The Aesthetic Movement was a late 19th-century artistic and literary trend that valued beauty, style, and sensory effect above moral instruction or practical purpose. In poetry, writers linked to the movement often favored musical language, polished form, rich imagery, and a refined, self-conscious elegance. The phrase art for art's sake is closely associated with it.
Key figures connected with the movement include Walter Pater, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and Oscar Wilde.
Example
Moonlight silvers the lily's edge,
Soft as a brushstroke, pale and fine;
The poem asks for nothing useful,
Only beauty, line by line.