{"id":836,"date":"2025-06-06T13:54:33","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T13:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/?p=836"},"modified":"2025-10-14T20:19:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T20:19:59","slug":"poe-and-the-symbolists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/2025\/06\/06\/poe-and-the-symbolists\/","title":{"rendered":"Students investigate: Poe and the Symbolists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This series features the work and research of UI students. The following was written by Cecil Campbell, exhibition and engagement student lead for the\u00a0Main Library Gallery<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Symbolist Movement took place in France and Belgium in the late 19th century as a response to styles that emphasized realistic and classical forms. Visitors to the Main Library Gallery<\/a>\u2019s spring 2025 exhibit, A Roll of the Dice: Symbolism in the Sackner Archive<\/a> <\/em>will note the wide variety of abstract and non-traditional art throughout the gallery. This is because the Symbolists believed that deeper meanings could be discovered through art that did not attempt to make sense of the subject through literal portrayal. Symbolism is still used by many artists today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the exhibit focuses on works inspired by French Symbolist St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9’s poem \u201cUn coup de d\u00e9s jamais n\u2019abolira le hasard,\u201d we can see the influence of notable American poet Edgar Allan Poe in several pieces within the exhibit. The goal of Symbolist art is to use abstract visuals to represent specific concepts\u2014anything from the mourning, uncertainty, or twisting anxiety we see in Poe\u2019s poems to the breaking of barriers and boundaries in Mallarme\u2019s “Un coup de d\u00e9s.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Contes grotesques<\/em> par Edgar Poe. Translated into French by Emile Hennequin from the English by Edgar Allan Poe, illustrated by Odilon Redon. Paris: P. Ollendorf, 1882. Mabbott Poe Collection [PS2604.F5 H45 1882], Special Collections and Archives, University of Iowa Libraries.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Poe\u2019s use of concepts like dreams, abstraction, and psychoanalysis made him very popular among the Symbolist crowd, especially with his focus on darker concepts. Charles Baudelaire was the first person to translate Poe to French, and St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9 was the first to translate The Raven,<\/em> specifically. Poe became an influential figure among the Symbolists for the way that he used imagery in his writing to communicate so clearly the themes of his stories. The Raven<\/em> stands as an excellent example of this. Many of Poe\u2019s stories center on a protagonist who carries on toward some sort of breaking point\u2014a moment at which we realize that something about the story, whether it be the protagonist or the world around them, is no longer what it seems. In The Raven<\/em>, for example, what drives our protagonist toward his mounting mental breakdown is the presence of the titular raven, who repeats the word \u201cnevermore\u201d over and over. The protagonist interprets meaning into this message\u2014grief and dread, and inescapable loss, though these themes are never communicated directly to us.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To quote scholar James Lawler on Poe\u2019s Symbolist influence, “For Baudelaire he was \u2018one of the greatest of literary heroes,\u2019 for Mallarm\u00e9 \u2018the spiritual Prince of this age,\u2019 for Val\u00e9ry an \u2018achieved mind\u2019: Symbolists that stand at the beginning, middle, and end of a lineage are constant in their fidelity to Poe. They encountered half-secretly, each in turn, a stranger to the canon and found in him the key to their works, for he served Baudelaire against Hugo, Mallarm\u00e9 against Baudelaire, Val\u00e9ry against Mallarm\u00e9. Distinct from the native conventions, he provoked less violence or anxiety than the intimate ferment of self-recognition.”<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Roll of the Dice: Symbolism in the Sackner Archive<\/em><\/strong><\/a> is open through June 27, 2025. Learn more about the exhibit and the Main Library Gallery\u2019s open hours at <\/strong>lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery<\/strong><\/a>. The Main Library Gallery is free and open to the public. <\/strong>  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This series features the work and research of UI students. The following was written by Cecil Campbell, exhibition and engagement student lead for the\u00a0Main Library Gallery. The Symbolist Movement took place in France and Belgium in the late 19th century as a response to styles that emphasized realistic and classical forms. Visitors to the MainContinue reading “Students investigate: Poe and the Symbolists”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22,2],"syndication":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":880,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836\/revisions\/880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}