Impressionism (literature)

Influenced by the European Impressionist art movement, many writers adopted a style that relied on associations. The Dutch Tachtigers explicitly tried to incorporate impressionism into their prose, poems, and other literary works. Much of what has been called "impressionist" literature is actually subsumed into a number of categories, especially Symbolism; its chief exponents being Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, Verlaine and Laforgue. It focuses on a particular character's perception of events. The edges of reality are blurred by choosing points of view that lie outside the norm.