Symbol

A symbol is a polysemous image that expresses an idea or complex of notions through a concrete object, while retaining both its own direct meaning and an inexhaustible spectrum of figurative ones. Unlike allegory with its unambiguous reading, the symbol is fundamentally polysemous and does not lend itself to a final rational decipherment: the guelder rose, the poplar, the road, the garden in Ukrainian poetry carry a wide range of cultural, emotional and philosophical meanings. The symbol is a key category of the aesthetics of Symbolism, which proclaimed hint and suggestion the foundation of art. An image becomes a symbol when its concrete meaning grows into a generalised one, when an idea shows through the object. Symbolism is an important level of the analysis of a literary text, especially in the poetry of Modernism.