Аннотация:Thinking of Symbolism as a natural opponent of Positivism has become a commonplace, but as any stereotype it tends to considerably simplify much more complex relations that in fact existed between poets and scientists at the turn of 19th-20th centuries. This assumption is due to certain pronouncements one comes across in essays and letters written by different Symbolist poets; moreover, the very ideas and the new poetic techniques offered by Symbolism in many aspects refer to positivist thought and science that helped poets explore the unknown.
Symbolist quest for the unseen transcendent realm of ideas required an extraordinary sense experiences; hence the attempt to “consciously deform all the sensations” (A.Rimbaud). Symbolist experiment in the field of perception resulted in some important discoveries in verse and transformed considerably both poetic expression and the reader’s attitude to a poetic text. Among Symbolist innovations there are: 1. the vast use of symbol that helps to reveal “the hidden unity of the versatile and shattered universe” (Mallarme) 2. evocation technique of description 3. preference given to the irrational part of the human psyche – emotions, perceptions and synaesthetic sensations, i.e. indiscriminate blend of different types of perception (Rimbaud “Voyelles”, Mallarme “Un coup de des”). These innovations can be described as a revolution in verse based on association techniques.
Associations in Symbolist poetry can be roughly divided into 3 categories: 1. Traditional tropes (metapors, personification, synecdoche, etc.) 2. Subjective non-conventional associations that can be interpreted with the help of some background knowledge (realia, biography, etc); 3. Subjective non-conventional associations that appeal to the reader’s imagination and thus provide a space within the text for the reader to participate.
Experiment in the field of perception and vast use of non-conventional obscure associations in Symbolist verse make us think of certain parallels that can be drawn between Symbolist poetic association and theory of associationism that in the end of the 19th century constituted the basis for the psychological approach in psychiatry.
Associational psychology first developed by D.Hartley (1705-1757) views all consciousness as the result of combination, in accordance with the law of association of certain simple and ultimate elements derived from sense experiences. Leading psychiatrists of the turn of the 19th-29th centuries (E.Bleuler, O.Gross, S.Freud, K.G.Jung, E.Stransky and others) made attempts to interpret schizophrenic verbal expression applying associational method. It is interesting to bring out a striking coincidence in terms and conceptions that exist both in poetry and science. Both psychiatrists and poets use the same notions – “symbol”, “symbolic thinking”, “evocation”, “repetition-leitmotif”, mental and emotional processes of “poets at work” and patients in delirium have very much in common. In both cases we are faced with the so called “abaissement du niveau mental” and “abnormal associations”, since routine association process is distorted. One cannot help but compare alienation and depersonification of a poet, his mind being overwhelmed by images as it has been described by poets themselves (Rimbaud: “Je suis un autre”) and schizophrenic affective complexes destroying patient’s ego (Jung, Bleuler). There is however a world of difference between poet’s conscious creative activity (choice and arrangement of words, stringing symbols, etc.) and irrational spontaneous verbal expression typical for “the victims of affective complexes” - schizophrenic patients, called by K.G.Jung “subconscius poets”.