Symbolism signals a class unable to take stock of its own reality

Evidence

What is significant for him is not the meaning of the individual symbols but rather the significance of the phenomenon of symbolism as such: “The history of literature shows that man has always used one or the other of these means [symbolism or realism] to transcend a particular reality. He employs the first (i.e., symbols) when he is unable to grasp the meaning of that particular reality, or when he cannot accept the conclusion to which the development of that reality leads. … Thus the ability to utter those magic words is a sign of power, while the inability to do so is a sign of weakness. And so in art, when an artist leans toward symbolism it is an infallible sign that his thinking—or the thinking of the class which he represents, in the sense of its social development—does not dare penetrate the reality which lies before his eyes.” — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 682

Categorization

• DEFINE: Plekhanov’s historical-materialist definition of symbolism versus realism — symbolism as failure of class thinking to penetrate present reality.
• QUESTION: Plekhanov’s formulation inverts the usual modernist valorization (symbolism as depth, realism as surface). Worth chasing how this compares with Adorno’s defense of modernism against Lukács’s realism.
• XREF: connects to: Symbolism arises only after objects have lost immediate meaning — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 349; Formal decorative patterns can encode and dream real social contradictions they cannot consciously grasp — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 741

Broader Connections

• Formal decorative patterns can encode and dream real social contradictions they cannot consciously grasp #corroborates (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 741
• Symbolism arises only after objects have lost immediate meaning #expands (0.78) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 349