Arts synthesis in texts of French decadents and symbolists

Mutual enrichment of arts and cultures should be considered as a fundamental rule of existence of history. Opponents or supporters of “décadisme”, with some minor exceptions, do not connect this movement with a concept of the civilization decline. Decadents considered modern language to be poor and insufficient for expressing the feelings they were experiencing. Therefore, poetic resources were consciously updated to express the new attitude. They created such original words as stagnance (from stagnant ), sombreur (from sombre ), etc. J. Plowert even composed “Small glossary to understand decadent and symbolist authors” (1888) to make decadent poetry comprehensible to readers. Decadents’ style has caused a resonance in public consciousness at all levels of art. In this article we will try to prove that the era of the late 19th century can be characterized as the time of spiritual renewal and cultural rise not only in poetry, but also in music and theater.

literature of symbolism, French poetry of the end of the XIX century, neologisms, synthesis of arts