Paul Verlaine with Verlaine, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, Paul Valéry, Albert Samain and many others began to be referred to as "Symbolists." These poets would often share themes that parallel Schopenhauer's aesthetics and notions of will, fatality and unconscious forces, and used themes of sex (such as prostitutes), the city, irrational phenomena (delirium, dreams, narcotics, alcohol), and sometimes a vaguely medieval setting. In poetry, the symbolist procedure—as typified by Verlaine—was to use subtle suggestion instead of precise statement (rhetoric was banned) and to evoke moods and feelings through the magic of words and repeated sounds and the cadence of verse (musicality) and metrical innovation.
Paul Dickey (poet) Paul Dickey (poet) Paul Dickey (born 1948 in Hardtner, KS) is an American poet, author, philosophy instructor, and playwright who has published three books of poetry and a full-length play, "The Good News According to St. Dude," that analyzes and dramatizes the disillusion of the 1960s youth counter-culture. His poetry appears in three textbook anthologies and approximately 150 literary journals, both in print and online. His ten-minute plays (or flash drama) and comedy skits have been performed onstage at the Shelterbelt Theatre in Omaha, NE, and in theatres in Dover, NJ, and New York City. Dickey has published fiction (including