the symbolism of the pentacle has been distorted over the millennia.