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Article: The misty realms of the German psyche; Kingdom of the Soul: Symbolist Art in Germany, 1870-1920. Edited by Ingrid Ehrhardt and Simon Reynolds (Prestel pounds 45). Reviewed by Richard Edmonds.
- Article from:
- The Birmingham Post (England)
- Article date:
- July 1, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Birmingham Post & Mail Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Who reads Swedenborg today? Scarcely anyone I imagine, except students and those engaged upon research projects. But once upon a time it was the French novelist Balzac who expounded his theories in the novel Seraphita thus turning Swedenborg into a Symbolist hero, sage, spiritualist and dandy.
Charles Baudelaire had already discovered Swedenborg's theories some years earlier, and wrote: 'Natural things exist only to a limited degree - reality lies only in dreams.' Baudelaire went on to describe a hunger for the after-life, whose earthly revelations implied an ...