Why Ekphrasis? Author(s): Valentine Cunningham Source: Classical Philology, Vol. 102, No. 1, Special Issues on Ekphrasis<break></break>Edited by Shadi Bartsch and Jaś Elsner (January 2007), pp. 57-71 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/521132 . Accessed: 27/05/2014 15:49 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Classical Philology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 192.76.8.49 on Tue, 27 May 2014 15:49:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions WHY EKPHRASIS? valentine cunningham t is hard to imagine western literature, certainly the tradition of Hel- lenic/Roman/Christian/post-Christian literature, without what we can I call ekphrasis—that pausing, in some fashion, for thought before, and/ or about, some nonverbal work of art, or craft, a poiema without words, some more or less aestheticized made object, or set of made objects. This might be done by the poet, whose name we might or might not know, giving a whole poem over to such consideration, or stopping that action, the narrative flow of a longer work, to direct his gaze, his characters’ gaze, our gaze, for a while, at such a thing or things.