French Literature Reviews - 2026

Symbolism and Naturalism
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics

Symbolism and Naturalism: A Comparison, edited by Sergio Cigada and Marisa Verna, Vita e Pensiero, 2006.
594 pages, ISBN: 8834306988.

Collected here are the proceedings of the conference on "Naturalism and Symbolism" held at the Catholic University of Milan from March 8 to 11, 2000.

The conference primarily established a systematic comparison between the two major schools that dominated French literature, and consequently all of Western literature, in the second half of the 19th century. In sharp aesthetic and ideological opposition, the two schools actually experienced profound interaction: their narrative, lyric, and theatrical texts are analyzed both for their autonomous values and for their mutual exchanges and influences—on both a thematic level and a stylistic-formal structural level. However, the dialectic between historical-positivist and spiritualist culture also extended to other sciences, giving rise to radically opposed epistemological foundations: in particular, the psychological sciences—which in 1880s Paris experienced their most intensely creative phase—were shaped by this methodological issue, characterized by the opposition between Charcot's biological determinism and Freud's psychic primacy. Meanwhile, the cultural interchange and reciprocal influence between psychology and literature were extremely strong and fruitful, mediated through the shared theme of investigating psychic deviance (institutionalized within psychiatry, and widespread and fundamental in contemporary naturalist and symbolic literature). The conference's range of interests thus unfolded along three interrelated scientific axes: the analysis of texts from the two literary schools, considered both in terms of their autonomous values and their mutual exchanges and influences; the dialectic between historical-positivist and spiritualist culture, which leads—in both literary and psychiatric fields—to the establishment of distinct, autonomous, and antithetical epistemologies (Flaubert vs. Baudelaire, Charcot vs. Freud); and finally, the intense, bidirectional dialectic of conceptual exchange and mutual influence between literature and the psychological sciences.

Sergio Cigada, Dean of the Faculty of Linguistic Sciences at the Catholic University of Milan, has been a full professor of French Literature since 1968.

Marisa Verna is an associate professor of French Literature in the Faculty of Linguistic Sciences at the Catholic University of Milan.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, French literature was largely shaped by the tension between naturalist and symbolist aesthetics. These movements emerged against a backdrop of shifting intellectual currents, balancing historical-positivist methodologies with emerging spiritualist perspectives. Scholars of nineteenth-century European culture frequently examine how these opposing intellectual frameworks influenced narrative prose, lyric poetry, and dramatic writing.

Readers interested in nineteenth-century French literature and cultural history may find this collection relevant to their research. The volume collects proceedings of the conference on Naturalism and Symbolism held at the Catholic University of Milan from March 8 to 11, 2000, edited by Sergio Cigada and Marisa Verna and published by Vita e Pensiero in 2006.