58

There is a tension between symbolist poetry and symbolist prose, often engaged, dealing with topical themes, and ready to assume extremist acts and illegal opinions. Most of the Symbolists who espoused the most radical political causes are also those who are most involved in the theatrical field. Symbolists dream of a poetic theater that attracts an audience that poetry has lost. The reader becomes a public to the theater. Symbolist prose and dramas seek to give back to the modern poet some of its prestige lost after Romanticism, showing that his voice can be heard, even if the public does not read his books.