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Ekphrastic Revisions: Verbal-Visual Networks in Twentieth Century Poetry by Women

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Ekphrastic Revisions: Verbal-Visual Networks in Twentieth Century Poetry by Women ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: EKPHRASTIC REVISIONS: VERBAL-VISUAL NETWORKS IN TWENTIETH CENTURY POETRY BY WOMEN Lisa Marie Antonille Rhody Doctor of Philosophy, 2012 Dissertation directed by: Professor Emeritus Elizabeth Bergmann Loizeaux Department of English This study considers contemporary ekphrastic poetry—poems to, for, and about visual art—particularly by female poets in the U.S. and theorizes a broader, more complex model of how the genre operates. I suggest a network model that attends to the multiple, simultaneous, and often dynamic relationships inherent in verbalizing the visual arts, where historically inter-aesthetic relations have been understood as an act of transgression and a desire to subsume a representational “other.” Continuing to explore ekphrasis as a socially-inscribed encounter, as critics have since W.J.T Mitchell’s field- defining essay “Ekphrasis and the Other,” I recast the definition of ekphrasis as an elaborate network of relationships not only between poems, images, and readers, but also literary traditions, social contexts, individual artists, related works of art, textual conditions, and historical events. This expanded conception of networked ekphrasis allows for a nuanced understanding of the relationships between the arts, where speaking for another, as ekphrastic verse does for visual art, is more than an act of gendered contest, but can be a recovery against historical erasure, as with Elizabeth Alexander’s “The Venus Hottentot,” an act of empathetic collusion, as in the verse of Lisel Mueller, or the deliberate decentering of poetic authority, as in Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Map” and “The Monument.” Thus, I position the ekphrastic network as a site of social discourse where the spectrum of possible outcomes between poetry and images is broader and more complex than accounted for in previous theorizations. “Ekphrastic Revisions” presents methodological opportunities for scholars interested in reshaping the genre’s tradition. Where Part I introduces the tradition and genre of ekphrasis through methods of close readings alongside textual, biographical, and archival studies, Part II introduces a digital humanities project called “Revising Ekphrasis,” which establishes best practices for using LDA topic modeling and social network analysis to read the ekphrastic genre at scale using a curated dataset of more than 4700 poems. In using tools available to the digital humanities, I take into consideration the range of possible questions that can be asked best through close and distant reading in order to revise the ekphrastic tradition. EKPHRASTIC REVISIONS: VERBAL-VISUAL NETWORKS IN 20TH CENTURY POETRY BY WOMEN By Lisa Marie Antonille Rhody Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2012 Advisory Committee: Professor Emeritus Elizabeth Bergmann Loizeaux, Chair Assistant Professor Kari Kraus Assistant Professor Melanie Kill Associate Professor Matthew Kirchenbaum Associate Professor Joshua Shannon © Copyright by Lisa Marie Antonille Rhody 2012 Dedication To Jason Songs 8:6-7 ii Acknowledgements I am deeply appreciative of the people and institutions that have supported my work on this project. Foremost, I am grateful to Elizabeth Bergmann Loizeaux who encouraged me to take new directions in my research took and whose knowledge of ekphrasis and tough questions helped shape this project. Kari Kraus’s intellectual generosity far exceeded the expectations of a first reader, and by example, she set a high scholarly standard for interdisciplinary work. Melanie Kill’s insights on genre theory and her encouragement to consider carefully genre studies in the 20th century helped tremendously. In 2005, Matthew Kirschenbaum asked: “What kinds of research questions do you have that [full text] collections currently cannot help you answer but which you think perhaps one day they could or should?” His question and my response eventually led to the second half of this dissertation, and I am thankful for Matt’s support and mentorship over the years. A Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) Winnemore Dissertation Fellowship provided more than financial support for the dissertation’s completion. I would like to thank Neil Fraistat, Jennifer Guiliano, Trevor Muñoz, Amanda Visconti, and Kirsten Keiser for the conversations, feedback, data management support, website development, and graphic design that came out of the fellowship, in addition to their friendship and encouragement along the way. Especially, I want to thank Travis Brown, who generously gave of himself and his time to provide counsel, to answer questions, to write special scripts, to offer suggestions, and so much more. Travis was a trusted, generous partner, and I am grateful for his help. In the department, iii Kandice Chuh took time to navigate institutional bureaucracy on my behalf. Across campus, Ben Schneiderman, Marc Smith, and Jenny Preece included me in a National Science Foundation, Social Media Research Foundation, and Grand-sponsored Summer Social Webshop, which led to the transformation of my visualizations. Participants at the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Topic Modeling Workshop offered thoughtful feedback regarding my work, and online, conversations with Ted Underwood and Scott Weingart, in particular, helped refine and extend my work with topic models. I wish I could recognize individually all the family members and friends who supported my work, but such a thing is impossible to do. My parents, Russ and Annette Antonille, instilled in me a profound love of language and reading, and encouraged healthy skepticism. My mom gave unselfishly of herself to care for my family so that I could finish. Kathy and Chip Rhody have offered unrestrained encouragement, prayers, and Nana-camps. I am lucky to have such comraderie in Scott and Tanya Antonille, David Eubanks, Natalie Bailey, Ryan and Ann Claycomb, Brian Eskridge, Tanya Clement, and the St. Raphael’s community who cheered me along—particularly Julia and Richard MacDonough. Evie and Claire keep me looking at pictures and reading poems through fresh, bright, inquisitive eyes, and their patience and prodding has finally paid off. The depth of my gratitude to my husband Jason is immeasurable. He has singularly offered the most, accepted the least in return, challenged me the hardest, and supported me completely with bountiful love, wisdom, curiosity, and a keen editorial eye. I am a better scholar, a better parent, and better person with him in my life. It is to him that I dedicate this work and everything that follows. iv Table of Contents Dedication ........................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii List of Tables .................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures .................................................................................................................. viii Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Distant Re-vision ............................................................................................................. 9 Overview ....................................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 1: Verbal-Visual Networks: Toward a Broader Theory of Ekphrasis ................. 24 Contemporary Ekphrasis and Critical Tradition ........................................................... 27 Ekphrasis as a Genre ..................................................................................................... 42 Ekphrasis as a Network ................................................................................................. 49 Networks and Interludes................................................................................................ 59 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 75 Chapter 2: Speaking for Objects: Networked Voices in Lisel Mueller and Elizabeth Alexander’s Ekphrasis ...................................................................................................... 77 Conversations with Artists ............................................................................................ 84 Starting Fires in Vacant Rooms .................................................................................... 86 Networks of Readers ................................................................................................... 103 Networked Histories .................................................................................................... 106 Self in Conversation .................................................................................................... 113 Cuvier’s Network ........................................................................................................ 115 Venus Hottentot........................................................................................................... 124 A Self in Conversation ...............................................................................................
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