Handbook Entry Defining the Term "Symbol"

from William Harmon

The information quoted in this article on symbols is highlighted in blue. Information that has been paraphrased is in orange. Some of the information in Harmon's article expresses in different words information that is given by the other sources. Because the different sources express many of the ideas, I picked up these basic ideas and made them part of my own understanding of the topic. Then when I wrote my essay on symbols, I expressed these ideas in my own words.

A symbol is something that is itself and also stands for something else; as the letters a p p l e form a word that stands for a particular objective reality; or as a flag is a piece of colored cloth that stands for a country. All language is symbolic in this sense, and many of the objects that we use in daily life are also.

In a literary sense a symbol combines a literal and sensuous quality with an abstract or suggestive aspect. It is advisable to distinguish symbol from image, allegory, and metaphor. If we consider an image to have a concrete referent in the objective world and to function as image when it powerfully evokes that referent, then a symbol is like an image in doing the same thing but different from it in going beyond the evoking of the objective referent by making that referent suggest a meaning beyond itself; in other words, a symbol is an image that evokes an objective, concrete reality and prompts that reality to suggest another level of meaning. As Coleridge said, "It partakes of the reality which it renders intelligible." In allegory the objective referent evoked is without value until it is translated into the fixed meaning that it has in its own particular structure of ideas, whereas a symbol includes permanent objective value, independent of the meanings that it may suggest. . . .

Literary symbols are of two broad types: One includes those embodying universal suggestions of meaning, as flowing water suggest time and eternity, a voyage suggests life. such symbols are used widely (and sometimes unconsciously) in literature. The other type of symbol acquires its suggestiveness not from qualities inherent in itself but from the way in which it is used in a given work. Thus, in Moby-Dick the voyage, the land, the ocean are objects pregnant with meanings and seem almost independent of Melville's use of them in his story; on the other hand, the white whale is invested with meaning -- and differing meanings for different crew members -- through the handling of materials in the novel.

Harmon, William. A Handbook to Literature. 9 thed. Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 2003. 497-498.

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