poem itself

There may be indefinite ranges of symbolic references behind the simplest Japanese poem….If one did not know the mythology he could, from participation in the poem, invent an equivalent one. This is an objective-subjective, fact-and-symbol relationship which is perhaps the defining characteristic of all great poetry. In Japanese verse it stands alone: not an aspect or factor of the poem, but the poem itself.

—Kenneth Rexroth, “Classic Japanese Poetry,” Classics Revisited (New Directions, 1965) [p. 96]

in junger times

Not as ‘Jung’ as I once was, I find I’m less interested in archetypes and symbols.

not common literary property

I get so pissed-off at the plain-talk people—who claim that Whitman wrote street talk and that William Carlos Williams let it all hang out—that I forget the beautiful art of simplicity. When I read a stretch of short, simple, powerful things by Jack Gilbert, I remember how utterly moving plainness can be: “Divorce”:

Woke up suddenly thinking I heard crying.
Rushed through the dark house.

Stopped, remembering. Stood looking

out at the bright moonlight on concrete.

Everything is there: exact adequacy, intelligence that withholds comment, and the luck (or vision) of the natural symbol. There is also that invaluable thing—with luck you hit on it fives times in fifty years of writing—when you say something that everyone has experienced (waking up feeling, not knowing why) which is not common literary property.

—Donald Hall, The Poet’s Notebook: Excerpts form Notebooks of Contemporary American Poets (W.W. Norton, 1995), edited by Stephen Kuusisto, Deborah Tall and David Weiss.

in the public square

A symbol monger. An image grinder. A diction trader. A rhetoric freak. A sound dog.

to suggest is the dream

To name an object is to suppress three-quarters of the enjoyment of a poem, which derives from the pleasure of step-by-step discovery; to suggest, that is the dream. It is the perfect use of this mystery that constitutes the symbol: to evoke an object little by little, so as to bring to light a state of the soul or, inversely, to choose an object and bring out of it a state of the soul through a series of unravelings.

—Stéphane Mallarmé, quoted by Jules Huret, in “Enquête sur l'Evolution littéraire,” Symbolist Art Theories: A Critical Anthology (U. of California Press, 1995), translated by Henri Dorra.

symbol rule

Any image that recurs within one’s oeuvre will eventually function as symbol.

idea of a bird

The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life,—large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with song. The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds,—how many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives, and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!

—John Burroughs, The Writings of John Burroughs: Birds and poets, with other papers (Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1904)

go small

The image was symbolic when it needed to be specific.

symbol overwhelmed

The symbol succumbed to the image after the advent of mass media. The bear in the dog pit, the symbol was overwhelmed by the many images springing forth from photo journalism, motion pictures, television,...

based on symbol alone

A symbol cannot die without taking a whole culture down with it.

in praise of vague

The Italian poet Leopardi believed vagueness was an essential characteristic of poetry, allowing the mind "to wander in the realm of the vague and indeterminate, in the realm of those childlike ideas which are born out of the ignorance of the whole."

See G. Singh's comprehensive study of Leopardi and the Theory of Poetry:"It is because the poet is attracted to the vague and indefinite, more than what is clear, concrete, and precise, that his language, even when it does not contain a full-fledged image or simile or metaphor, does to a certain extent partake of the character of an image or a symbol, both saying and suggesting something much more than what it commonly would outside of poetry." (Singh)

shadow symbol

Often the poetic image casts a shadow symbol.