Depersonalization and Symbolist Mysticism

Abstract

Abstract: The three Symbolist poets, Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Arthur Rimbaud all had experienced depersonalization disorder, and they went through such a mental state by means of meditation, abnormal sensation, or drugs. The feeling of depersonalization gave their hallucinatory writings a substratum of reality, which in turn ensures that their poems and theories can convey actual feelings despite their fictionality and celebrate morbid sensations beyond normal imagination. A close look at the issue of depersonalization could generate a new understanding of the Symbolist mysticism: although Symbolism is mainly regarded as an exemplar of Idealism, it was not totally a reaction against Naturalism, and it had in itself some elements of Realism.

Key words: Symbolism, depersonalization, mysticism, Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé

Li Guohui. Depersonalization and Symbolist Mysticism[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2019, 41(3): 81-91.

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