A Stylistic Analysis of Ekphrastic Poetry in English
T.C ANKARA ÜNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ BATI DİLLERİ VE EDEBİYATLARI İNGİLİZ DİLİ VE EDEBİYATI
A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF EKPHRASTIC POETRY IN ENGLISH
PhD Dissertation
Berkan ULU
Ankara-2010
T.C ANKARA ÜNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ BATI DİLLERİ VE EDEBİYATLARI İNGİLİZ DİLİ VE EDEBİYATI
A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF EKPHRASTIC POETRY IN ENGLISH
PhD Dissertation
Berkan ULU
Advisor Asst.Prof.Dr.Nazan TUTAŞ
Ankara-2010
T.C ANKARA ÜNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ BATI DİLLERİ VE EDEBİYATLARI İNGİLİZ DİLİ VE EDEBİYATI
A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF EKPHRASTIC POETRY IN ENGLISH
PhD Dissertation
Advisor : Asst. Prof. Dr. Nazan TUTAŞ
Members of the PhD Committee Name and Surname Signature Prof. Dr. Belgin ELBİR ...... Prof. Dr. Ufuk Ege UYGUR ...... Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lerzan GÜLTEKİN ...... Asst. Prof. Dr. Nazan TUTAŞ (Advisor) ...... Asst. Prof. Dr. Trevor HOPE ......
Date ......
TÜRKİYE CUMHURİYETİ ANKARA ÜNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ MÜDÜRLÜĞÜNE
Bu belge ile, bu tezdeki bütün bilgilerin akademik kurallara ve etik davranış ilkelerine uygun olarak toplanıp sunulduğunu beyan ederim. Bu kural ve ilkelerin gereği olarak, çalışmada bana ait olmayan tüm veri, düşünce ve sonuçları andığımı ve kaynağını gösterdiğimi ayrıca beyan ederim.(……/……/200…)
……………………………………
Berkan ULU
ABSTRACT
“A Stylistic Anlaysis of Ekphrastic Poetry in English” covers ekphrasis in English from its early beginnings in the antiquity to the present in order to find out about literary and stylistic characteristics of this thousand-year-old tradition through stylistic analyses. Because there are only a few detailed studies on the development of ekphrasis as a literary device, the study also offers new terminology and classifications when needed. In order to discover the relationship between the visual and the verbal, the study first introduces a brief history of ekphrasis in the
Introduction followed by an in-depth critical and philosophical survey of the tradition that will be dealt with in Chapter I. In this section, concepts like meditative ekphrasis, imitative ekphrasis, dead ekphrasis, paragonal relationship, ergon, parergon, and deparagonal relationship have been introduced and explained and these key points have been exemplified and referred to in the following sections. The study also suggests essential points about the definition and etymology of the word ekphrasis and explicates some new conceptual points before moving on to theoretical assumptions. Chapter I, which focuses on the theoretical background of the tradition, puts forward a historical categorisation based on the essential turning points the ekphrasis tradition has undergone and concludes that there are three ekphrastic phases. Beginning from Chapter II, each chapter deals with these ekphrastic phases with reference to the most representative examples of ekphrastic poetry from iv
Homer’s description of the Shield of Achilles to Ben Jonson’s “The Mind of the
Frontispiece to a Book,” and from Wordsworth’s “Peele Castle” to W.H. Auden’s
“Museé des Beaux Arts.” Each chapter begins and ends with an overall analysis of the tradition in that particular phase while Conclusion chapter covers the results of applied stylistic analyses as well as the general characteristics of ekphrasis as a literary phenomenon. Consequently, through stylistic analysis and critical appreciation of representative ekphrastic poems in English, this study aims to re-visit ekphrasis within modern theoretical norms and concludes that ekphrasis, which has experienced various literary, intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and most essentially paragonal shifts, is a well-established and invaluable literary device for poets of all ages.
v
ÖZET
“İngiliz Dili’ndeki Ekfrastik Şiirin Biçembilimsel Bir İncelemesi” şeklinde
Türkçeleştirilebilecek bu çalışma İngilizce yazılmış veya İngilizce’ye çevrilmiş ekfrastik şiirlerin Biçembilimsel incelemesini yaparak bin yılı aşkın süredir devam etmekte olan ekfrasis1 geleneğini inceleyerek, bu geleneğin temel özelliklerini ortaya
çıkartmayı amaçlamaktadır. Giriş bölümünde ekfrasisin tarihi gelişimi kısaca aktarılmış daha sonra da bu terimin tanımlanmasına ilişkin sorunlara ve önerilere yer verilmiş ve sonuç olarak daha kapsamlı bir tanım önerilmiştir. Bu bölümde ayrıca
“ekphrasis” kelimesinin etimolojik kökeni, kullanım rahatlığı ve terminolojik gerekliliği göz önünde bulundurularak, bu alanda yapılan çalışmalarda kullanılmak
üzere henüz İngilizce’de bulunmayan “ekphrasize” fiili önerilmiş, örneklenmiş ve tanıtılmıştır. Çalışmanın Birinci Bölümü daha çok ekfrasis geleneği hakkında yapılmış felsefi, eleştirel ve edebi tartışmalara yer vermiştir. Antik Çağ, Rönesans ve sonrası, ve modern dönemlerde yapılan teorik çalışmalar açıklandıktan sonra, bu
çalışmalar ışığında ve modern şiir normları çerçevesinde geliştirilmiş meditative ekphrasis (esinci ekfrasis), mimetic ekphrasis (taklitçi ekfrasis), dead ekphrasis (ölü ekfrasis), paragonal ve deparagonal ilişki, ergon ve parergon gibi edebi ve teorik teoremler öne sürülmüş, tartışılmış ve ileriki bölümlerde de örneklenmiştir.
1 Her ne kadar değerli hocamız Yrd. Doç. Özlem Uzundemir İmgeyi Konuşturmak başlıklı kitabında ekphrasis terimini oldukça başarılı bir fonolojik etki yakalayarak resimbetim olarak Türkçeleştirmeye çalışmışsa da, bu çalışmanın teorik bölümlerinde de tartışıldığı gibi, ekfrasis sadece “resim” sanatını betimlemediğinden, Özet bölümünde, ekphrasis terimi, “ekfrasis” şeklinde, Türkçe yazılışıyla kullanılacak ve Latince, Fransızca, ve İtalyanca’dan geçmiş bir çok edebi terim gibi aslına bağlı kalınarak kullanılacaktır. vi
Ekfrasisin tarihi ve edebi gelişimi göz önünde bulundurularak, bu eski edebi terim için üç ana tarihsel dönem önerilmiş ve İkinci Bölüm’den başlamak üzere bu dönemler örneklerle detaylı bir biçimde incelenip analiz edilmiştir. Homeros’un
Aşil’in Kalkanı betimlemesinden, W.H.Auden’ın “Museé des Beaux Arts” adlı
şiirine, farklı dönemlerden seçilmiş birçok ekfrastik şiir Biçembilimsel yöntemlerle incelenmiştir. Çalışmanın teorik altyapısının açıklandığı bölümlerde belirtildiği gibi
Biçembilimsel inceleme yapısı gereği çok detaylı olduğu ve uzun sürebildiği için,
önceleme (foregrounding), parallel yapılar (parallelism) ve sapma (deviation) gibi
Biçembilim’in şiir incelemesinde kullanılabilecek önemli özelliklerine ve kavramlarına yoğunlaşılmıştır. Bu bağlamda incelemeler sırasında özellikle resim ve
şiir arasındaki yapısal parallellikler, kelime bilimsel ve cümle bilimsel açılardan
öncelenmiş kelime ve yapılar, noktalama ve yazım üslubundaki farklılıklar incelenmiş ve ekfrasisin tarihi boyunca çeşitli değişiklikler geçirerek üç ana dönemden geçmiş olduğu kanıtlanmaya çalışılmıştır. Biçembilimsel analizin yanında tarihi ve edebi gelişmeler de göz önünde bulundurularak şiirler ve dönemler birbirleriyle eşleştirilerek, bu köklü geleneğin temel özellikleri, şiirsel etkisi ve paragonal eğilimleri incelenmiştir. Sonuç olarak ekfrasisin Antik çağlardan günümüze kadar çeşitli gelişmeler ve değişiklikler gösterdiği ve bu bulguların hem ekfrasis kavramı hem de şiir tarihi hakkında önemli ipuçları verdiği kanısına varılmıştır.
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
If I could paint a picture of those without whose contributions this work would not have been possible, I would need to paint a crowded Brueghel-like painting and that painting would not be complete without a smiling image of my advisor, Asst. Prof.
Dr. Nazan Tutaş. I am grateful for her support, patience, understanding, and above all, kind-heartedness. I would draw Prof. Dr. Belgin Elbir, as a motherly figure cherishing the young, and Asst. Prof. Dr. Trevor Hope, as a figure in contemplation sitting by a river. Without their help, God knows where this work would have led. I would draw the committee members, Prof. Dr. Sema Ege, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lerzan
Gültekin, and Prof. Dr. Ufuk Ege Uygur, around a long wooden table talking about something important. I thank them all for their understanding and kind suggestions.
Then I would paint Asst. Prof. Dr. Mustafa Şahiner (with a torch in his hand) along with my friends and colleagues at DTCF (Dr. Fahri Öz, Asst. Prof. Dr. Sıla Şenlen, and all) as figures holding out a basket full of cigarettes, coffee beans, and candies.
My friend Taner Can would occupy a great space and I would draw him as a strong man riding a chariot, probably running away from me. He has been kind (and patient) enough to listen to my grumbles and lengthy speeches. I owe him so much.
My family (Ergün Güzel, Ayşe Güzel, Bülent Sait Ulu, Mükerrem Ulu, Gürkan Ulu,
Bilkan Ulu, Erbil Güzel, Ümit Güzel, Elif Güzel, Erdem Güzel, and all other members of the Güzels and the Ulus) would be drawn as birds building a huge nest. I
viii
thank them all for evethything they have provided for me and they all deserve a big hug.
However the central figures of the painting would be my wife, Çiğdem, and my daughter, Dora. I would draw them as rain clouds – they know I hate sunshine. They pour rain; water feeds the ground; and the earth smells good. They give life and meaning to everything I do. I do not need to paint myself in the picture for they stand for everything I am – for we are one and the picture is complete.
ix
TABLE of CONTENTS
Cover Pages ….………... Cover Pages
PhD Committee Page ….………... i
Dilekçe ….………... ii
Abstract ….………... iii
Özet ….………... v
Acknowledgements ….………... vii
Table of Contents ….………... ix
Introduction ….………... 1
1.1. Ekphrasis: Commencement and Definitions ….………... 5
1.2. A Brief History of the Ekphrastic Tradition ….………... 13
1.3. “Stilvs Virvm Argvit:” Stylistics ….………... 24
1.4. Stylistics and Ekphrasis ….………... 38
1.5. Thesis ….………... 43
Chapter I: “Ut Pictura Poesis” ….………... 48
2.1. “Ut Pictura Poesis:” The Nature of Ekphrasis ….………... 49
2.2. The Sisterhood: Sisters or Antagonists? ….………... 62
2.3. Mimesis and Ekphrasis ….………... 75
2.4. Modern Theories on Ekphrasis ….………... 83 x
2.5. “Ce n‟est avec des Idées… C‟est avec des
Mots:” Ekphrasis, Ekphrastic Tradition,
Stylistics, and Theorems ….………... 107
Chapter II: The Ekphrastic Debut: Ekphrasis until the Romantics ….………... 122
3.1. Early Examples: Ekphrasis from Homer to the
Renaissance ….………... 124
3.2. Enter Ekphrasis: Ekphrasis in England ….………... 143
3.3. Painter Poems: “„Paint this, Draw that‟” ….………... 156
3.4. Ben Jonson: “The Mind of the Frontispiece to a
Book” ….………... 162
3.5. Richard Lovelace: “To My Worthy Friend Mr.
Peter Lilly” ….………... 167
3.6. The Ekphrastic Inheritance ….………... 175
Chapter III: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty:”
Ekphrasis in the Romantic and Victorian Ages ….………... 184
4.1. Sisters Re-United: From the Romantic into the
Victorian ….………... 185
4.2. “Fruitless Task to Paint:” Wordsworth‟s “Peele
Castle” ….………... 197
4.3. The Urn of the Irony: Keats‟s “Ode on a
Grecian Urn” ….………... 208
4.4. Shelley: The Medusa Paradox ….………... 217 xi
4.5. The Victorian Age and the Pre-Raphaelites ….………... 225
4.6. Titian‟s “Venetian,” Rosetti‟s “Giorgione” ….………... 229
4.7. Browning: “I Gave Commands” ….………... 237
4.8. The Legacy: The Tradition Continues ….………... 243
Chapter IV: Modern Ekphrasis ….………... 247
5.1. The Ekphrastic Big-Bang ….………... 249
5.2. Auden: “Museé des Deux Arts” ….………... 258
5.3. William C. Williams: “Man Cannot Think
Without Images” ….………... 271
5.4. Derek Mahon: “The Hunt by Sight” ….………... 281
5.5. John Ashbery and the Mirror Effect ….………... 288
5.6. The New Ekphrastic Voice ….………... 299
Conclusion ….………... 302
6.1. Something New for Something Old ….………... 303
6.2. The First Ekphrastic Phase ….………... 310
6.3. The Second Ekphrastic Phase ….………... 314
6.4. The Third Ekphrastic Phase ….………... 318
6.5. Conclusion ….………... 320
Appendices ….………... 322
Illustrations ….………... 359
Works Cited ….………... 406
To my daughter, Dora
INTRODUCTION
Beginning from the second half of the twentieth century, there has been a growing interest in and tendency towards interaction and co-operation in different fields of study, both in arts and in sciences. During such a period of artistic and scientific encounters, hydro-geologists have begun working with mining engineers and astronomers, while graphic artists have felt the need to co-work with computer engineers. The interrelation have also reached across the fields when literary critics consulted quantum physics to learn more about the reflexive and complex structure of multi-layered postmodern novels, especially those of the second half of the twentieth century. The interdisciplinary fondness and the twentieth-century inclination to favour pastiche, interaction, the trans-textual and the multi-referential have regenerated the interest in an old artistic tradition, ekphrasis. With over fifty thousand surviving examples since the antiquity (Bruhn 3) 1, ekphrasis is an ancient convention that combines and intersperses painting with poetry in its broadest sense.
As a literary expression, it allows the invigoration of the silent image of paintings and sculptures by way of poetic language and presents “two imaginations at work” at the same time (Bosveld).
1 Bruhn‟s statistics is primarily based on ekphrastic poems in Latin and English. 2
Although the entry of ekphrasis has been removed from many contemporary dictionaries except for Oxford English Dictionary and some of the literary terms dictionaries (Marsico and Capa 205; Bosveld), the revitalization of ekphrasis particularly in the last two decades has produced a new way of understanding ekphrasis along with a considerable number of poetry collections, theoretical articles and books. In Hollander‟s words, “the gap between word and image has been the subject of a good deal of contemporary theoretical exploration” (The Gazer’s 6).
Laura M. Sager Eidt, in her 2008 book, Writing and Filming the Painting: Ekphrasis in Literature and Film, reminds us that a search for the word “ekphrasis” in MLA bibliography results in 468 sources, 177 of which have been produced in the last five years (9). Subsequently it has been noted that over 50.000 ekphrastic poems have survived since Homer‟s time (Bruhn 3).
The recent interest in ekphrasis, therefore, has ended up in a spectacular number of literary and academic practices. Especially in the twentieth-century and particularly in the United States and continental Europe2, thanks to the works of distinguished scholars and art critics like Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Erwin Panofsky, E.H.
Gombrich, Jacques Derrida, Nelson Goodman, James Heffernan, Jean Hagstrum,
W.J.T. Mitchell, John Hollander, Murray Krieger, and Peter Wagner, ekphrasis has been rediscovered. The study of ekphrasis has become so popular that it has almost become a literary “industry” (Scott “Shelley” 316; Heffernan Museum 1). Terry
Blackhawk puts emphasis on the popularity of ekphrasis among poets of the
2 Many of the academic sources on ekphrasis are in English. However, there are also a great number of sources in German, Spanish, Italian, French and Latin and some of them have not been translated into English, yet. Therefore, this study has particularly focused on sources in English or English translations of foreign sources except for some French and Latin sources. 3
twentieth century time by claiming that “an astonishing variety” of ekphrastic poetry can be found in the work of contemporary poets (3)3. In addition to the quantity of ekphrastic works, it should be noted that much of the twentieth-century poetic industry is comparative because it is in the nature of ekphrasis to co-work with visual arts, archaeology, mythology, history, philology, philosophy and, of course, literature. Tina Rothenberg, for instance, the former director of VALA (The Society of Visual Arts and Language Arts) in California, states that they felt the need to contact jazz musicians, ceramists, bookmakers, sculptors, painters and even PIXAR animation creators for their programme about ekphrastic practices and galleries
(155). The reason behind the development of such co-operation between literature and arts, or poetry and painting in particular – an essential point that will be evaluated in the next chapter – could be explained with subsequent and frequent encounters between the word and the image. The present day is usually considered as an “image-driven time” (Gary Shapiro 13), where the verbal is mixed up with the visual and it is quite difficult to differentiate which is which, or more precisely, which depends on or springs from which. W.J.T. Mitchell comments on this
“messed-up” status by saying that “there is no doubt that many people think… that distinction between media, or between verbal and visual images, are being undone”
(Mitchell “Showing” 172). Consequently, it is almost imperative to revisit and reconsider ekphrasis, one of the oldest rhetorical and literary traditions, within present forms and thoughts. In Peter Wagner‟s words, “we need more studies, then, in both visual poetics and ekphrasis to explore those fascinating works that combine
3 Blackhawk focuses on contemporary American poets Mark Strand and Charles Simiz who had devoted an entire volume of poetry to Edward Hopper and Joseph Cornell respectively (3-7). He also recalls a number of artistic activities organised by poets, painters or museums. Some of the recent organizations in the United States have been listed by Kathy Walsh-Piper: Chicago “Looking to Write/Writing to See;” Detroit “Students Writing about Art;” San Francisco “The Poets in the Galleries;” Santa Barbara “Poetry Month;” Washington DC “Art around the Corner” (205-207). 4
visual art and prose fiction” (18) and to acquire insight to the ekphrastic conventions and practices.
Following Wagner‟s suggestion, this study aims to cover the ekphrastic tradition in
English to find out more about this ancient and established convention within modern perspectives by way of stylistic analysis. The final section of this chapter is going to restate the scope, the method, and the thematic concerns of this study. But before re-introducing and explaining the thesis of this study, it is vital to remember some of the important points about ekphrasis such as its nature, history, and usage as well as the key concepts of Stylistics and stylistic analysis.
This chapter, therefore, aims to introduce ekphrasis, followed by a brief history of the term since it is going to play an essential role to recall the origins of the tradition.
However, much of the conceptual and theorertical background of the ekphrastic problem will be discussed in the next chapter apart from a preliminary groundwork about Stylistics, the theoretical method of the dissertation, which will be presented in this chapter. In other words, this chapter, which is intended to be an introduction to the introduction to the much complicated issue of ekphrasis, prepares the ground for the ekphrastic theories that have been disputed since antiquity and initiates the thesis of the dissertation.
5
1.1. Ekphrasis: Commencement and Definitions
The word ekphrasis (also spelled ecphrasis)4 derives from the Greek root phrazien, meaning “to tell, to pronounce, or to declare.” With the prefix ek-5, meaning “from” or “out of,” the verb ekphrazein literally means “to speak out, to describe, to tell someone about something, to depict vividly.” Before ekphrasis became a school exercise of rhetoric during the fourth and third centuries (BC), its first appearance as a word was in the writings attributed to Dionysius of Halicarnasus (Wagner 12)6. As an infinitive (ekphrazein), it first appears in Demetrius, in his On Style in the first century (BC), meaning “to decorate” or “to adorn” (Krieger Ecphrasis 7-9;
Heffernan Museum 1). However, the term ekphrasis, as it is understood today, is first mentioned by the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos (also spelled Keos) (ca. 556-467
BC) in Plutarch‟s De Gloria Atheniensium7 (Lessing xii; Harvey 1; Heffernan 1-2;
Méndez-Ramirez 24). Ceos describes ekphrasis as “poema pictura loquens, picture poema silens,” roughly translated as “painting is mute poetry and poetry is speaking picture” (qtd. in Méndez-Ramirez 24) and this dictum of “mute painting–speaking poetry,” along with Horace‟s proverbial ut pictura poesis, became the motto of the relationship between the verbal and the visual.
As for the modern definition of ekphrasis, it should first be mentioned that there are two fundamental approaches. The first one is a more general yet more inclusive definition of the term. In this broader sense of the term, ekphrasis is regarded as any
4 Many of the contemporary sources like Mitchell, Heffernan, and Hagstrum use the original spelling of the word, ekphrasis, except for Hollander and Krieger, who prefer to spell the word as ecphrasis. Throughout the study, rather than the Latinized version (ecphrasis), the original Greek spelling (ekphrasis) will be used. 5 Wagner also mentions the possibilities “ec-“ and “ex-“ and argues for the use of Greek spelling ekphrasis (12). 6 Wagner is probably referring to the root phrazien because otherwise it would be anachronistic to meet the word ekphrazein after it had been put into practice by the Greek rhetoricians as late as the fifth century (BC). 7 Translated as On the Glory of the Athens. In Chapter 3, Plutarch devotes a considerable amount of space to Ceos and other the Greek poets of the third and second centuries (BC). Graham argues that the idea of “mute poetry, speaking picture” was “already commonplace” because it is unlikely to come across such a strong and well- established idea of ekphrasis in a book that mentions ekphrasis for the first time (467-8). 6
detailed description, literary or non-literary, of any object, artistic or non-artistic but this definition, usually regarded as the “ancient” one, has not been in use since the
Middle Ages (Verdonk “Painting” 233). An example to this is found in
Hermogenes‟s Progymnasma, where he treats ekphrasis as “an account in detail… of persons, actions, times, places, seasons and many other things” (qtd. in Baldwin 35).
The older sense of the word8, in time, had been narrowed down to graphikês ergôn ekphrasis, poetic description of works of visual art, and this second and more precise approach had been shaped by poets, critics, art historians, and painters in time. In its modern sense, which is going to be adopted throughout this study, ekphrasis is attributed to poetry and its spatial and temporal relation to the visual arts.
Commenting on the dramatic change of the perception, John Hollander states
[Ekphrasis] has been until the last decade or so a technical term used by classicists and historians of art to mean a verbal description of a work of art, of a scene as rendered, in the work of art, or even of a fictional scene the description of which unacknowledgedly derives from descriptions of scenes. In recent literary theory, considerations of ecphrasis have concerned the ways in which space and time are involved in the various mutual figurations of actuality, text, and picture (The Gazer’s 5).
Defining ekphrasis within the verbal-visual, or rather word-image, relation seems to be a problematic issue because there are too many different definitions with minor, sometimes major, differences. Referring to the change of formulations especially from the sixteenth-century to the twentieth-century, James Heffernan states that
“begotten nearly two thousand years ago by ancient Greek rhetoricians and lately
8 Some of the recent dictionaries, such as Penguin Dictionary of Literature and the first edition of Oxford Classical Dictionary, still hold on to the broader definition and regard ekphrasis as any extended and detailed literary description of any object, real or imaginary. In the second edition of Oxford Classical Dictionary, however, a more specific entry has replaced the former: “the rhetorical description of a work of art” (Hammond and Scullard 377). 7
rediscovered by literary theorists, the word ekphrasis has been variously used and variously defined” (“Entering” 262). Some of the popular and “canonized” literary definitions of the term will be presented in the following pages to conclude with yet another all-encompassing, comprehensive and innovative definition of the term in the modern sense along with an etymological suggestion on the usage of the word.
One of the most acknowledged definitions belongs to Heffernan9, who states that
“the definition must be sharp enough to identify a distinguishable body of literature and yet also elastic enough to reach from classicism to postmodernism,” describes ekphrasis briefly as “…the verbal representation of visual representation” (Museum
3)10. As seen on, Heffernan puts the emphasis on the act of representing, the core of mimesis. In fact, he further expresses that ekphrastic practice should be representational because it “represents representation itself” (ibid. 4). Heffernan‟s simple and clear-cut definition has been adopted by many critics such as Mitchell
(Picture 151-152), Scott (“The Rhetoric” 301), Krieger (The Play 110), Kurman (1),
Schmeling (80), Bergmann (2), DuBois (3), Blackhawk (1), and Dundas (15). It could even be claimed that the proceeding definitions have essentially followed, imitated, and sometimes modified Heffernan‟s definition11. A copycat definition, for instance, reads “verbal re-creations of the visual artwork” (Wagner 11; Carrier
Principles 8, 104). John Graham thinks that ekphrasis is “essentially a rhetorical device in which an object formed in one art becomes the matter for another” (467)
9 Before defining the term, Heffernan first puts emphasis on his disagreement with Krieger, who considers ekphrasis as something that freezes time in space, and with Wendy Steiner, who claims that ekphrasis aspires the “pregnant moment” in texts (Steiner 13-14). Further discussions on the time-space and “pregnant moment” problems will be presented in the following chapter. 10 Original emphasis. 11 Hefferenan‟s definition has become so established that some of the sources do not even refer to or quote Heffernan‟s book although they use the same definition as Heffernan has formulated it such as Frederic Burwick‟s Mimesis and Its Romantic Reflections (107). 8
while Siglind Bruhn calls it “a description of art or a work of art in various poetic styles” (15). For Marsico and Capa ekphrasis denotes “responding intellectually and emotionally to art” (204) and for Braida and Prieri “ekphrasis explores the interrelationship between the verbal and the visual, and the enduring legacy of the ekphrastic tradition” (18). Some of the definitions focus on the ekphrastic function to create a visual image in words before the listener‟s or audience‟s inner eye. Scott, for instance, claims that “formally speaking, ekphrasis is any description which brings a person, a place, or thing visually before the mind‟s eye” (“Shelley” 315). Similarly
A.S. Becker believes that ekphrasis has been treated “as a symbol of a fundamental goal of poetry: an attempt to represent in words the physical presence, the natural resemblance to its referent, and the still moment of the visual arts” (5). While A.M
Sumi defines ekphrasis as a “precise description, regardless of its object… [to achieve] pictorial vividness… before the listener‟s mental eye” (7), Piltz and Åström, correspondingly claim that “ekphrasis is a descriptive discourse that clearly brings before our eyes the things, persons or actions depicted… [It] is a word-picture”
(50)12.
Critics with Linguistics origins prefer to concentrate on linguistic, semiotic, and stylistic aspects of ekphrasis. Michael Riffaterre, whose works on linguistics and semiotics have received much appreciation in the last two decades, conceives ekphrasis as “…transfer of a sign from one level of discourse to another” (Semiotics
47). For Spitzer, likewise, ekphrasis is a reconstruction of a new sign system reproduced “through the medium of words” (72). Becker draws attention to the
12 See Appendix I for more definitions of ekphrasis. 9
textuality of the concept when he treats ekphrasis as a kind of “mise en abîme, a miniature replica of a text embedded within that text; a textual part reduplicating, reflecting, or mirroring (one or more than one aspect of) the textual whole” (4).
While ekphrasis is a “mise en abîme” for Becker, it is an “intertextual mimesis” for
Smith, who believes that the two essential qualities of ekphrasis are textual correspondence and coherence (22). Peter Verdonk, too, who is one of the rare scholars to have studied ekphrasis within stylistic perspective, defines the concept as an amalgamation of and communication between two sign systems and “a sub-genre of poetry addressing existent or imaginary works of art” (“Painting” 231).
The emphasis on the semiotic, textual, and structural levels of the issue in the above definitions is quite understandable. However, regarding all the accounts presented so far, an essential but missing point should be kept in mind while defining the term.
Nearly all of the canonized definitions need to be reconsidered, and maybe reconstructed, with the aesthetic qualities of the observed object as well as the end product. It is clear that ekphrasis suggests the recreation of a target object only if the target object has artistic value. No ekphrastic poem has dealt with a mundane, invaluable article; whether it is an ancient urn, a stylishly designed armour, or a da
Vinci painting, the subjects of ekphrastic poetry are inventions of artistry or craftsmanship. Besides, viewer‟s involvement in the artistic aura of the object is still another artistic act. Louis Marin, who believes that contemplating before the picture produces great feelings created by the interaction “between the painting and the contemplative eye” (Sublime 163, 173), describes the ekphrastic process from his own experiences: 10
I have often had the feeling while going through the rooms of a museum that the paintings were awaiting the visit of a gaze that might be mine… The paintings, hanging from the picture rail, have no other being, no other purpose, no other reason except to show themselves. They exhaust reality in this ceremonial display… Let an eye suddenly alight on the painted surface: then to the painting is offered the grace of a return to its place of origin, and the sweetness of a return to peace in a site of which it retained the secret memory… A painting implies a contact, one might say „I show only myself, I offer only myself, I am an offering of colours and forms only if you see me, only if in a prolonged gaze you give me back what I give you to see…[by] invocation, convocation, provocation‟” (Sublime 171-2).
Marin calls this meta-artistic phenomenon taking place between the art object and its viewer “Je Ne Sais Quoi” – a “remarkable representation of the mechanism of a work of art” (Sublime 209-18)13. A similar term explaining this aesthetic exchange is introduced by the beat artist William Burroughs. “The third mind,” which could be explained by a new aesthetic experience that is brought about by looking at a painting either by the poet or by the viewer, refers to “a state to see something new”
(qtd. in Foster and Prevallet xv)14. Both Marin‟s and Burroughs‟s points to consider the aesthetic qualities of works of art and ekphrastic poetry springing from those works of art are important while dealing with ekphrasis. It is, therefore, safer to extend Heffernan‟s compressed and ample definition by stating that ekphrasis (at
13 “Je Ne Sais Quoi” (“I do not know what” [translation mine]). Marin owes his term to the French painter La Rochefoucauld, who had never used but implied it in the 1670s. Marin argues for the connection of the term to Montaigne‟s “Que sais-je?” (“What do I know?” [translation mine]), another almost unidentifiable term, like Marin‟s favourite concepts sublime and phantasia. He states that it is possible to apply “Je Ne Sais Quoi,” along with sublime, to all styles, discourses, and genres although it is applicable best in painting. Marin puts emphasis on the singularity of the observing “I,” with a pun on the word (“eye”), while the observer uses his virtual knowledge or schema (with another pun on the Greek skhēma, meaning “figure” and “knowledge”) as he examines the art object (Sublime 209-18). Another popular pun used in ekphrasis (in Marin and elsewhere) is made on the word Greek “icon” (The root ichnos literally means “print” and at the same time “object”). 14 “The third mind” is actually the title of one of William Burrough‟s books, in which he deals with “cut-ups,” basically a sort of pastiche that involves putting seemingly irrelevant narratives together to form up a new one (Foster and Prevallet xv-xvi). 11
least literary ekphrasis in its modern sense) is the artistic (or aesthetic) verbal representation (re-creation, or re-expression) of visual works of art.
There is need to bring forward one final essential point apart from the definition of ekphrasis. By now, it is known that the word ekphrasis derives from the verb ekphrazein, which means to depict and relate in detail. The word has directly been transferred in its Greek, un-Romanized form by the majority of researchers and, as it has been explained above, ekphrasis (as a literary term) has been limited to the verbal representation of visual representation with artistic value. Besides, the word ekphrazein has also been adopted through its rhetorical, pictorial and depictive sense.
It is, however, interesting to note that the scholars studying ekphrasis have not considered using ekphrazein in its original type of the word; that is as a verb.
Regarding the fact that many Greek-originated words and/or terminology have been directly transferred into English lexicology without loosing their etymological value such as allēgorō [n] (allegory [n], allegorical [adj]), analogia [n] (analogy [n], analogical [adj]), basis [n] (basis [n], basic [adj], base (on) [v], basically [adv]), and theōria [n] (theory [n], theorem [n], theorise [v], theoretical [adj]), a verb form of the word ekphrasis would be quite beneficial. Indeed, the verb ekphrazein, for an unknown reason, has only been adopted either as a noun (ekphrasis) or as an adjective (ekphrastic), and not in its original usage as a verb. It is my firm belief that, although it does not exist in the OED for the time being, it is possible, practical, and commonsensical to use a Latinized verb as ekphrasize in order to emphasize the act of representation, rather than to attach the words ekphrasis and ekphrastic to
Anglicanized verbs like “compose” or “write.” Therefore, throughout this study, the 12
newly invented verb ekphrasize is going to be used extensively to simply mean “to represent in words” or “to write ekphrastic poetry (or any kind of text) by focusing on a work of art.”15
15 Although it is possible to use the verb ekphrasize as an intransitive verb as in “I think Wordsworth ekphrasized whenever he saw a painting” (meaning that Wordsworth was easily carried away by paintings and was eager to write ekphrastic poetry whenever he saw a painting), the transitive form of the verb (preferably with the combinatory preposition “on”) would also be rather useful in order to differentiate the object of the verb (a painting, a statue, a building &c.) and to clarify the meaning and antecedents in a sentence with several pronouns as in “Wordsworth ekphrasized on “The Peele Castle” and expressed his mourning for his lost brother in it.” 13
1. 2. A Brief History of the Ekphrastic Tradition
Sumi believes that ekphrasis, after a long period of time, has been made popular by the writings of Leo Spitzer, whose “The „Ode to a Grecian Urn‟ or Content VS
Metagrammar” first published in 1955, restored ekphrasis in its place in scholarly discussions (12). However, although Spitzer‟s essay has inspired a generation of scholars to revisit the tradition, this re-visitation was only a linguistic one. In other words, if his essay has influenced researchers, as it surely has, many of those researchers were the followers of the structuralist wave of the 50s and 60s. In fact, ekphrasis, both as a rhetorical device and as a literary concept, has been a subject of literary criticism almost since it was first brought to life in a variety of texts and forms. Even though, as Moffitt suggests, much of what we might call “ekphrastic” have either somehow disappeared or been destroyed due to the anti-iconography movements in the Middle Ages (41), the remaining sources and poems, as it has been pointed above, is almost more than enough.
Ekphrasis, which “…has been with us for nearly three thousand years” (Heffernan
Museum 7), is a tradition that has come from Homer down to Ovid, from
Shakespeare down to Romantics and D.G. Rosetti, and from W.H. Auden down to
William Carlos Williams. At the beginning, however, ekphrasis was far from being a purely literary convention. It is clear that the earliest function of ekphrasis, as detailed commentary or description, was merely rhetorical and educational
(Karwoska 45; Becker 2; Piltz and Åström 50-51; Marsico and Capa 214). The first discussions are found in Greek handbooks of rhetorical exercises called progymnasmata. Only four of the progymnasmata have survived from the Hellenistic 14
period to the present: those of Aelius Theon‟s (first-century BC), Hermogenes‟s (of
Tarsus) (second-century BC), Aphthonius‟s (of Antioch) (fifth-century BC), and
Nikolaus‟s (of Myra) (fifth-century BC). Despite its popularity, ekphrasis is rarely mentioned in these handbooks though they provide the first relatively full discussions
(Becker 24; Piltz and Åström 50; Marsico and Capa 215)16. Progymnasmata present ekphrasis as a preliminary rhetorical exercise. They were uninterrupted narratives such as stories from mythology or history and were exercised to teach students how to narrate events and to talk eloquently. Susan Karwoska also notes that ekphrasis was probably used to keep memory fresh (45-46). It was widely used in courts by counsellors for the defence to convince the juries about the innocence of their clients.
Verdonk, while explaining the ancient function of ekphrasis, recalls the account of a counsellor who argues against the accused and delivers an inspiring speech about a metaphorical wild lion that had been let free and then killed everybody in the town, including those who let it free, and how the jury were impressed by the liveliness and vividness of his recounting only to indict the accused on the crime committed
(“Painting” 232).
As a common feature of the Greek and Latin literature, ekphrasis is observed in many sources in the form of detailed narrative about artistic works such as,
Euripides‟s Electra, Ion and Phoenissae, Apollonius‟s Argonautica, Theocritus‟s
Idylls, Moschus‟s Europa, Heroda‟s Mimes, Naevius‟s Bellum Punicum, Virgil‟s
Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid, Ovid‟s Metamorphoses, Longus‟s Daphins and
Chloe, Achilles Tatius‟s Leucippe and Clitophon, and Claudian‟s Panegyrics and Du
16 George Kennedy, in his Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors, provides a good overview of the progymnasmata (54-73). The unique reference book on the progymnasmata is, however, Leonardus Spengel‟s Rhetores Graeci (Vol.2, 1854). 15
Raptu Prosepinae17. Being the earliest literary examples of ekphrasis, most of them were about goblets, urns, vases, chests, cloaks, weapons, armours, and architectural ornaments (Marsico and Capa204). These writings were either semi-critical appreciations of ekphrastic styles adopted by rhetoricians or lyric ekphrastic poems
(or plays). Among such a wide body of literature, however, there are two indispensable works that have never lost their popularity and importance. One of them is Ars Poetica, Horace‟s oft-quoted lengthy verse-essay, and the other is
Homer‟s The Iliad, often acknowledged as the ultimate model of ekphrasis. More about Horace and Homer will be presented in the following chapters but, throughout the course of concise history of the tradition, it is fundamental to keep in mind that
Horace‟s proverbial statement, ut pictura poesis (“as is painting, so is poetry”)18, has become the motto for ekphrastic practices while the account on the Shield of Achilles in the Iliad has been regarded as the locus classicus of ekphrasis (Haberer 1). As the earliest known ekphrastic example in western literature, the Shield of Achilles produced by Hephaestus (The Iliad, Book XVIII), is “as old as writing” for
Heffernan (9), while The Iliad demonstrates the way(s) how ekphrasis could be exercised in verse. Similarly, because there had not been an Ars Pictura or Ars
Theoretica, Horace‟s work, through analogies between poetry, drama, painting, music, dance (or arts in general), sets the fashion of ekphrastic criticism both for poets and painters, and could be traced in almost every piece of literary criticism from the Middle Ages, through the enlightenment, to the present.
17 See Appendix II for more on Greek and Latin sources of ekphrasis. 18 Translation mine. 16
Since both Horace and Homer inspired the writings in the Middle Ages and early
Renaissance, it is not surprising to find out that the discussions on canonical elements of rhetoric (inventio, dispositio, elocutio and the like) in the works of later generations of poets, critics and art historians like Lucian, Philostratus, Callistratus,
Virgil, Vida, Daniello, Alberti, Robortello, Matthieu de Vendôme, Fracastoro,
Minturno, Geoffroi de Vinsauf, Diderot, Dante and Chaucer. Among these literary figures, Matthieu de Vendôme (Ars Versificatoria, ca. 1175) and Geoffroi de Vinsauf
(Poetria Nova, ca. 1210) were particularly prominent as far as theoretical points about ekphrasis are concerned. Both Matthieu de Vendôme and Geoffroi de Vinsauf were influenced to a great extend by Cicero‟s De inventione and Rhetorica ad
Herennium and favoured the very detailed descriptions from head to foot that Cicero had defended (and Philostratus and Callistratus extensively had practiced). Many of these writings, though not very aesthetically, were interested in either comparing plastic arts with poetry or using ekphrasis as a literary device for long descriptions or narratives in allegorical and lyric poetry. The idea of narrative description was maintained in painting, as well. The “mania for allegory” (in painting) and “mania for description” (in poetry) (Lessing xv, 5) continued through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In 1435, when Leon Battista Alberti published his influential
Della Pittura, in which he re-introduced the inventio and elocutio issues in painting and poetry, ekphrasis became once more a central subject of literary criticism. This was followed by three essential criticisms: Luigi Daniello‟s La Poetica (1536), which strictly follows Horace‟s well-known antithesis, Ludovico Dolce‟s Dialogo della Pittura, which argues for the idea that the elementary function of ekphrasis is to make audience see and hear (Graham 469), and C.A. Dufresnoy‟s De Arte Graphica 17
(1667), the initial sentence of which is directly taken from Horace (“ut pictura poesis erit”).
As the sources from the antiquity were translated into vernaculars, the handbooks from ancient Greece and the Latin-oriented criticism of the Middle Ages became popular during the Renaissance (Lessing, 5-6; Becker 4; Graham 469). The preliminary rhetorical exercises of the progymnasmata, chiefly descriptio locorum
(detailed description of cities, places, monuments) and descriptio temporum (detailed description of places in different times), as observed in the classical rhetorical examples from Virgil, Ariosto, Ovid, and Philostratus, were adopted by many writers. One point worth mentioning at this stage is that unlike the large body of literary and aesthetic criticism on ekphrasis, little genuinely ekphrastic poetry remains from the pre-Renaissance periods19. However, during the Renaissance and afterwards, an increasing number of ekphrastic poetry were composed and the idea of
“ut pictura poesis”, “[the] very fiery particle of Renaissance,” became dominant
(Witemeyer 33); in W.G. Howard‟s words, ekphrasis began to be considered as the
“witty antithesis” of the age (qtd. in Méndez-Ramirez 24). Culminated with the idea of harmony and decorum, descriptive passages and verses gained importance.
Among the important ekphrastic poetry of the time one may count Shakespeare‟s
“Rape of Lucrece,” Castiglione‟s “Cleopatra,” Spenser‟s Faerie Qveene, Garcilaso de la Vega‟s Eglogas, Guillaume de Lorris‟s Le Roman de la Rose, and some descriptive narrations in other Renaissance lyric poetry (Graham 469-70).
19 Ovid‟s Metamorphoses, Dante‟s Divine Comedy, some parts of Chaucer‟s allegories [House of Fame and the Canterbury Tales], a number of lyrics and idylls from Tasso‟s Gerusalemme Liberata, and some minor narrative poetry from various Latin and Italian poets are among the exceptions to this claim. 18
The Renaissance, then, is the period when ekphrasis was seriously taken into consideration in England. The interest in the subject, it is safe to claim, reached its peak in 1695, when Dufresnoy‟s De Arte Graphica was translated into English by
John Dryden. At length, the idea that painting and poetry share natural ties was introduced to English literary circles and the first appearance of the word “ekphrasis” in English in 1715 is noted as “a plain declaration of interpretation of anything”
(Marsico and Capa 204). Although there are traces of detailed ekphrastic narratives and depictions in Chaucer for example, the first definition of ekphrasis in England recalls the older definition of ekphrasis. However the tradition quickly shifts in the centuries to come and a great number of poetry and criticism is produced during the
Restoration, the Romantic Age, and the Augustan Age, more or less simultaneously with the continental Europe. In the meantime, the growing interest in carmen figuratum, figure (or pattern) poetry, or more commonly known as emblem (or emblematic) poetry, in which the poem on the page mimics the typographical image of the poet‟s subject, emerged as an important resource for ekphrastic poetry.
Affected by the discovery of Egyptian hieroglyphs and obelisks that have been transported to Rome, the depictions of painters like Poussin and Lorrain, who depicted scenes from poets and mythological stories, especially from Tasso, and the works of Christoforo Buodelmonti (Hieroglyphica of Horapollo, 1419), Leone
Battista Alberti (Della Pictura), Francesco Colonna (Dream of Poliphilo, 1499),
Valeriano (Hieroglyphica), and especially of Andrea Alciati (Emblematum Liber,
1531) and of Francis Quarles (Hieroglyphik of the Life of Man, 1638; Emblems,
1639), poets showed interest in the relationship between image and word in the form of emblematic and ekphrastic poetry as observed in George Herbert‟s “Easter 19
Wings,” “The Altar,” “Sighs and Grones,” and “Heaven;” Robert Herrick‟s ““Upon
His Departure Hence;” Dryden‟s “A Song for St. Cecilia‟s Day, 1687” and
“Alexander‟s Feast;” and Shakespeare‟s “Rape of Lucrece” (Ormerod and Wortham xxvii; Ulu “New Voices” 165; Brooks 85)20. Commenting on the interest in “word- paints” (Graham 417), Graham states that “The hugely popular emblem books – over 3000 editions were issued from 1531 to 1700 – can be considered a genre that demonstrates the view of poetry and painting as „sister-arts‟” (470).
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed a drastic shift in the awareness of ekphrasis. Abbé Jean Babtiste du Bos‟s Réflexions critiques sur la Poésie et la
Peinture (1719), Abbé Batteux‟s Les Beaux Arts Réduits à un Meme Principe (1746),
William Gilpin‟s Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty, On Picturesque Travel, and
On Sketching Landscape (1792), Uvedale Price‟s An Essay on the Picturesque, As
Compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful; and on the Use of Studying Pictures, for the Purpose of Improving Real Landscape (1794), Richard Payne Knight‟s The
Lanscape (1794), and An Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste (1805) brought about a new understanding to the relation between verbal and visual. The developments in music and optics also resulted in a new formation of harmony, perspective, and musicality in literature21. Praz and Davidson think that, thanks to the
20 Leonardo da Vinci, Mantegna, Bellini, Durer, Perriere, Corrozet, Montenary (predominantly religious emblems), Masurice Scéne (Delie), Beza, Reusner, J.M.W. Turner, Hogart, and Whitney are among other influential writers and painters as far as the emblem convention is concerned (Ormerod and Wortham xxvii; Ulu “New Voices” 165-166). This tradition, which is also found in Greek (Simias of Rhodes, ca. 300 BC), Persian and Chinese poetries (Graham 471), required that each object, place, book, person, or occasion should be symbolized with a minimalistic and representative drawing, often accompanied with a Latin motto. The phenomenon, as it will be explained in Chapter I, is one of the essential and rare instances where word and image intermix. Other well-known examples of emblematic poetry are Mallarmé‟s “Un coup de Dés,” Dylan Thomas‟s “Vision and Prayer,” John Hollander‟s “Types of Shape,” and some poems of Blake, G.B. Rosetti, War Poetry, Pound, Joyce, e.e.cummings. 21 Walter Pater claims that all writing of the time was “toward the condition of music” (211). The innovations and developments in music and optics (especially Newton‟s Opticks, 1704; inventions like Louis Bertrand Castel‟s 20
expansion of ekphrastic studies, “ut pictura poesis” had become “the golden rule… of nineteenth-century narrative” (29). Correspondingly, unlike the mechanical word- image relation in the Renaissance and the purely philosophical criticism in the
Middle Ages, ekphrasis had turned out to be an aesthetic problem requiring the imaginative involvement of its audience (and creator) and promoted both accidental and deliberate mixing of the arts (Witemeyer 34; Graham 472-476).
It is agreed, however, that the most prominent and powerful criticism of the age belongs to Ephraim Gotthold Lessing. First published in 1766, Lessing‟s Laocoön:
An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry22, which is going to be discussed at length in the next chapter, drew the boundary between poetry and painting as it had never been drawn (Hagstrum 9-10; Mitchell Picture 106; Fort 70; Burwick
“Ekphrasis” 98; Méndez-Ramirez 24-5; Lessing xxv). Edward Allen McCormick,
Lessing‟s translator, introduces Lessing as “…the first in modern times to define the distinctiveness of the spheres of art and poetry and at the same time to penetrate deeply into the nature of these two arts” (xxv). Lessing‟s commentary on the limits of verbal and plastic arts soon became an authoritative text all over Europe. In
England, too, due to the fresh discussions Laocoön had initiated and the change in the reception of ekphrasis, a number of works followed one another. David Hume‟s
On Taste (1757) and Edmund Burke‟s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of
Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) preceded Addison‟s and Ruskin‟s
“ocular clavecin,” an elaborate instrument for projecting colours by a keyboard; the definitions trying to identify the identity of colours and tones; the idea that seven primary colours evoke seven primary notes &c.) are projected in the symphonic and tone poems of Franz Liszt and Hector Berlioz (Graham 474). Although Witemeyer believes that it “…seems that music did not supplant painting as the dominant nineteenth-century analogue to poetry among the sister arts” (33), the majority of the critics argue that music had already become a part of the ekphrastic discussions. 22 Referred to as Laocoön henceforth. 21
writings in the imitative nature of painting and poetry and ekphrasis was once again scrutinized within the idea of concrete Romantic imagination, natural imagery, and
Augustan decorum and expressiveness. By the end of the eighteenth-century,
…imagination was seen as an image making faculty, and language as the prompter of images… [and] the natural analogy was between painting and language; and [the new understanding of] language with its powers of description, dominated poetry (Graham 473).
In the eighteenth-century, the opening of public museums, a point that will be dealt with in detail in the following chapter, was also an important milestone for the development of the interest in ekphrasis. The art works, now, became available to everyone while they were protected and preserved in better conditions. Cataloguing and preserving artworks in better conditions also made them more valuable. Scott argues that, in 1806, at Cambridge and Oxford, two poetry competitions for “the best poem on ancient works of art” had boomed the curiosity for plastic arts among literary circles (“Shelley” 316). Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, thus, ekphrasis was a well-established and common literary activity. During the course of its history in English literature, poetry had not come closer to painting as it did in the nineteenth century. Under the influence of Blake, Keats, and Italian painters, the members of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, most of whom were painters, tried to see the world with painter‟s eyes. The Victorian period, therefore, produced ekphrasis with an awareness of the intimate relation between words and images while their depictions were presented with more insight in paintings. Robert
Browning‟s “The Bishop Orders His Tomb,” “My Last Duchess,” “Andrea del
Sarto,” and “Fra lippo Lippi,” D.G. Rosetti‟s “A Venetian Pastoral,” “For an 22
Annunciation,” “For Spring by Sandro Boticelli (In the Academia of Florence),” and
“Lilith,” Lord de Tabley‟s “The Knight in the Wood,” and some of the ekphrastic pieces from William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais are among the well- known ekphrastic works of the period.
By the beginning of the twentieth-century, the tradition was widely known and
“commonly practiced” (Bruhn 14). Especially after “the most famous twentieth- century illustration of ekphrasis,” W.H. Auden‟s “Museé des Beaux Arts” (Haberer
1), writing ekphrastic poems became rather popular. As the borders between arts disappeared with Cubistic and Imagist discourses, more ekphrastic poetry was written everyday (Szczepanek 5-6; Mitchell Iconology 25). Many noteworthy poets of the century like William Carlos Williams, Rainer Maria Rilke, John Ashbery,
Robert Lowell, e.e.cummings, Elizabeth Bishop, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon,
Donald Hall, Derek Mahon, and Paul Durcan had offered poems out of this “very old but very popular” genre (Francis 1). For Petrucci, coming across Paul Durcan in the
National Gallery or R.S. Thomas in the Louvre are probable incidents in a time of cross-fertilization between visual and textual art especially in the second half of the twentieth century (“Anaesthesia” 12). Indeed, as it is going to be presented in the following chapters, going to museums to ekphrasize has become a common practice among poets of our time. Then, ekphrastic poetry, which could be regarded as a museum-centred poetry, has become a kind of artistic act inviting poets to meet visual works of art for artistic re-creation. Today ekphrasis, with a number of journals specially entitled “Ekphrasis” only in the United States and a number of poetry societies devoted to the study of the relationship between the verbal and visual 23
mediums (Brown 41), is an extensively known and practiced literary phenomenon that has found its place in many anthologies, journals, and volumes of poetry23.
23 See Appendix III for more examples of ekphrastic poetry. 24
1. 3. “Stilvs Virvm Argvit:” Stylistics24
In 2005, PALA (Poetry and Language Association) asked its members to vote for the most influential book of the last twenty-five years. The voting resulted in the triumph of Geoffrey N. Leech and Michael H. Short‟s 1981 book Style in Fiction: A
Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose. In the award ceremony, Short noted that he was happy not only because of being honoured by such an important award but also because the book has inspired a great deal of studies in Stylistics
(Baş). Although Style in Fiction is primarily about the stylistic analysis of prose, it sets the basics of Stylistics, in general, in a confident and accurate way.
The very first sentence of Richard Bradford‟s book, Stylistics, is “Stylistics is an elusive and slippery topic” (xi)25. Indeed, for a long time, it has often been argued that Stylistics was a sub-division of linguistic studies due to its ambiguous nature.
First, and probably the most common, issue considering Stylistics is that it has not been agreed whether it is Stylistics, with a capital „S‟ and thus making it a distinctly special currency within the history of literary criticism with its own methodology and terminology, or it is stylistics, a critical device of analysis that has grown out of
Linguistics, Structuralism, Semiotics, discourse theory, Sociolinguistics, gender studies, linguistic philosophy and a whole network of disciplines. Studying the
“relation between what happens in the text and what might happen outside it”
(Bradford 1), Stylistics has been considered only as a bridge between linguistics and literature and a no-man‟s-land in the “the urban guerrilla warfare between linguists
24 Stilvs virvm argvit, Latin tag, meaning “style proclaims man” or as Leech and Short call it “the linguistic „thumb-print‟” (12). Translation Leech and Short‟s (ibid. 12). 25 Quite similarly Talbot J. Taylor‟s book opens by claiming that Stylistics, which is “a theory of communication,” is a rather complex topic (1). 25
and literary men” (Turner 144). The “warfare,” however was pointless, since the twentieth century both manipulated and contributed to the interrelation and co- organization between various fields of study. During the course of the previous century, Barthes, Bakhtin, and Kristeva taught that anything could be regarded as texts; Eco taught that social structures, culture, and arts could be understood through semiology and language studies; Foucault and Althusser taught that meaning is a social construct; Lacan presented how the human subject is constructed; and Derrida taught the new philosophical standards (Wagner 2). Eventually, twentieth century brought about theoretical, conceptual, cultural and philosophical changes and it is due to this paradigm shift that the commonly accepted set-ups in arts, sciences, and undoubtedly in literature experienced a changeover throughout. In the first half of the twentieth century, Linguistics, as a science, expanded so much that, in the second half of the century, linguists felt the need to co-work with sociology, philosophy, history, archaeology, psychology, physics, biology, gender studies, and literature
(Bradford xii; Özünlü 19-22). As the borderlines of its sub-fields such as Semantics,
Morphology, Graphology, Phonology, Semiology, Lexicology, Syntax, Stylistics
(usually regarded as Discourse Theory, then), Sociolinguistics, and Grammar began to enlarge, Linguistics, alone, turned out to be too general, too inclusive, or insufficient on its own to answer the needs of the ever-expanding study area. It was in the 1950s, that Stylistics, which has suffered from “bittiness” and the lack of a concrete theory (along with Semiology) (Leech and Short 3), began to break free from Linguistics as an independent field of study. Owing to its scientific grounds
(linguistic methods) and adequate resources (a great body of literary texts), Stylistics, 26
metaphorically speaking, declared its independence in the second half of the twentieth-century.
Simply defined “as the linguistic study of style” (Leech and Short 13) or as “…an approach to the analysis of (literary) texts using linguistic description… in as explicit a way as possible” (Short 1-5)26, Stylistics found its place in many of the college curricula in the 1960s (Verdonk Twentieth Century xvii). Although Bradford traces the roots of Stylistics in techne rhetorike of Greek rhetoricians such as Corax,Tisias,
Gorgias, and Isocrates (Bradford 3-4), it is more likely to look for the predecessors of
Stylistics in the twentieth-century Linguistics27. Verdonk is convinced that Stylistics has two main origins, both of which are essentially formalist and “…literature was
[something] to be looked upon as a self-contained enterprise” for both of them: one is American New Criticism and the other is British Practical Criticism (Twentieth
Century xvii). What Verdonk means by American criticism is actually a modern derivation of the culmination of Russian Formalism, Prague Linguistics, and
Saussurian Structuralism of the 1950s. With their origins in the early stages of
Formalism, the first group could be classified as the “structural determinists”
(Chandler 12), who are after the objective and scientifically irrefutable elements of language. These critics, such as Jakobson, wanted to move away from finding out the describing devices in a text to analysing their functions:
26 Original emphasis. 27 Unlike Bradford and Verdonk, Özünlü regards Charles Bally as the father of Stylistics and believes that its roots should be sought in the Renaissance trivium (logic, rhetoric, and grammar) then in the linguists of the Prague School and Russian formalism (16-22, 32-33). However, he also divides Stylistics into two and terms them as “Prescriptive Stylistics” and “Structuralist Stylistics” (objectivist and affective) (ibid. 16-22). Talbot J. Taylor, too, claims that Charles Bally is the founder of modern Stylistics (43). According to Taylor, Bally has developed Saussure‟s theory and put emphasis on expressivity of language in order to understand “idees pures” (ibid. 24). Nevertheless, Taylor believes that the schools of Stylstics are invariant because style itself is “…an amalgam of psychological, sociological, literary and linguistics notions which are both common-sensial and theoretical in their origins and uses” (42). Therefore, for Taylor, it is hard to divide Stylistics into schools. 27
The intend… was thus to make the study of literature more scientific, to replace the biographical, psychological, philosophical, historical and sociological meditations on literary texts with the appropriate object of a literary inquiry: the laws of literature and their history (Buchbinder 84)28.
Although each individual linguist has various views, explanations and stand-points of their own, the general view was that language, either written or spoken, could (or should) be analysed methodically and only by way of objective data and analysis could one understand the structure and nature of language. Along with Greimas,
Jakobson, C.S. Pierce, Halliday, and Sinclair, Saussure is one of the leading figures of the argument (Stubbs 23; Chandler 8-9; Turner 14)29.
Stylistics and indubitably Linguistics owe some of their basic concepts to Saussure.
Saussure‟s dyadic model, consisting of signifié and significant, has made an essential distinction between the abstract and the concrete, or between the code and the message, which in turn has allowed linguists to study the functional differences in language and communication (Chandler 24-27). Giving priority to speech, rather than written language, Saussure has also put emphasis on the distinction between
28 A similar statement is found in Poirier. Commenting on Jakobson‟s poetic function, which “foregrounds the language itself of the text… [by emphasizing] „the message for its own sake‟” (DeGeorge and DeGeorge 93), Poirier states that criticism should encourage itself “not with rendered experience but with the experience of rendering” (111). He further argues that criticism must always “...go back to acts of rendition, to language, which is one reason why there are so many quotations in this book and so much verbal analysis of them (ibid. 111). 29 Other linguists or philosophers mentioned have developed equally important and influential arguments. „Transformational grammar‟ and „functional model,‟ argued by Halliday (and then Sinclair), argue that linguistics should co-work with social sciences; that authenticity is essential in literary language; that language is a linguistic device which transmits culture; and that Saussurian dualisms should be reviewed and expanded. Halliday‟s model is usually considered to be objective but mechanical (Leech and Short 5; Stubbs 23). Bally and Riffaterre has argued that the most essential aspect (and function) of language is its expressivity and emotive state (Leech and Short 18). Similar to the ideas of later semioticians and thinkers like Derrida, Lacan, Foucault, Eco, Lévi-Strauss, and Greimas, Pierce‟s model, a triangular semiotic model consisting of sense, sign vehicle, and referent on each corner, focuses on the function of signs. Pierce, probably unknowingly, has written almost the same sentence with Thomas Aquinas when he stated that “we think only in signs” (qtd. in Chandler 17) (See 5.3 in Chapter IV). Prague linguists, however, were interested in poetic function and foregrounding (Leech and Short 28), while Pierce defended the importance of linguistic and textual signification. Leech and Short summarize the other formalist ideas by claiming that I.A. Richards was attracted by sense, feeling, tone, intention, Jakobson by the referential, the emotive, the connotative, the phatic, the poetic, and the metalinguistic, and finally Halliday by the ideational, the interpersonal, the textual and eventually the functional (30). Because Saussure‟s ideas represent the linguistic trends of the time, only Saussure is going to be exemplified in the Introduction. 28
langue (referring to the set of general rules in a given language) and parole (referring to the specific, regional, functional, and temporary occurrences in the same given language). The latter duality between langue and parole has received much appreciation and the study of parole, which indicates the particular stylistic instances in a text, has been appointed to Stylistics (Leech and Short 11; Turner 14).
A similar idea is also found in Charles Bally‟s Traité de Stylistique Française.
According to Bally, the message, or signifié, is arbitrary because it is abstract.
Parallel to this, the language that expresses it, or signifiant, is also arbitrary because it uses arbitrary signs. Bally concludes that the job of language studies should be to discover the système expressif (or “verbal expression”) and the relationship between signifying systems (qtd in Talbot J. Taylor 27)30. Although Saussure‟s and Bally‟s contributions seem to remain unmatched, Bally‟s tendency to study language synchronically rather than diachronically along with his binaries that disregard multiple relations between signifiers and signifieds and leave out social context have caused Linguistics to become less Saussurian especially after the 1970s (Chandler
12-14).
The second group of linguists could be considered more comprehensive and non- interventionist. Louis Hjelmslev, for instance, argues that content and expression (or meaning and structure) are bound to each other, and one could not do without the other (49). For Hjelmslev and his followers, context arises from situational discourse.
Besides overall meaning of a text, and whether a macrotext (langue) or a microtext
30 These ideas have been adopted and popularized by Roman Jakobson, who puts the emphasis on the “verbal expressivity” (350), and today Bally‟s focus on expressivity is known as Jakobsonian model (Talbot J. Taylor 63). 29
(parole), is fundamental for the analysis of context and meaning (Hausenblas 127-
128, 131-135)31. The idea that context and content should not be ignored while studying the linguistic structure became one of the strongest arguments of stylisticians because context is an important element in stylistic analysis and a key component that determines the style in a text. In fact, it could be claimed that considering content in a stylistic analysis is what differentiates Stylistics from pure
Linguistics. In Turner‟s words:
The study of the meaning and style will have to bring back what grammar leaves out… The grammarian isolates the forms and constructions to which meaning can be attached and establishes the norms against which variation can be clearly marked (19).
The same conclusion is also made by Leech and Short when they agree that stylistic analysis is dependent on the study of contextual (content) and textual (structure) at the same time (19)32. Later in his own study of Stylistics, Short proposes that a sample stylistic analysis begins with a general interpretation of a text followed by the examination of lexis, semantico-synthetic deviations, grammar, and phonetic patterns and finalized with stylistic commentary and interpretation that combines context and structure (Short 17-26).
31 Hausenblas states that context arises from situational and verbal discourses and likens his distinction to Hjelmslev‟s (127-128). Similarly, Lecklie-Tarry designates iconicity (iconic or symbolic signs) and context (situational or cultural) as the two sources (or levels) or contextual network of a text (77-78). 32 A similar point is also argued by Talbot J. Taylor. He observes that, especially in the twentieth century, Stylistics has two important aspects; one is that Stylistics does not solely study “linguistic meaning” and the other is that it deals with the textual and contextual unity the style of texts present (17). Besides he adds that the idea of studying the unity of style has been dominant from Saussure‟s langue model to Bally‟s emphasis on expressivity, from Jakobson to the modern bi-planar models of Bloomfield and Riffaterre (ibid. 16). 30
Michael Riffaterre could also be placed in the second group. While Saussure puts the emphasis on difference between the message and speech, and Bally and Jakobson focus on expressivity, Riffaterre deals with the function of communication (Talbot J.
Taylor 63). For him, as for Hjelmslev, “expressiveness” and the “content” of the message are the same and cannot be separated as if they belonged to other factors other than the speaker. Therefore, he defines Stylistics in the following words:
Stylistics… studies the act of communication not as merely producing a verbal chain, but as bearing the imprint of the speaker‟s personality, and as compelling the addressee‟s attention. In short, it studies the ways of linguistic efficiency (expressiveness) in carrying a high load of information (“The Stylistic” 316).
Riffaterre‟s emphasis on the unity of content and message comes from his insistence on the psychological aspect (or “affectiveness”) of the speaker33. He believes that it is the speaker who composes and brings together the meaning and the style of a message addressed to its receiver and this results in a multiplicity of “styles”
(Riffaterre “Criteria” 158; Talbot J. Taylor 67-68)34. In other words, adding the speaker‟s psychology to the already complicated message, the meaning could be unpredictable. So, for him, only the style of a text, which includes the message, the
33 This idea is probably based on Locke‟s notion of words. Lock believes that “words, in their immediate signification, are the sensible signs of his ideas who uses them… [and they] are often secretly referred first to the ideas supposed to be in other men‟s minds” (See Parts I, II, and IV in “Of Words” for details). However, Hornsby and Longworth remind us that Locke does not think that all words stood for ideas for he made a distinction between the words for idea and functional words (“particles” like connectors “and,” “but” and so on) (15). 34Riffaterre‟s idea that the psychology of the speaker should be regarded has been influential in the following two decades (the 1970s and 1980s) (Talbot J. Taylor 67). Noam Chomsky, for instance, was influenced by Riffaterre‟s idea while arguing for the consideration of human factor in linguistic studies. Correspondingly George Dillion argued for the potentiality of multiple styles due to the same factor (ibid. 68, 99). However the idea was severely criticised by behaviourists such as Ohmann, who believes that “a style is a way of writing – that is what words mean” (ibid. 88). 31
signifying codes, and the imprint of its composer, could provide a considerable idea of the message35.
The idea of impending potential styles due to the human aspect soon became popular among a number of critics. Fowler, for example, states that the core of style, written or spoken, is based on “particularity, individuality, and concreteness” and condemns strict structuralism for its persistence on general linguistic features (“The New” 11).
For him, a study of style “…makes the individual work more recognizable, more discrete, its physiognomy more salient” (ibid. 11). Supporting Fowler, Freeman claims that because poetic style can “bend the laws of ordinary language” with its multiplicity, it requires an all-embracing study involving linguistics, psychology, sociology and literature (21)36. Nevertheless, it is in E.H. Gombrich that the emphasis on human factor is most straightforward. Gombrich opens his momentous book, The Story of Art, by stating that “There is really no such thing as Art. There are only artists” (15)37. Gombrich‟s emphasis on the individuality of artists, their styles and creativity, and the individuality of their works has become an essential idea adopted by stylisticians. Stylistics, then, regards each text as unique and original – even if two texts from the same period or from the same author are analysed, different stylistic results could be achieved. Because as “we interpret world
35 Riffaterre suggests that an elliptical decoding would be better for readers who want to understand a text (“Criteria” 160-161). Containing prediction in its core, elliptical decoding has not received much appreciation (Talbot J. Taylor 66). 36 As a structuralist, Jean Piaget, too, focuses on the idea of wholeness, as one of the three essential objects of structuralism. The other two aims of structuralism acknowledged by Piaget are “the idea of transformation and the idea of self-regulation” (5). 37 Gombrich, here, also laments for the current state of art “…for Art with a capital A has come to be something of a bogey and a fetish” (The Story 15). Gombrich at this point also opposes his colleague Nelson Goodman, who believes that there are no limits to painters‟s imagination. By stating “almost any picture may represent almost anything,” Goodman suggests that artists are licensed to produce whatever and however they like (38). But Gombrich believes that there are limits to imagination and creation such as artist‟s personality, temperament, preferences, style, social background, abilities, habits, expectations, and tools (Art and Illusion 75).
32
differently… many different styles” come into being and it is possible to state that no two styles could be the same (McKee 34-35). Therefore, style indicates an idiosyncratic expressiveness, particularly and specially belonging to its bearer:
Style is an increment in writing… All writers, by the way they use the language, reveal something of their spirits, their habits, their capacities and their biases. This is inevitable as well as enjoyable (Strunk and White 67).
Or as Hoey puts it:
The study of literary language by linguists has always promised two types of insight. The first is insight into the individuality of a writer‟s style – indeed the very name stylistics reflects that concern. The second is as a tool for the interpretation of individual works (123).
It is the job of Stylistics, thus, to study this infinite web of styles (of each text, each writer) and probably this is the reason why it needs to co-work with Linguistics,
Psychology, Sociology, Semiotics, Semantics, Philosophy, and many other fields.
Indisputably, as “the branch of language study which is principally concerned with integration of language and literature,” Stylistics is mostly concerned with literary texts (Carter and Simpson 2)38. Besides, since poetry (or the poetic line) has a more complex, open-to-manipulation, and “interesting” structure compared to that of prose
(Leech and Short 2; Bradford 15; Carter 68; Buchbinder 41), stylisticians are usually inclined to analyse poetic texts rather than prose texts. Whether poetic or prosaic,
Stylistics asks three types of questions to the literary texts they analyse: What, Why,
38 Carter and Simpson, in order to keep their objective linguistic stance, add that “there is no such thing as a „literary language.‟ That is to say, there are no items of modern English vocabulary or grammar that are inherently and exclusively literary” (Original italics) (Simpson 7). 33
and How – What does the text mean? Why does the author (or the persona in the text) prefer present structures? How does the text come to mean what it means?
(Leech and Short 13; Short 6)39. This interrogative mode results in a thorough and sometimes exhaustive examination but it “…enables us to identify and name the distinguishing features of literary texts, and to specify the generic and structural subdivisions of literature” (Bradford xi) and “…[provides] as much explicit evidence as possible for and against particular interpretations of texts” (Short 27).
Apart from asking the crucial questions above, Stylistics has developed its own terminology and technique in order to interpret and analyse literary texts in detail and to “specify the principles by which sentences represent meaning” (Soames 46). Most stylistic terms and methods derive from Linguistics40. Stylistician studies the lexis, syntax, tense, pronouns, modality, clause structures, sound, and meaning (Carter and
Nash 117-123), by examining foregrounding and backgrounding structures, parallel structures, metrical patterns, repetition, deviation (linguistic, phonetic, graphological)41, figures of speech, and grammar42. Among these terms, however,
Stylisticians primarily make use of parallelism, deviation and foregrounding the most. Stylistician looks for literary “clues” such as parallel structures, repeated words and sounds, and deviating structures to conclude about the overall and concealed
39 Comparable questions have been asked by Jakobson, who believes that poetry is itself a style: “What makes a verbal message a work of art? …How does poeticity manifest itself?” (350; Talbot J.Taylor 44-45). Hornsby and Longworth also argue that the study of style “must address questions about what speakers do with words as well as questions about how words behave” (86). 40 It should also be recalled that, Linguistics, just as Stylistics, owes much of its terminology to the complex Greek and Latin poetry and metrics (Clark 27). 41 The term “deviation” has been subdivided by Short as lexical, grammatical, semantic, graphological, and phonetic (55). It is also important to note that deviation could be observed in different works from different literary periods as well as from different regions (Short 55; Leech and Short 45, 74-75; Turner 165-169; Chapman 30). In order to consider the historical or regional differences of texts, a stylistician, just like a new historicist, could even consult to “essays, memoirs, biographies, travel journals” of the time the text belongs to (Chapman 29). 42 See Appendix IV for more on stylistic terms. 34
meanings of texts. Deviation, which is a very close term to defamiliarization, seeks the structures that make texts unique. Foregrounding, itself borrowed from painting, is the common way of deviation writers use to bring forth certain points and ideas and to make texts or the elements in a text original. Leech and Short claim that there are two kinds of foregrounding: one of them is qualitative foregrounding that foregrounds the object semantically; the other is quantitative foregrounding which uses structural patterns such as capitalization, punctuation, or lineation (69-70). In short, just as in painting, foregrounding deviates texts and offers linguistic modifications and parallels for readers either by stress, punctuation, grammar or articulation as in the castle in Wordsworth‟s “Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, Painted by Sir Georges Beaumont:”
And this huge Castle, standing here sublime, I love to see the look with which it braves, Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time, The lightning, the fierce wind, the trampling waves.
(49-52)43
Among the harsh atmosphere and weather outside, the castle stands unaffected and noticeably confident. The castle, capitalized as Castle (graphologically foregrounded), presented as being “huge” (lexically foregrounded), and depicted as
“cased in the unfeeling armour” (semantically foregrounded) is easily perceptible.
Foregrounding, as in “Peele Castle,” therefore, aims to make the desired object noticeable by way of linguistic description (Short 11). Another essential point to be touched upon in stylistic analysis is the repetitive and parallel patterns. Indeed, Short
43 Referred to as “Peele Castle” henceforth. The poem will be referred to in Chapter III. See Illustration I.i. for a reproduction of Sir George Beaumont‟s Piel Castle in a Storm. 35
regards parallelisms in a text as the key element of stylistic analysis by naming it the relation between repeating patterns parallelism rule (14). The parallelism could be phonological (as in the alliterating “s” [“Castle, standing here sublime” in the lines above] or assonating “i” [“The lightning, the fierce wind, the trampling waves”]), lexical (as in the thrice repeated definite article [“The lightning, the fierce wind, the trampling waves”], semantic (as in the harshness created by the “brave,” “unfeeling armour,” “lightning,” “fierce wind”, “trampling waves”), metaphorical
(personification of the castle as an archaic warrior), or contextual (the castle standing alone in its sublimity is presented as if it is caged in an ancient armor). The parallel patterns, hence, provide the examiner (reader or viewer) with perspectives from different angles while they also give an idea of the general structure and meaning of the analyzed text.
One of the advantages of Stylistics is that it offers an all-encompassing analysis that enables the reader see the larger picture, and for Short, this is the reason why it “…is a part of the essential core of good criticism” (5). As a combination of structural, contextual, and pragmatic analyses with many variants (Turner 11; Chandler 79;
Riffaterre 47; Leech and Short 70), it avoids superficial commentaries by covering almost all aspects of linguistic analysis. Therefore, stylistic analysis is never singular or occupies a solo point of view. Besides, it does not leave out the author of the text, which has been regarded as one of “the first causalities of [the] attack” against the concept of authorship in the 1960s (Wagner 4). Rather it looks for the “linguistic choices of writers” to understand the Hows and Whys behind these choices (Short
69). In Chapman‟s words, such an analysis “…begins once we are inside writer‟s 36
imagined world and can try to assess how well he has performed his self-appointed task of creation… [because] writer‟s imagination brings about his style” (26-28).
Stylistics, then, does not offer a style but analyzes existing styles. This is a crucial point distinguishing Stylistics from entirely formalist methods. It regards its subjects as original; that is, it studies each text in its own context within a holistic approach since there is “no consistency in style” (Leech and Short 69)44. Reminding us that
Stylistics deals with “…the formal, technical and informative styles as well as the conventional and the confessional” (Turner 230), Turner argues that
A single sentence cannot finally be judged in isolation… Rules of style are out of fashion but evaluation remains a prime objective of literary stylistics. We avoid making general rules because we allow that writers may have very various purposes and we are now prepared to assess the style of a particular work in relation to the purpose of that work (234).
Unlike the linguistic tendency that singles out each sentence, line, or phrase and analyzes them independently, Stylistics takes the general and particular into consideration at the same and tries to conclude with a more comprehensive and realistic overview and analysis of texts. In other words, the isolating perspective of linguistics maintains in Stylistics only in that it examines each text individually with all its aspects allowing one to find out more about the text, its meaning, and its structure.
44 The italicized holistic is aimed to draw attention to the quality of Stylistics to disregard isolating particular aspects or parts of texts for analysis. Since words and parts in isolation would not contribute to the totality and constitution of texts, stylistic avoids or should avoid such exercises (Eco 75; Talbot J. Taylor 15).
37
Naturally there are some disadvantages of Stylistics. The most frequently mentioned inconvenience of stylistic analysis is that, because it covers many aspects of a text, it is impractical and lengthy. This criticism is not unacceptable or unjust since stylistic analyses usually require long explanations and commentaries. For a single quatrain, pages of analysis could be written down and the extensive explanations may vex readers. Besides, the terminology it uses is not always familiar. Finally, stylisticians are condemned for putting “manner” over “matter” and giving importance to
“expressiveness” rather than to “meaning” (Leech and Short 15; Turner 29).
Although Stylistics seems to focus on the structural elements of texts, it would be unfair to claim that it disregards context and carries “the risk of decontextualisation”
(Susan Stewart 374)45. As it has been pointed out in the previous paragraphs and by
Short himself, stylistic analysis begins with an overall commentary on the origin, background, and context of literary texts and ends up in a stylistic interpretation that brings together stylistic structures and the content of the text.
45 Susan Stewart argues that although it provides etymological insight, stylistic analysis may cause to move away from context (374). Chandler adds that, due to its ties with Semiotics, Stylistics may become risky if it comes up with non-scientific commentaries (208). As it is explained in the following parts, both criticisms are pointless since Stylistics aims to go for the context through linguistic analysis. It is necessary to bear in mind that, at times, stylistic analysis could seem too wordy and terminological. Moreover, as it is a new field of study, each stylistician seems to come up with new terms and concepts of their own. Some of these newly introduced words are really helpful, as seen on Short‟s coinage “neologism,” which refers to making up new words (Short 45). But sometimes these new concepts overlap with already existing ones or make little sense. There is little point to group alliterating consonants, for instance, as “full alliteration” and “loose alliteration” according to the number their occurrences (Short 108-109) since, either it is full or loose, the critical point is whether there is alliteration in a text or not. 38
1.4. Stylistics and Ekphrasis
The ekphrastic tradition, a brief introduction of which has been given above, has been at the centre of many arguments on aesthetics, literature and art-history since the ancients. Methods have been developed and discussions have been made about the nature, function and value of ekphrasis but little theoretical and academic study – detailed academic study in the sense that we understand today – have been conducted concerning it. Not until the twentieth century can one meet a thorough theoretical enquiry on the subject apart from that of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who in Tzvetan
Todorov‟s words, “explodes the framework of classical aesthetics” (Lessing vii).
Earlier works on ekphrasis, which shall be dealt with in the next chapter, do not go beyond critical statements, observations, commentaries and preliminary remarks.
Many earlier critics of ekphrasis would solely regard the text, moving from the visual to the verbal and then comment on the work(s) without a philosophical and/or genuine perspective, and this tradition leaves readers only with superficial and text- centred criticism. Of course, this does not mean that texts on ekphrasis before the twentieth century have little or no value; rather they are as precious as the theoretical works which themselves rely on such prior critics as Horace, Plutarch, Quintilian,
James Harris, and Joachim Wincklemann. However, the number of critical works about ekphrasis experiences a rise in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when a number of philosophical and theoretical ideas were put forward. With the establishment of new curricula based on analysis, practice and close observation, literature and arts received analytical and scientific criticism. Innovative methods of studying literary and artistic works flourished and many theoretical and critical ideas were developed within the last hundred-and-fifty years. Especially in the latter half 39
of the twentieth century, with the revitalizing of the image (ichnos) / verb (verba) / speech (phonos) discussion, the study of the interrelation between images and words was once more popular at least among some of the academic circles.
It is necessary to note that Stylistics and “ekphrasis” are seldom united and articulated together. Indeed, throughout the research for this study, it has been found out that only two articles have totally matched the key words “stylistic analysis” (or
“Stylistics”) and “ekphrasis:” Jennifer Bosveld‟s “Elastic Ekphrasis: Another Way
Toward Poetry” and Peter Verdonk‟s “Painting, Poetry, Parallelism: Ekphrasis,
Stylistics and Cognitive Poetics,” both of which are works of smaller scale and scope. Therefore, the combination of ekphrastic poetry and stylistic analysis, as an interdisciplinary and extracurricular study, could provide insight for more comprehensive and resourceful studies in accordance with Barthes‟s notion of
“interdisciplinary,” who claims that
…in order to do interdisciplinary work, it is not enough to take a subject (a theme) and arrange two or three sciences around it. Interdisciplinary study consists in creating a new object, which belongs to no one (qtd. in Braida and Pieri 10).
Although the interrelation between the verbal and visual have been the subject of scholarly studies for a quite long time, ekphrasis and the newly established Stylistics, which would provide a comparative outlook with its roots in Linguistics and literature, could create the “new object” Barthes mentions. Commenting on the mutual and intertextual relation between poetry and painting, Heffernan states that there are two groups of critics who have taken the task of study the intermingling of 40
texts and visual arts. The first group of critics, for him, are the empirically minded critics who simply compare and contrast poems and works of visual arts. The second group, on the other hand, are the theoretically oriented critics who argue that it is possible to read a work of literature spatially and decode paintings semiotically
(Heffernan Museum 1). He further suggests that merely comparing two works cannot be efficient because such a simplistic point of view would leave out the critical encounters between the text, as a work of literature, and painting, as a work of plastic arts (ibid. 1). Therefore, while studying ekphrasis, it would be safer to rely on the theoretical group, in which Stylistics is sufficient enough to take part.
As it has been pointed out earlier, stylistic analysis is best applied to poetry (Leech and Short 2, Verdonk “Painting” 232). It is an established idea that a simply literal or solely structural mode is never enough to interpret poetry, which usually involves
“complex grammar… highly organized, complex and unified re-creation of an experience” (A.J.M. Smith xxxvii). There are 616.000 entries in the twenty-volume
Oxford English Dictionary (Lennard 103) and poetry, with its structural, lexical, contextual richness and inimitable diction, has a special way of selecting and arranging these words. Deriving from Linguistics, thus, Stylistics would be a productive means to analyze the composite lexical and semantic structure of poetry and to observe linguistic deviations within a poem.
Secondly, Stylistics is also a suitable analytical way to examine paintings, which could also be “read” and studied through structural and contextual observation because as in poetry, in painting, too, there are figures, backgrounding and 41
foregrounding elements, narratives presented in a special way of expression and painterly style. Louis Marin, French art-historian and philosopher, opens his book
Sublime Poussin, with a crucial question that concerns the main arguments that will be discussed in this study:
We read letters, poems, books. What does it mean to read drawings, pictures, frescoes? After all, the term „reading‟ is immediately applicable to books; can we say the same for pictures? How valid or legitimate is it to extend the term‟s meaning and speak of reading in connection with pictures? (5).
Regarding every object of art as text, Marin‟s questions are to be answered affirmatively. If any text is open to „reading,‟ speculation and analysis, paintings can also be read to in order to observe the syntax of a picture or the inscriptions and traces of a painter‟s brush. This makes reading a seeking; a process of analysis and thus, reading can be a way “to decipher, to interpret” a picture (Marin Sublime 7).
Furthermore, if a painting (or any visual image) is a text with a discourse and language of its own (Schapiro 9), then it is possible to translate it into other languages, discourses or texts. This idea, to be sure, forms the basis for ekphrasis, a trans-textual phenomenon itself that “can unlock the mysteries of the painting
(Bosveld). Referring to this trans-textuality, the “…strong bond between poetry and visual arts” and their imitative nature (“Painting” 234), Verdonk states that a synchronized stylistic examination of poetry and painting would provide us both with the knowledge of the poetic line and with
…mentally stored real-world experience, memories and images, genre knowledge, the human delight in repetitive formal patterns, the embodied 42
experience of movements, spatial perception, figure-ground alignments in visual and other sensory perceptions etc. (ibid. 231).
As products of highly stylized craftsmanship, both poetry and painting, thus, require a comparative, scientifically objective, intertextual, multi-layered, comprehensive study and Stylistics is able to provide such an outlook for both media. Moreover, ekphrastic poetry, which combines the verbal and the visual, would be a good subject for such a detailed way of analysis that combines linguistics and literature. In other words, Stylistics and ekphrasis, as two two-sided and mutual constituents of language, seem to match perfectly as matter(s) and manner(s) for evaluation.
43
1.5. Thesis
Lessing opens Laocoön with an analogy concerning art criticism, which could be easily applied to modern studies:
The first person to compare painting with poetry was a man of fine feeling who observed that both arts produced a similar effect upon him… A second observer, in attempting to get at the nature of this pleasure, discovered that both proceed from the same source… A third, who examined the value and distribution of these general rules, observed that some of them are more predominant in painting, others in poetry… The first was the amateur, the second was the philosopher, and the third the critic. The first two could not easily misuse their feelings or their conclusions. With the critic, however, the case was different. The principal value of his observations depends on their correct application to the individual case (3).
This study, which aims to track ekphrasis from its early beginnings to the present in order to study the general characteristics of the ekphrastic tradition in English, will follow the steps of the critic Lessing describes above. Intending to find out and explain the textual, structural, stylistic, and contextual relationships between painting and poetry, the study aims to determine the “value and distribution of these general rules” that Lessing mentions and to discover the literary and aesthetic connections between the verbal and the visual by way of stylistic analysis.
Considering the difficulties of expanding the scope of the study to non-English ekphrastic poetry, which will have to include the excessive number of ekphrastic poems especially in German, Spanish, Latin and Italian, only ekphrastic poetry in
English will be covered with the exception of the early Greek examples which have been translated into English. Besides, as the modern definition of the word ekphrasis implies, mainly the ekphrastic poems on paintings, rather than ekphrastic poems on 44
sculptures, statues, buildings, photographs, and exteriors, are going to be studied in order to limit the scope of the study. The only exceptions are going to be Keats‟s urn in “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” Browning‟s “My Last Duchess” and the early ekphrastic passages in epics and narrative poems such as the Iliad and Shakespeare‟s “Rape of
Lucrece,” which are about imaginary cups, paintings, armours, shields, tapestry, and stone works.
The method of analysis is stylistic analysis. Especially stylistic terminology such as deviation, foregrounding, repetition and parallelism are going to be referred to so as to discover similarities and differences between paintings and poems. In that sense, the analyses will be parallel to the critical views of the major Stylisticians and theoreticians like Short, Leech, and Verdonk, who believe that the basic concern of stylistic analysis is to find out the foregrounded textual parallelisms and repetitions that could be reached through questions: what, how, and why (Short 17-26; Leech and Short 13; Talbot J. Taylor 17)46. About the analyses that will primarily focus on the key concepts of Stylistics such as lexical and syntactical foregrounding, repetition, deviation and parallelism, another significant point should be mentioned.
Stylistic method and terminology are not going to be used solely on verbal grounds; because Stylistics provides advantageous structural outlook, stylistic analysis will be used to correlate the poem (text) and the painting (image). In other words, since stylistic analysis could be a revealing way to find out about the structure of visual medium, it will be used to compare and contrast the styles of poets and painters as well. As texts that could also be read, paintings will be taken into consideration from
46 See section 1.3. for details. 45
a stylistic perspective and studied on verbal level, within the limits of their paragonal counterparts. In this way, Stylistics will work in two ways: firstly as conventional stylistic textual analysis and secondly as a visuo-verbal method to consider paintings and poems at the same time and on the same grounds.
Since the majority of the ekphrastic poems that are going to be analysed are based on existing paintings, the analysis is going to focus on the structural relations between the poem and its source such as the correspondence of the paintings axes (light, shadow, layout of characters and the like) and the poem‟s structural elements
(metrical structure, rhyme scheme, line structure and so on). As it has been explained earlier, since stylistic analysis requires a considerable amount of space, not all of the stylistic aspects are going to be applied; instead, the study will focus on the appropriate ways of stylistic analysis that are relevant to the poems at hand. Since essential stylistic points such as speech acts and narrative modes are more apposite to prose works, these aspects have been excluded from the analysis. So, following
Short‟s suggestions on stylistic analysis, each analysis is going to initiate a contextual and textual overview of the work(s) followed by the suggestions of the most suitable ways and terminology of stylistic analysis that could be applied to that particular poem and painting. Moreover, due to the same reason, it is impractical to analyse the totality of a poem; for instance, it would take hundreds of pages to apply a stylistic analysis to Book XVIII of the Iliad in order to analyse the Shield of
Achilles within ekphrastic tradition and stylistic codes. Instead, the most representative sections of each poem (excluding shorter poems such as “Museé des
Beaux Arts”) are going to be studied in depth for this might provide an overall and 46
accurate idea about the ekphrasticality of the examples. In addition to that, ekphrastic characteristics of sample poems (like paragonal relationship, gazer-gazed correlations and so on) will be evaluated with reference to stylistic findings.
Apart from this introductory chapter, there are going to be four chapters followed by a closing section. Chapter I is going to deal with the theoretical background of ekphrastic problems. It will deliver the mimetic, ontological, structural, and modern arguments of ekphrasis some of which will be criticised or defended, and then present alternative explanations, categorizations, and descriptions that will be referred to while analysing ekphrastic examples in stylistic manner. Chapter II will begin with the earliest examples of ekphrasis like Homer‟s The Iliad, Virgil‟s
Aeneid, and Ovid‟s Metamorphoses, and then move on with early examples of ekphrasis in English such as Chaucer‟s Canterbury Tales. As the study is carried on chronologically and because there are not any prominent ekphrastic pieces written in the Middle Ages, the chapter will end with Renaissance examples of ekphrasis from
Shakespeare, Herrick, and Marvell, with particular emphasis on (and analyses of)
Ben Jonson and Richard Lovelace. Chapter III will begin where Chapter II has left and examine the ekphrastic tradition until the twentieth century. However, the main concern of the chapter will be Romantic ekphrasis, which will deal with Blake,
Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley respectively along with ekphrasis in the Victorian
Age with emphasis on the “painter-author[s],” in Marin‟s words (Sublime 9), of the
Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, especially D.G. Rosetti. The analysis on Rosetti will be accompanied by another analysis on another representative Victorian poet, Robert
Browning. Chapter IV will study the modern examples of ekphrastic poetry from the 47
early twentieth-century to the present. Poets like W.H. Auden, John Ashbery, Derek
Mahon, and William Carlos Williams will be referred to in this chapter. Each of these chapters will contain an introduction on the period as well as a conclusion part that summarises the characteristics of the ekphrastic phase in order to help readers correlate the chapter with previous and following chapters. Besides, each section is given a title number such as “3.3” or “2.5” to make the text easier to follow and to make in-text-references less complicated. Finally Conclusion chapter will use the results of analyses that have been made throughout the chapters and present the analytical conclusions considering as to how poetry represents works of visual arts and how two works of art interrelate by referring to the studied ekphrastic poems. In other words, Conclusion chapter will match the stylistic findings with the general characteristics of ekphrastic tradition from the ancients to the present.
As a study which explores the relationship between the verbal and the visual, there is need to refer to images. Therefore, an Illustrations section will present the paintings with a list of illustrations that are going to be referred to. Beginning from Chapter II, each illustration will be provided with a Roman numeral so as to avoid confusions in finding the related illustration47. Apart from that, an Appendices section is also provided to save the body of the study from wordiness and over-explanations, to clarify the considerably relevant points that are not given in the chapters and to present the full-text versions of the poems that will be analysed when necessary.
47 The illustrations actually begin in Chapter II but the only exception is Sir George Beaumount‟s paintings that will also be referred in Chapter III. Therefore, this particular paiting is labelled as “I.i.” The capital Roman numerals refer to the chapters while the lower case numerals refer to the illustrations in order of appaerence and reference. As the illustrations begin in Chapter II, “I.iv,” for instance, refers to the fourth illustration in Chapter II, while “III.x,” as another example, refers to the tenth illustration in Chapter IV.
CHAPTER I
“Ut Pictura Poesis”
…pictoribus atque poetis Quiblibet audendi simper fuit aequa potestas … Ut pictura poesis; erit quae, si propius stes, 1 Te capiat magis, et quaedam, si longius abstes .
Following the preliminary introduction to the ekphrastic tradition and presentation of basic terminology and definitions, this chapter aims to cover the discussions considering the nature of ekphrasis along with some of the fundamental philosophical and theoretical problems that have been put forward about ekphrasis as a literary phenomenon. In addition to the primary ideas and discussions, the chapter also aims to initiate a new perspective and offers a new holistic approach to the issue by combining ekphrastic tradition and stylistic analysis. These theoretical suggestions are intended to play crucial role in the development of the dissertation and will be referred to in the subsequent chapters.
1 From Ovid‟s Ars Poetica (8-9, 361-362). Emphasis added. Translation Becker‟s: “…poets and painters have always had / An equal licence to venture anything at all… / Poetry is like painting: one works seizes your fancy / If you stand close to it, another if you stand at a distance” (30).
49
2.1. “Ut Pictura Poesis:” The Nature of Ekphrasis
Horace‟s maxim “ut pictura poesis,” “as is painting, so is poetry,” has been the key word for ekphrastic exercises from the antiquity, through the Middle Ages, and to the
Renaissance. It is agreed that both the aesthetic and imitative discussions on the nature of ekphrasis that have been revolving around the limits of each medium, painting (natural signs) and poetry (arbitrary signs and symbols), and the question how these media communicate with one another have been singled down to Horace‟s prophetic statement (Graham 466). “Ut pictura poesis” is both a motto and an explanation; it formulates the relationship between the verbal and visual and explains that this relation is based on imitative resemblance. Indeed, the basic quality of ekphrastic exercise is that it is dependent on mimesis, by way of which the verbal expresses itself and its source of inspiration. Moving on from this point onwards, it is necessary to mention the general characteristics of ekphrasis as a literary device.
Becker summarizes the fundamental features of the term as follows:
Ekphrasis encourages us to think of representation as a function of these two complementary processes [viewer-describer relations]… ekphrasis invites us to consider responses to visual representation, then also, by analogy, to consider our response to literary representation… Ekphrasis has been read as a metaphor of poetry… [because] in an ekphrasis, the response of a describer to a work of visual art can thus become a metaphor for the response of an audience to the description itself, and to other texts as well (37-8).
Becker focuses on three basic points and is content that each of these characteristics is equally essential: ekphrasis requires a mutual relationship; it evokes an aesthetic response; and it is principally a metaphor. Becker‟s concerns about the nature of 50
ekphrasis provide an outline for those who wish to explore the tradition; thus it is crucial to examine these qualities in detail.
Mutuality and intertextuality are at the heart of ekphrasis. Because it is in the nature of ekphrastic activity that two works of art, visual and verbal, interact resulting in a transtextual product. The imaginations of a painter and a poet intermingle and co- work although they do not do this simultaneously; more than that, the poem could be composed centuries after a painting. Although there are seemingly two sides in this transtextual encounter, the relationship between the two is an outcome of rather complex web of interactions and intermingling imaginations.
Painting Poem
Painter Poet
Figure I.The first level of the linear ekphrastic relationship.
On the surface, ekphrasis occurs as in Figure I; a poet, inspired by a painter‟s painting, composes a poem or simply a painting evokes the composition of a poem.
A closer inspection, however, shows that ekphrastic incident is more than it seems to be.
51
D
COMPOSITION Object (object Painting Poem Reception of d’art) (A the poem person,
landscape, etc.
B
COMPOSER Painter Poet Reader
A
C
Figure II. The complex web of correlations that takes place underneath the seemingly simple relationship between the ekphrastic media.
As presented in Figure II2, when the relations between the object d’art, painting, and poem along with the relations between painter, poet, and readers are added to the
2 There is a similar schema in Moran in which artist, artwork, and reader are given in an interactive relation, the result of which is indicated by the involvement of the whole society in this interaction (10). However, this relationship would not be sufficient while considering ekphrastic relations. Besides, there are certain shortcomings if the society as a whole is added up to the artistic experience between the artist, artwork and its audience. It is also important to remember T.S.Eliot‟s idea on the three voices in poetry. According to him, the 52
discussion, the ekphrastic phenomenon becomes more intricate and less linear. The object of painting filtered by the painter, the painting filtered by the poet, and the poem read by the reader are complex even if they are in a linear relationship (as seen in the relationship indicated by the letter A in Figure II). Besides, the relation between the poet and the painting as well as the relation between the reader and the poem, the painting and the object of painting bring to mind the questions concerning mimesis, representation, and signification. It is also possible to consider the problem from the aspect of compositions as well (as in the relationship indicated by the letters
B and C, respectively, in Figure II); the relation between the object of the painting, the painting itself, the poem and the reception of the poem (sometimes the painting, too) by the reader also bring about questions concerning aesthetics, style, and creation (as in the relationship indicated by the letter D in Figure II).
These interconnections, which have been examined especially by modern theoreticians and critics who study mimetic problems of ekphrasis, will be dealt with in the following sections. But it should be kept in mind that ekphrasis involves a multi-layered network of interrelations between the visual and verbal, which Rosand calls a mutatis mutandis3 relationship, and it is in this sense of muto (“change”) that it lies at the heart of ekphrasis (65). Talking about the interactive quality of ekphrasis, Becker also states that
first voive belongs to the poet talking to himself or to no one; the second to the poet addressing an audience; and the third to poet as persona (“The Three” 89). 3 Mutatis mutandis, originally a law term, literally means “with necessary changes.” Rosand uses it to mean that a poet observes a painting and then writes his poem by making necessary changes – by transforming the visual image into a different system of signs (65-66). 53
By describing the referent of visual images, the ekphrasis accepts the illusion suggested by a work of art. By describing the surface appearance and the materials of the images, it asks us to imagine that we see the visual representation. But, by repeatedly calling attention to the act of describing and the language of decription, the ekphrasis reminds us that it represents a human experience, a translation of visible phenomena into language (38-9)4.
The connection based on such an iconic relationship between the visual images and what they represent and between the images and what the texts representing these images thus play a fundamental role in ekphrastic creation. As Haines puts it, although there is the risk of dominance problems, arts have a tendency to influence each other and the ultimate example of this interrelation is ekphrasis in which two arts try to co-exist in a single work (Haines 40).
Following Becker‟s formulation, the second fundamental feature of ekphrasis is response because ekphrasis is itself a response. The important idea to mention at this point is about the quality of the ekphrastic response. The reception of a work of visual art by the poet is not a casual one; rather his response would be an aesthetic and artistic one. Plainly put another way, the poet does not look at a painting and pass on to another one as a casual museum visitor “who sees artworks for less than a minute,” but he composes poetry by way of which he answers back to what the painting has evoked in him (Marsico and Capa 206). Considering the relations in
Figure II, the response of the reader is also worth mentioning. Apart from the response upon reading an ekphrastic poem, the reader also responds to the painting; in this case, he becomes a reader-viewer or reader-gazer, rather than an undemanding
4 Emphasis added. 54
poetry audience. Because ekphrastic texts act like talking texts or communicating texts, leaving a different impression on each reader about the visual work of art they relate and this could be regarded as one of the fundamental elements of the core of ekphrasis. Paul Ricoeur argues that the involvement of the audience in ekphrastic relations occurs in two stages, divestiture and appropriation (Ricoeur 182-193).
Divestiture alludes to the acceptance of illusion and to the enchantment of the visual while appropriation is meant to suggest the attention given to the working illusion and the self-consciousness of the works of art5.
The movement between these two perspectives [divestiture and appropriation] reflects the movement in an ekphrasis. Visual appearance is respectfully represented, but also transformed by language into a human experience, a reaction to what is seen (Becker 39-40).
Whether these gestures are called divestiture or appropriation, the relationship between the reader-viewer and the poem and the interaction between the painting and the poet indicate a response and it is essential to keep in mind that these responses are not merely rhetorical but rather aesthetic. Because, as Blackhawk suggests, the consideration of an ekphrastic piece is “like looking into the act of creation” (qtd. in
Foster and Prevallet xv); it is to consider the visual and the verbal at the same time to give an aesthetic response and sensory experience or an “artistic communication”
(Davies 125).
5 Ricoeur also regards divestiture as an element of literature that is used as a context of reception while he treats appropriation as an escape or diversion, a context of creation, and as an experience of foreignness and difference (193-194). 55
The third characteristic to cover is the metaphorical quality of ekphrasis. Ekphrasis is often regarded as a readable metaphor that requires a keen and educated eye both for the poet and the reader (Baxandall 151; Becker 51):
An old picture is a record of visual activity. One has to learn to read it, just as one has to learn to read a text from a different culture, even when one knows, in a limited case, the language: both language and pictorial representation are conventional activities (Baxandall 152).
It is a metaphor for the poet because the painting acts as a source of inspiration and replaces other means of stimulation as well as the painter and the painterly imagination. It is a metaphor for the reader because an ekphrastic poem substitutes the painting by giving voice to the mute painting in its absence. This is the reason why philosophers like Ralph Wollheim and Kendall L. Walton describe ekphrasis as not seeing as but as seeing in; so what the ekphrastic audience faces in a poem (and a painting) is not what it presents but what it represents (Davies 170-171).
Since arts, in general, have a tendency to singularize and express themselves
(Gombrich Art 117), ekphrasis tries to translate the visual into verbal by acting as a metaphor or a substitute of the original work of art. Focusing on ekphrasis as a
“pictorial mimesis” and as a device of translation and transtextualization, Marin states that “ekphrasis, the painter-writer‟s „experimental‟ mechanism, aims to show the picture in the text, the picture as text, and to formulate the theoretical propositions on which the painter bases his painting” (Sublime 127). Furthermore,
Marin believes that the metaphorical translation of the image is a magical 56
phenomenon through which the poet risks singularizing, the work of art as found in the enthusiastic opening of his To Destroy a Painting,
…[Ekphrastic poetry] transforms painting into discourse, diverts images into language. What we are dealing with here is a kind of magic or rhetoric that constantly runs the risk of turning what can be seen by all into purely private language (To Destroy 1).
While ekphrasis is an appealing metaphorical and magical entity for Marin, which can also be observed in the double entendre of the root of the word (graphein, meaning “to write” and also “to paint”)6, it is a more literary metaphor that depends on the one-to-one correspondence of the works of art by Becker:
…the attitude that concerns me here is that of the verbal representation, the ekphrasis, vis-à-vis the (imagined) visual representation. …the provocation provided by the visual images; it is a performance or experience of what is seen (2).
Critics like Becker, who argue for a kind of photographic and realistic ekphrasis claim that the target source of ekphrastic relation should be transferred or even copied in a relaxed and straightforward way to express the contents of the source as faithfully as possible, thus turning ekphrasis the metaphor almost to ekphrasis the simile (Goff 51; Becker 2-3). A similar and more enthusiastic remark comes from
Graham when he says that ekphrasis acts or should act as an epic simile rather than a metaphor because much of ekphrasis springs from majestic subjects of history, epics,
6 Similar double entendres are found in image-oriented and grapho-phonological languages such as Chinese and Japanese as seen in the Chinese “hsieh” and Japanese “kakimasu” both meaning “to write” and “to paint.” An analogous pun is also made by Hollander on the verb “draw” when he invites his readers to “draw” the page to observe “the drawings” on which the ekphrastic poems in his book are based (94). 57
and romances (465-466)7. These attitudes, the attitudes to regard ekphrasis either as a complex allegorical figure or as a plain metaphor, no matter how ardent they may sound, point to the representational nature of ekphrasis and, one way or another, it is clear that it is in the nature of ekphrasis to rely on or even copy its source in a variety of ways.
Related to “ekphrasis as metaphor” one last point about ekphrasis to which especially the ancients gave importance should be mentioned: the quality of enargeia
(vividness) or saphêneia (clarity). In fact, the most conspicuous attribute of ekphrastic activity was considered to be vividness until modern theories on ekphrasis drew attention to different aspects of the term (Graham 465; Becker 35; Hollander
10). Aelius Theon, while talking about the progymnasmatic rhetorical exercises8, defines ekphrasis as: “descriptive language bringing that which is being manifest vividly before the sight” (Spengel 118)9. Therefore, the utmost aim of ekphrasis is to make language a window, through which the audience is to view the described phenomena according to this idea. Besides, Theon and his contemporaries believed that the aim was to avoid distraction while trying to achieve this clarity. For that reason, as Aphthonius argued, the job of ekphrasis should only be “to imitate completely the things being described” and nothing more (Spengel 47)10. In this way,
7 It is clear today that ekphrasis does not only occur in classical sources therefore it is possible to claim that Graham‟s assumption presented about the metaphorical quality of ekphrasis can hardly be applied to modern ekphrasis. 8 The ten rhetorical exercises Theon mentions are fable, anecdote, commonplace, praise and invective, comparison, speech of a mythological or historical character, ekphrasis, argument and law (Spengel 72-130). 9 Parallel definitions are also found in the other three progymnasmata. Hermogenes of Tarsus claims that ekphrasis has something to do with the“descriptive language, as they say, vivid and bringing that being made manifest before the sight” (Spengel 118); Aphtonius of Antioch and Nikolaus of Myra surprisingly use exactly the same words and state that it is the job of ekphrasis to bring “…the thing being made manifest vividly before the sight” (Spengel 46; 491). 10 In order to avoid distraction, the progymnasmatic exercise suggests the writer occupy “a relaxed style” by which the ancients meant organic unity. Nikolaus claimed that “to the proposed subject one should… fit the form 58
the rhetorical exercises suggested that the readers (or listeners) of a literary description should be turned into viewers, rather than passive readers (or listeners) and the reader-viewer is invited to involve in the process of description by filtering and adding up their own experiences to the already described events or objects in their mind‟s eyes:
The describer encourages the audience to accept the illusion and, in so doing, diminishes attention to the medium (language) and the mediator‟s experience… [Therefore] ekphrasis is to induce the audience to imagine that they are actually seeing the phenomenon being described… [The] reaction of the viewer, the describer‟s experience or interpretation of phenomena, is to be part of the description after all. Any description is necessarily an interpretation; a describer selects and organizes an infinite variety of aspects of phenomena… Ekphrasis here is not to describe just the visible appearance of the work and the world it represents, but to include the judgements and emotions of the describer (Becker 27-28)11.
Therefore, according to the rhetorical handbooks there should be two imaginations involved; the ekphrastic description should evoke the imaginations and experiences of both the describer and the viewer. This is to be achieved through thauma, which literally means “marvel, astonishment, wonder, or amazement”. Through thauma, the description becomes a marvel between the referent and the describer, the describer and audience, and audience and referent. Commenting on thauma as a strong simile,
Becker states that “in this way, ekphrasis encourages both acceptance of the illusion that we are viewers and awareness of the describer who creates the illusion” (35) and by including the desriber‟s emotions “the illusion is not actually broken but rather colored” (29). Consequently, it is clear that the progymnasmatic handbooks focus on of the narrative” (Spengel 493) and Theon argued that the style of the description should not be “out of tune with their narrative” (Spengel 120). 11 Emphasis added. 59
the idea that a description should encourage its audience to enter the world that is being vividy described and that the presenter and the audience are invited to take part in this description process by filling the gaps of the description and filtering the description through their own imaginations. These ideas were popular, as it is going to be explained in the following sections, until the eighteenth century although it should be remembered that the progymnasmatic suggestions basically concerned the interest of the students of rhetoric in ancient Greece and were initially applied in early Greek poetry.
Apart from the general charcteristics of ekphrasis, the matter of classification should also be mentioned. Whether ekphrasis is a genre, a way of discourse or a literary device has been a question for critics and men of literature. The common assumption is that ekphrasis is a literary mode or a rhetorical technique. Spitzer, for instance, argues that ekphrasis is a way of discourse that calls for “artistic expressivity” and thus enabling the transfer from one work of art to another (28). Similarly Bosveld believes it to be a literary expression that alters the visual and brings it “back from the dead… [in order to] unlock the mysteries of the painting and grow an appreciation for the art and artist” (2). For Becker, there is “no separate type of
„visual‟ poetry... [or no] unique kind of poetry, distinguished in its poetics” as ekphrasis because ekphrasis can be easily generalized into ways of responding while it would also be possible to regard any poem on representation and visuality as ekphrastic should the definition of ekphrasis be limited with mimesis, description or illustration (44). There are only a few idealistic approaches, however, that claim that ekphrasis is a genre or an independent literary style. Verdonk, for example, argue 60
that ekphrasis has experienced a dramatic change from ekphrasis the description to the ekphrasis the genre (“Painting” 231) while Graham regards ekphrasis as more than a literary device (467). It is, however, clear that ekphrasis does not necessarily require a special poetic language although the relationship between the media of ekphrasis could be studied in particular ways of analysis. Because ekphrasis, as a literary way of expression, requires a close and concentrated focus on and a sensivity to the moment in which the intertextual and inter-referential relations between a painting and a poem meet, Stylistics is one of the most prolific methods that may help one to understand these relationships as it has been put forward in the introductory chapter.
Finally, considering the general qualities of the term, it is feasible to claim that ekphrasis, or the “text-painting” (Marin Sublime 30), is an artistic instance and it is never passive or inactive, at least during its creation. Whether based on vivid description or dramatic narration, it is an experience of immediate response and a product and culmination of mind-stirring process. In other words, ekphrasis is not a mere interpretation or report but rather an expression that implies the involvement of the imaginations of the painter, the poet and the reader12. Both painting and poetry are thought-provoking and inspiring activities within themselves and for viewers and readers and therefore their union produces a doubled interaction and stimulation or as
Plato claims when they are placed next to one another, “[painting and poetry] seem to talk to you as if they were intelligent” (qtd. in Foster and Prevallet xv). The
12 Carrier focuses on the distinction between ekphrasis and interpretation as follows:
An ekphrasis tells the story represented, only incidentally describing pictoral composition. An interpretation gives a systematic analysis of composition. Ekphrases are not concerned with visual precedents. Interpretations explain how inherited schemas are modified (“Ekphrasis” 21).
61
“intelligence” of paintings and poems is surely a metaphor although the formula becomes one of instantaneous act of creation when human factor (painter, poet, viewer, or reader) and human intelligence are added to ekphrastic exercises.
62
2.2. The Sisterhood: Sisters or Antagonists?
The relationship between poetry and painting has long been regarded as a familial one: that painting and poetry are sisters, even twin sisters. The idea of “sister arts”13 can be traced back to the works of ancient Greek poets such as Simonides (Haines
40). Although their kinship makes sense due to the natural tie of their signification methods, there is no clear reference or explanation as to how this sisterhood came into being, why their relation has been described as “sisterhood” or to their parentage either in the works of ancients, post-Renaissance criticism or elsewhere14. Yet it is necessary to consider the origin of this relationship in order to understand the mimetic ties between painting and poetry although such an inspection is bound to remain speculative due to the impossibility of reaching accurate historical evidence about the beginnings of this relation. It would be pragmatic to consider the pre- historic cave paintings such as the ones in Lascaux, Cussac, Le Marche, Altamira, or
Chauvet to find out about the ancestoral bond between the visual and the verbal.
These cave paintings often depict animals, plants, farming or pagan rituals (Tansuğ
21-24). Because communication was basically oral and a written language based on representative signs or images did not exist, pre-historic people probably felt the need to draw pictures either to express the then-orally-unexpressible, to communicate or even to educate their siblings. Besides, the beginning of history has been associated with the invention of writing and the periods that preceeded writing has been termed as “pre-historic” (Trager 19; Gombrich The Story 18; Tansuğ 23).
13 In addition to painting and poetry, music has usually been considered as the third member of the sisterhood (Bruhn 10-14; Blümner 9; Marin To Destroy 29-30). The term “sister arts” will cover painting and poetry throughout. 14 The sole reference to the origin of the relation between painting and poetry is found in Hollander who states that “it is poetry which first likens itself to painting, and not the other way round” (The Gazer’s 5). However, Hollander refers to Horace‟s idea, which had been introduced by Simonides of Ceos in Plutarch. 63
Therefore, pre-historic drawings had acted as substitutes of the alphabet. In other words, until writing replaced cave drawings, which could be described as arbitrary signs, pictorial images had served as the central means of communication by illustrating the sounds of speech in lines and colours. It is probably due to this relation between the visual and verbal that the arts have been regarded as sisters.
Nevertheless, the ancestral relation of sisterhood has not been serene; the sisters have proved to be envious sisters and each have coveted the other to the twentieth century.
This metaphor of “envious sisters,” “antagonist sisters,” or “enemy twins” have been popular in many of the critical inquiries on ekphrasis almost until the twentieth century. Introducing the idea of “ut pictura poesis,” Graham focuses on the various applications and understandings of the term. He claims that the motto may indicate the verbalization of a painting by a poet with substantial details or references to form an accurate picture for the reader to visualise and “…this idea was very popular especially in the eighteenth century when critics examined the nature of metaphor”
(466). The poet‟s interest in the frame, light, background or middle ground of a picture in order to relate another story, emotion or idea that is not found in the painting is also essential; in this way “the poet may compete with the painter… to translate [his work] either literally or spiritually. The poet may, however, be responding to a painting, simply revealing his reactions rather than attempting in any way a reproduction” (ibid. 467). The second way of expression15 Graham mentions could be regarded as the reason behind the “battle of mastery between two rival systems of representation” (467; Baker et al. 611-2). He further explains that the
15 Graham adds that the reverse is also true when a painter sets up his easel to illustrate a poem (467). 64
paradox of “ut pictura poesis” lies in the poles apart reception of sister arts, which has been at the heart of “painting against poetry” discussions:
The most usual distinction was that poetry appealed to a man‟s faculty, reason, while painting was simply and dangerously sensory; or, conversely, that poetry appealed merely to slow reason while painting rightly and immediately overwhelmed the viewer through sight, the greatest of senses, by being clearly imitative of nature, by, to note a favourite metaphor, „holding up a mirror to life‟ (467).
Simply explained by Graham, the dispute over the necessity, functionality, and superiority of the sister arts have revolved around the deep philosophical problems that have been argued since the antiquity. The discuission could be regarded as one of the different world views, whether one should follow the sensory (the visual, the image, the surface illustration) or the heavenly (the word, the verbal, the unseen-but- heard). It is easy to reverse the argument if one is to say that seeing is the greatest of gifts compared to the perishable sound and a great number of people would like to hold on to “sight” if they were asked to sacrifice one of them.
Haines remarks that “„sisters‟ is a concept imposed on activities which were in existence long before philosophers and critics noticed certain affinities between them, and began to draw systematic analogies on the basis of certain passing similarities” (40). Indeed, throughout the competition between painting and poetry, sometimes poetry sometimes painting has been regarded as the superior art. The earliest explicit example of the rivalry is found in Pindar‟s Nemean, written in 483
BC, two centuries after the composition Homeric poems. Pindar regards that poetry surpasses illustrative arts like painting and sculpture due to its “greater ability to 65
speak [of] kleos (glory)” (qtd. in Becker 5). Although makers of plastic arts had been praised and encouraged in certain occasions16, the “superiority of verbal description over visual description” was carried on by the ciritics of the sixth to nineth centuries such as Gregory the Great, Sidore of Seville, Thomas Aquinas, Savonarola and
Giulio Romano. In a variety of ways, they asserted that paintings are “the scriptures of the ignorant,” that is for those who could not read (Becker 7; Graham 467)17.
However, the relations concerning dominance began to change dramatically in the
Renaissance18. In Italy, where the signs of the Renaissance were observed the first, the supporters of painting and sculpture began to outnumber those who argued for the excellence of poetry. In his 1489 work Heptaplus, Pico Della Mirandola adopts the neo-Platonic view that put the image over writing and claims that since picture was “a form of revelation, an incarnation of the Word,” it has the ability to relate reality better than the written symbols, or language, do (qtd. in Graham 467-468)19.
The argument that painting surpasses poetry revolved around the sentio problem in these early stages of the Renaissance.
16 Davies mentions the much-praised sculptor Apelles whose horses were so realistic that they seemed like neighing (176). The Greek painter Zeuxis, who was famous with his life-like drawings such as his grapes that attracted birds to perch on their branches, had even been celebrated by Plato (Gorgias 453a-c). 17 The idea reappeared in the Renaissance England when the rivalry between the sister arts was associated with Christian iconography. The idea was that the word of God is the basis of all religion and thus the verbal art should be kept above the visual art. However, it would not righteous to totally disregard visual arts for Christ “gave not only the gospels but his picture on Veronica‟s veil,” which shows that painting was seen as a simple alternative to language. Furthermore, the republican cleric Thomas Fuller in his Worthies of England (1662) asserted that the then-popular illustrated books were, with the pictures, engravings, and emblems in them, were the “books of lay- men” Thomas Fuller (Graham 467). 18 At this point, it is beneficial to remember that different forms of arts flourished and became dominant in different geographies. Italy, for instance, experienced the developments in sculpture, music, and painting while in Germany architecture and music reared as the progressing art forms in the fifteenth century. Similarly, Flemish painters are regarded as the best painters of the seventeenth-century though Holland could not produce any noteworthy musicians or poets during the same period. 19 The same idea is also found in G.P Bellori‟s Vite de pittori, scultori ed architetti moderni (1672). 66
The word sentio indicated knowing, understanding, experiencing through senses and language was thought to fall short to evoke sentio with its arbitrary and aberrant signification or in Graham‟s words “language symbolizes while painting can imitate by natural signs” (467). Following Mirandola, hence, the next generations also regarded the arbitrary symbols of language as a weakness and focused on the powerful and easily appealing disposition of painting. Ludovico Dolce‟s Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento Fra Manierismo e Controriforma exemplifies this point.
Dolce is preoccupied with the superiority of painting to such a point that he states that all poets are painters and poetry can only be regarded as a sub-genre of painting
(155)20. Nonetheless, the well-known defender of painting in this age is Leon Battista
Alberti. Alberti‟s Della Pittura (1435) could be regarded as the basic source of painters or those who defended painters against poets21. The main argument of the book is that it is the painter who “excites our imagination the most” and the aim is to defend painter‟s primacy (77). Alberti believes that
…painting was given the highest honour by our ancestors. For, although almost all other artists were called craftsmen, the painter alone was not considered in that category. For this reason, I say among my friends that Narcissus who was changed into a flower, according to the poets, was the inventor of painting. Since painting is already the flower of every art, the story of Narcissus is most to the point. What else can you call a painting but a similar embracing with art of what is presented on the surface of the water in the fountain? (64).
Painting, as “the flower of every art,” continued its rise especially after Alberti‟s fervent writings and the heavenly attributions dedicated to painting became popular.
20 Ironically Dolce refers to Dante‟s Divine Comedy in which the traveller, excited upon seeing the magnificence of bas reliefs in Purgatario (X), meditates upon the limitations of human language while celebrating the power of expressibility of plastic arts (152-155). 21 Lee, for instance, acknowledges Alberti‟s work as the only source that gives a theoretical introduction to painting and the relations between sister arts after Vasari‟s Lives (8). 67
Vasari‟s influential The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, which is regarded as the critical source on the chronology of plastic arts in the early
Renaissance, also associates painting with Genesis and calls painting as the initiator of all arts, just as Alberti:
…the Most High, after creating the world and adorning the heavens with shining lights, descended through the limpid air to the solid earth, and by shaping man, disclosed the first form of sculpture and painting in the charming invention of things (3).
Vasari and Alberti have been followed by many art historians and critics22 but none of these works has been as straightforward and prominent as Leonardo da Vinci‟s
Paragone: Il Libro Della Pittura23. Written in the late fifteenth century, Paragone clearly places painting over poetry within a paragonal (or comparative) relationship, which is going to be revisited in the next sections. Comparing painting to poetry, da
Vinci claims that, because painting can both make use of the pure and unchanging signs in the nature and express the precise moment more effectively whereas poetry can only imitate these signs, the verbal can never be as efficient as the visual
(Treatise 18). In a note praising Van Dyck‟s oil works, da Vinci also iniated the
“mirror metaphor” that has been referred to in ekphrastic disputes. While he advises painters who doubt about the naturalness of their works to hold a mirror to the object they paint and compare it to their works (Literary 529). According to da Vinci, poetry is unable to check its self-naturality in such a way because it does not work on
22 Among the noteworthy followers of Vasari one may recall Comte de Caylus (Tableaux tirés de l’Iliade, de l’Odyssée d’Homére, et de l’Énéide de Virgile, 1757), Joshua Reynolds (Discourses, 1769-90) and J.M.W. Turner (Lectures, 1811-23). For more on the admirers of Alberti and Vasari see Graham 468-472. 23 Referred to as Paragone henceforth. 68
natural signs and is totally “blind” (ibid. 530)24. The privilege attributed to painting in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries could be a result of the cultural developments.
It is well-known that arts and science had been co-working throughout the history and there was little difference between a painter and an astronomer, or between a sculptor and a composer in terms of social status (Graham 468-469). Especially during the Renaissance, as each form of art and field of science began to break free from the combined status of arts and scince, painting began to be considered as a liberal art, rather than a mere subdivision of “imitative arts” (Ulu “New Voices” 15-
16). Moreover, painters who have been regarded as craftsmen also began to be regarded as esteemed artists especially in Italy, Germany and then in France,
Holland, and England. Consequently, it is not surprising to see that da Vinci puts the emphasis on the visual and representational qualities while he also invigorates the paragonal rivalry between painting and poetry in favour of the former25.
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed a balance in the discussions of superiority26, followed by more critical and pragmatic investigations on the power
24 Da Vinci develops Horace‟s idea, which had been modified by Simonides of Ceos (as painting is mute poetry and poetry is speaking picture) by stating that “painting is mute poetry, and poetry is blind painting” (59). This metaphor was re-popularized in the nineteenth century theorists later on in a parallel form (painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard and but not seen” (Richter 58). Hollander shortens this claim as the rivalry between “talky poem” and “mute image” (The Gazer’s 6). 25 Da Vinci‟s argument received much appreciation especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Painters and literary figures like Gilio, Ludovico Dolce, Du Bos, De Piles, and Joseph Addison strictly defended da Vinci‟s idea that the sense of sight was nobler than any other senses (Lee 57-58). Besides, Lee notes that those who defended painting against poetry were actually using uncreative forms of Renaissance Mannerism. Many of them were the painters of the French Academy who had the humanistic view of the Renaissance. They believed that the most majestic form of painting was historical paintings, then still-life and landscape painting, respectively. Those who credited poetry as secondary to painting claimed that tragedy was the most moving and maybe the closest (to painting) type of poetry (ibid. 3-18, 46). For more on the rivalry between painting and poetry see Stewart (554-555), Rosand (61-105), da Vinci (Treatise 17-8), Sidney (Apologie 19), Dewey (187-224), Ong (The Presence 111-7, 138) and (Interfaces 122-5), Marianne Shapiro (97-114), Langer (75-89), Heffernan (10-22), George Kennedy (5-14), Thalmann (27, 153, 166), Whitman (117-8), and Lynn-George (29). 26 Nonetheless, some of the philosophers of the time were still discussing the superiority issues concerning sisterhood. Kant, for instance, regards poetry as an art of speech while he considers painting as a plastic art and distinctly different from poetry (51.126). Hegel, who placed plastic arts at the bottom of the so-called hierarchy of 69
relations between the visual and the verbal in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
One of the earliest attempts of reconciliation was Joseph Trapp‟s Praelectiones
Poeticae (1711) in which he argued that both arts could be combined to appeal to the wisdom of man (Becker 15; Graham 469)27. Another attempt came from the French painter and art historian Poussin who instructed painters “to paint like a poet... with the unity of action and dramatizations” (Lee 63)28. Dryden, too, believed that painting and poetry are “…wrought up to a nobler pitch [and that] they present us with Images more perfect than the Life in any individual” (qtd. in Landow 6). He was followed by Thomas de Quincey, whose political pamphlets and literary essays were influential on the development of the much debated sisterhood, was also prolific in terms of the reconciliation between the two arts. Although De Quincey seemed to favour poetry, his writings focused on the idea that the two arts needed different kinds of reception since one was for the eye and the other for the ear (New
Essays 17)29. In his essay entitled “Lessing‟s Laocoon,” De Quincey states that both poets and painters actually scrutinize a single moment in time and this makes them
arts, thought that poetry was the highest form of all arts while Schopenhauer crowns music as the greatests of arts (Haines 42). In his 1757 work, Edmund Burke, who places painting above poetry, states that a literary work should not describe appearance, for then it would be merely an inferior representation. For him, a literary work should rather represent the effect and the beauty of the object (167-171). He further claims that
In reality poetry and rhetoric do not succeed in exact description so well as painting does; their business is to affect rather by sympathy than imitation; to display rather the effect of things on the mind of the speaker, or of others, than to present a clear idea of the things themselves (Burke 172).
27 According to Lee, Trapp‟s main source is Benedetto Varchi, whose equalistic idea that poets were after the passions of the soul and painters of the outerworld receieved little critical appreciation (63). A similar view to Trapp‟s has been developed by the twentieth-century critic Clement Greenberg. Greenberg correspondingly argues that the essential point to bear in mind is the relationship between the arts, not the individual artistic qualities of each form of art; therefore, today there is no pure notion of visual or verbal, but a culmination of the two (41-42). 28 Poussin was against the idea that painters should deal only with bodily beauties for which he was criticized by Lessing (Lessing 52; Lee 64-66). 29 A very similar idea on the natural relation between the word and the image was developed in the sixth century by John of Damascus who claimed that “a word is to the hearing what the image is to the sight” (qtd. in Plitz and Åström 50). Not long after De Quincey, in 1880, Blümner stated that painting and poetry are totally different because “…one employs colour and lines and the other words and rhythm” (7).
70
analogous (203). Similarly, S.T. Coleridge believed that poetry and plastic arts had many things in common and they, as a whole, could be metaphorically regarded as a kind of poetry. Coleridge claims that “all fine arts are different species of poetry” because each has a rhytm and melody of their own to impress their audiences (“On the Principles” 220-221).
De Quincey‟s and Coleridge‟s pragmatic and all-embracing ideas have been adopted and developed by G.H Lewes, George Eliot, Walter Pater, and John Ruskin in the nineteenth century. John Ruskin and his prominent Modern Painters published in
1856 in three volumes, which also inspired the Pre-Raphaelite movement, changed the course of the debates by grounding the problems on “the primal inspiration” and enargeia (Ruskin 335). He begins his argument with the humanistic idea that painting and poetry were dependent on each other. Under the influence of J.M.W
Turner, the prominent painter of the age and the professor of perspective at the Royal
Academy, Ruskin states that “painting is properly opposed to speaking or writing, but not to poetry… [because] both painting and speaking are methods of expression… [while] poetry is the embodiment of either for the noblest purposes”
(qtd. in Landow 1). Ruskin further argues that images come from the empirical mind and their function is determined by the mental process and in this way the vision and the perception of that vision in the mind is created. Therefore, for Ruskin, the concept of vision is central for painters, who ought to paint in exact accordance with what is seen to avoid conceptual and empirical misjudgement and confusion (Ruskin
335-337; Witemeyer 35-36).
71
Lewes and Eliot, who defy antipictorialist arguments of the previous century30, follow the empirical codes presented by Ruskin. Lewes and Eliot argue that images operate between sensation and thought as “the primitive instruments of thought” and the verbal representation of images are able to present “to set objects, persons or scenes before an audience” (Hagstrum 11). Indeed, Eliot makes use of this power of the words to depict the visual by presenting the setting before moving into the action of the plot in many of her novels (Witemeyer 42; Eliot The Complete xvi)31. Walter
Pater‟s comments, subsequently, is like a summary of the arguments put forward by
Ruskin, Lewes, and Eliot. Pater, in his 1873 book, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, adopts Trapp‟s and De Quincey‟s ideas on the reconciliation. He believes that
It is the mistake of much popular criticism to regard… all the various products of arts but translations into different languages of one and the same fixed quantity of imaginative thought… Each art… has its own special mode of reaching the imagination, its own special responsibilities to its material (130).
Pater‟s attitude to consider each sister art as a liberal and independent way of expression has been the preferred way to perceive art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Becker 33; Hagstrum 15-20). However, his ideas would not last long if it were not for the theoretical background put forward by Lessing.
30 Lewes ve Eliot are particularly against Burke who divides painting and poetry as two opposing instances in art history and defies the verbal in favour of the visual (Hagstrum 153). See Note 26 in Chapter I. 31 Some of the critics agree that George Eliot was very familiar with the work of Lessing who divides arts as temporal and spatial since Eliot clearly makes use of this division in her works (Hagstrum 12; Witemeyer 39-42; Becker 46; Eliot The Complete xvi-xvii). Still, with its ability to present what is seen in a more detailed way (as opposed to painting which can only present things as they are), the verbal is a higher medium of representation for Eliot. In Middlemarch, for instance, Will Ladislaw, speaking to Naumann, says “And what is a portrait of a woman? Your painting and Plastik are poor stuff after all… Language is a finer medium… Language gives us a fuller image, which is all the better for being vague” (291-292).
72
There is little doubt that the most influential suggestions on the sister arts belong to
Lessing32. Lessing takes sides in the sisterhood discussion by “privileging… the printed or spoken word as the highest from of intellectual practice” (Braida and Prieri
15)33 in order “…to re-establish poetry in its proper place” (Lessing xxvii; 45) and this has often been regarded as a “textual turn.” According to Lessing the translation of the image into action is worthier than representing the image because words can change “beauty into charm” and “charm is beauty in motion and for that reason less suitable to the painter than the poet” (ibid. 112). However Lessing‟s main contribution has been regarded as the division of the art forms as temporal and spatial. This oft-cited interpretation defends that visual arts can only be in relationship with bodies in space while verbal arts work within time34. In other words, painting35 can attempt to imitate actions only by suggesting them within spatial limitations, that is, the canvas; hence painting is restricted for it cannot represent actions but can only freeze them in a single moment on the canvas and suggest the action. Poetry, on the other hand, tries to represent bodies in action, that is, in time, and its lack of physical or natural connection to the referent (since poetry uses arbitrary signs that can appeal to ideas rather than images) frees it from the limitations of the visual arts (Lessing 7).
32 Many sources such as Heffernan, Becker, Wagner, Hollander, Hagstrum, Lee and Graham feel the need to initiate their arguments by revisiting Lessing as the primary source of the sisterhood issue. 33 Lessing owes this idea to his friend Moses Mendelssohn‟s On the Main Principles of Fine Arts and Belles Lettres (1757) and Johann Jakob Bodmer and Johann Jakob Breitinger‟s Discourses of the Painters (1717-1722) (Lessing xix). Other sources he makes use of are Phillippe de Tubiéres and Count Caylus‟s Tableaux tirés de l’Iliade, de l’Odysseé d’Homére et de l’Énéide de Virgile, avec des observations générales sur le costume (which he criticizes) and Joachim Wincklemann‟s Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture (1755) (Méndez-Ramirez 24-5; Lessing xix-xx). 34 See Erinç for details on time and space arguments in arts (9-17). 35 Here and elsewhere in his book, Lessing uses the words “painting,” “visual arts,” and “sculpture” interchangibly (6).
73
Lessing‟s argument based on the temporal and spatial distinction of the sister arts has received much appreciation36. In fact the majority of the twentieth-century debates on ekphrasis have revolved around the verbal-temporal-against-visual-spatial contradiction. Although the following sections will deal with the twentieth-century arguments on the subject, it is necessary to keep in mind that modern theories on ekphrasis inescapably refer to Lessing, Ruskin, Pater, De Quincey, and the other theorists of the nineteenth century who had written on the sisterhood37.
All in all, in the light of the presented arguments on the sister arts, twentieth-century critics seem to agree on the vitality of two points concerning the relationship between the sister arts. First of all, painting and poetry use different media to communicate with their audience and this difference creates “some kind of productive or creative interplay between word and image” (Baker-Smith 1002). At this point, for some of the critics, painting has more advantage in the present age since it can “…gather the freedoms it had so long envied… as [it] move[s] towards abstraction…” (Philips 8).
Secondly, the image-dominated twentieth century witnesses a harsher challenge between the sister arts; while poetry, which “…is expected to call the image to mind, to conjure it up, as it were” in a variety of ways by using sounds and words (Verdonk
“Painting” 235) tries “to overcome the power of the image by transforming and
36 Lessing‟s basic distinction between spatial mode of painting and the temporal mode of poetry has been defended by prominent philosophers such as Friedrich Schiller until the twentieth century (Graham 474). Graham, however, who believes that “the entire problem is a very rich one not yet resolved” (475). He argues that the problem should not be regarded as a simple issue because if the period and the culture of the ekphrastic poem is considered, „time‟ also becomes an element that requires attention for plastic arts (ibid. 475). A similar view is shared in Irving Babbitt‟s 1910 book, The New Laokoön: An Essay on the Confusion of the Arts. The work regards the eighteenth-century ekphrasis as dehumanising because of the so-called action-status battle (12). Nevertheless, both of these views consider “time” as the chronological “time;” this makes their understanding of “time” external to the problems because the “time” Lessing focuses on is not the chronological time but the “temporal” time that works within the artwork. 37 Among other critics who have written on the subject in England are Drayton, Pope, James Harris and Joseph Spence. The majority of these figures, especially Harris and Addison, believed that poetry is superior to painting because it is not restricted to momentary events. For that reason they could be considered as the followers of Lessing (Lessing xvi). 74
inscribing it” (Wagner 13), painting tries to surpass poetry by arguing that “a text cannot exist as a hermetic or self-sufficient entity” without relying on the power of the images (Braida and Prieri 18). Thus the rivalry between the sisters is never static and within the so-called paradoxical battle between the two, each form of art carries the risk of “…weakening itself of its own unique strengths… while seeking the strength of the other” (Haines 45)38.
38 Similar suggestions have been made by Greenberg (43-44) and Lessing (130-135). 75
2.3. Mimesis and Ekphrasis
Dating back to the fifth century BC mimesis literally means reflection or
“representation, which relates to verisimilitude” (Cuddon 512; Harvey 5; Greenber
23). As a term, it has often been associated with Plato, who makes a clear distinction between eidea (“idea” or “master concept”) and eidola (“reflection” or “surface appearance”). According to Plato, the world we live in only provides mimesis, reflecting the eidolas of the eideas which exist as supra-conceptual beings in a world invisible to human eyes. Therefore, while eidea can only be understood conceptually through philosophizing, mimesis alienates the eidea by providing superficial appearances. This is the reason why Plato places craftsmen over artists (painters, playwrights, poets and sculptors) because artists‟ products can only provide a copy
(painting) of a copy (an object, place, or figure) of the eidea (Sophist 267; Republic
3-394e-3-396a).
This is also the reason why along with many of his intiative ideas and questions,
Plato is known with his severe criticism of imitative arts. For Plato painting and poetry can simply be called imitative arts as they are able to represent only the reflections of the eidea world. In Pheadrus, for instance, Socrates tries to convince
Pheadrus on the mimetic similarities between painting and writing with following claims:
You know, Phaedrus, that‟s the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly analogous to painting. The painter‟s products stand before us as though they were alive, but if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words; they seem to talk to you as if they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what 76
they say, from a desire to be instructed, they go on telling you just the same thing forever (275d).
The basic point in this argument is not the resemblances between writing and painting but Plato‟s awareness of the distinction between the media these arts make use of. In today‟s terms, Plato‟s argument could be transcribed by pointing out that these two arts, through different signifying systems, reproduce a representation; one using natural signs (images) and the other using arbitrary signs (words)39. This argument, that the most obvious difference between painting and poetry is the difference between the materials they use, has been dominant in the discussion of sisterhood and supremacy40.
Plato‟s student Aristotle, in a way, rescued imitative arts from his master‟s harsh disapproval and began to question his master (Braida and Prieri 11). Although
Aristotle, in his Poetics, is not openly concerned with the nature of poetry, there are clear references to the art of “making poems” (Else 9). In fact, the opening chapter of
Poetics deals with differences between the poetic arts (music, drama, poetry, rhetoric and the like) and other productive arts (house-building, harness making and so on) and, unlike Plato, who had condemned imitative arts, he begins the discussion on imitative arts by claiming that “metaphor is a gift”41 by putting the emphasis on the idea that imitation is both necessary and functional (59a4-8). Aristotle regards the imitative arts not as obstacles to understanding the truth but as an auxiliary vehicle that help man conceive the ways of the world. For him, works of art, especially oral
39 See Pheadrus for further details of this discussion (especially 273a-c, 277a-d). 40 See the previous section (2.2) on the sister-arts. 41 Here and elsewhere in Poetics, the word “metaphor” is used to mean “imitation” and “representation” (51a, 51b, 57a, 59a, 59c). 77
and dramatic arts, represent the truth in its absence; in other words, poetry and drama present the stories, acts, and characters that one may not always meet. No matter how didactic it may sound, Aristotle‟s defence establishes poetry to its original roots
(Aristotle xv). Regarding mimesis as a “master concept” in poetry, Schwartz comments on Aristotle‟s argument with the following clarification (1):
The mimetic process in the poetic arts is more difficult to understand than it is in the other arts because the poet‟s medium is language, and language has a multiplicity of common uses other than the making of poetry. Our ordinary use of language is self-expressive and practical… [but] we use language mimetically. Only the poet does that; that, says Aristotle, is what distinguishes him as a poet (Schwartz 6-7)42.
As Schwartz explains, Aristotle‟s point is not only to distinguish arts from mimicry but also to emphasize that arts are mimetic in nature. Mimesis, therefore, for
Aristotle does not refer to purely imitative and copycat acts. Rather, it evokes creativity, inspiration, and innovation.
Aristotle‟s ideas on mimesis, along with Plato‟s criticism, have been regarded crucial in arguments concerning the mimetic nature of ekphrasis. Especially after the
Renaissance and seventeenth-century emphasis on the individual followed by the modern theories on arts, mimesis has been revisited in order to better understand the representational nature of ekphrastic activities (Bruhn 7; Moran 19, 39, 101; Braida and Prieri 16; Ulu “New Voices” 140-155). As far as the mimetic theory is concerned, the established view inherited from the theoretical claims between the
Renaissance and the twentieth century provides the vitality of the artistic
42 Emphasis added. 78
involvement43. Coleridge‟s decisive statement, “if there be likeness to nature without any check of difference, the result is disgusting; and the more complete the delusion, the more loathsome the effect” (“Poesy of Art” 256), has formed the basis of this notion. Therefore, it has usually been thought that mimesis should not be based on
“formal similarity” but on transitiveness (Schwartz 4); and as for poetry, poet‟s job has correspondingly been formulated to represent human speech, melody, rhythm, character and nature through his individual filter. Because if mimesis is to copy nature as it is,
…then the artist is indeed superfluous, for the tape recorder or camera can copy nature more exactly than poet or painter. The simple-copy theory also implies that the value of a work resides in its fidelity to external reality, not in some inherent excellence – and this is palpably false. The fact that mimesis involves dissimilarity as well as similarity also argues against any literal view of imitation (Schwartz 5).
So mimesis could never be singled down to a carbon copy act. The ekphrastic poet, then, does not plainly copy nature or human language but creates an original way of expression which has some likeness to actual human speeches and acts or objects in the nature.
A considerable amount of critics have argued for the need of creativity and artistry in mimesis in ekphrasis and other art forms explained above. Lévi-Strauss, for instance, believes that if the produced work is a mechanical copy of its source, then that end
43 Some technical developments concerning the history of painting have influenced the theories on perception, light, and perspective such as Brunellesco‟s optical box designed in the late seventeenth century. The optical box aimed to establish structural equivalence between the point of view and the vanishing point in the pro-duction (Vor-stellung) while it allowed the gaze and the eye to be equivalent (in the sense that it submits the gaze to the eye) by way of “its geometrical and optical law” (Marin To Destroy 46). More on these innovations concerning painting will be presented in the following sections.
79
product cannot be an artwork but an object (Charbonnier 108). Nelson Goodman, claiming that the systems of pictorial representations are different from the systems of linguistics representations, argues that the two systems could only meet at a level of aesthetic culmination if they are filtered through poet‟s imagination (Davies 174).
Heffernan opposes the traditional idea that “the virtuosity of a representational work of art is measured by its fidelity to nature” by stating that
The consciousness of difference – the sense of friction between the medium and the subject matter of a work of art – is precisely what makes the difference between a copy and an imitation, or between delusion or an aesthetic illusion (37).
Hence it is appropriate to say that the traditional idea of mimesis has long been out of favour except for a few critics who defend the necessity of sticking to the idea that artists should aim to produce one-to-one representation of their objects44.
Another point to consider in the twentieth-century understanding of mimesis is the relation between narrative and depiction. Gerard Genette claims that the duty of mimesis is to define narration as depiction of objects or people in movement, and
44 One of these critics is Friedländer, who is “the owner of the only thorough study on the history of ekphrasis” for Becker (9). Friedländer‟s work, which covers ekphrasis from Homer to the sixteenth century, assumes that “true description is the representation of the surface appearance of a work of visual art” and thus ekphrasis should try to represent, as faithfully as possible, the visible features (qtd. in Becker 1-2). Homer, for instance, is easily carried away with stories and dramatization and falls from true description according to Friedländer (ibid. 2). No direct references are given to Friedländer throughout this study since his work, which is in German, has not been translated into English. Apart from Friedländer, Lukacs, too, regards ekphrasis as a descriptive device that represents and describes its object as clearly as possible (Yavuz 26). Referring to the descriptive discourses that have experienced a drastic change after the nineteenth century due to the rise of the individual or the urban, Lukacs states that description, which is the core of ekphrastic exercise, should dominate the text and it should become the text itself (Lukacs 110-148; Yavuz 26-27). Buchbinder, on the other hand, believes that the value of a depiction should be judged according to the nature of representation. By this term he means the nature of reality and its realtion to representation and the question how the representation of reality is accomplished or subverted and denied (3-4). 80
description as the depiction of objects and people in statis (Figures 57)45. Similarly
Schwartz argues that mimesis, which works with signs or images, should be regarded as a tool that depicts and narrates the images and ideas in their absence (9)46.
Accoring to this notion, mimesis has two basic functions. One of them is, as it has been developed by the ancients, to mirror the objects “in statis” and freeze them in a single moment by giving their true-to-life description. The other is to relate the objects that are in action and to narrate their story. This shows that, although both of the functions were familiar to the ancient epic writers like Homer and Virgil, mimesis, at least mimesis in poetry, does not simply present the detailed models of objects in space but it provides motion and gesture through narrative depiction. At this point, it is necessary to recall Riffaterre‟s ideas on mimesis. Riffaterre claims that mimesis could never be taken as a simplistic literary act for it is in the nature of mimesis to refer to the biographical, historical, social, economic, realities outside the object while describing it (Buchbinder 5). For Riffaterre, as a semiotician, it is the job of semiotic theories to foreground these signifying mimetic structures47. He puts forward “two different semiotic operations of transformation of mimetic signs into words and phrases relevant to siginificance, and the transformation from matrix to text” and believes that these rules govern the “verbal mechanisms of sign integration from mimesis to significance level” (Riffaterre Semiotics 21-22). One of them is termed as hypogrammatic rule by Riffaterre to refer to the study of lexical
45 Genette strongly opposes C.S. Baldwin‟s claim that mimesis “frustrates narrative movement” especially in ekphrastic texts (Figures 55-57; Baldwin 19). 46 Defining the sign Schwart recalls that the scholastics had defined the sign “...as that which makes known to a cognitive power something other than itself…” (9). He further explains that the sign takes the place of the thing to which it refers, and it makes this referent present to the mind: “...thus nothing can be a sign of itself, a sign must refer – must stand for something else. And it makes this other thing known” (ibid. 9). A likewise understanding of the sign, or the referent, is presented in the following paragraphs while dealing with the assumprions put forward by Derrida. 47 Riffaterre thinks that practitioners of mimetic theories also frequently begin with a semiotic reading of mimetic elements in a poetic text although they deny the necessity of Semiotics. Besides, a semiotician also feels the need to turn to mimetic theories while looking for semiotic and stylistic structures in a text (Semiotics 20). 81
actualization, stereotypes, decriptive systems in textual mimesis and the other is expansion, which refers to the interpretation of these underlying mimetic elements under the cover of depiction and narration (ibid. 22)48.
Structuralists and semioticians like Riffaterre, thus, have not devalued mimesis as a literary act that merely functions as a pictorial element. More radical ideas have been put for forward during the course of the twentieth century on artistic representation.
For instance, Victor Shklovsky‟s suggestion to defamiliarize objects illustrates the break from the idea of mimicry and one-to-one imitation of the object. For him
…the technique of art is to make object “unfamiliar,” to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of the object; the object is not important (12)49.
The rupture from the traditional idea of mimesis has gradually become clearer as new forms and modes of art came into being such as Impressionism, Abstract Art,
Cubism and Futurism, each of which have taken the idea of the involvement of the artist for granted. Finally, although ekphrasis, as “an iconic story… [representing] the narrative moment… [in] timeless presences,” is consequently and basically a product of mimetic exercise and artist‟s creation, the relationship between mimesis and ekphrasis is in a risky position (Marin To Destroy 55); it has not ended but the
48 See part 2.4 for more on the function of Semiotics and Stylistics. 49 Original emphasis. This idea has been much criticised for its elaborate focus on structure and its tendency to dissolve the organic unity of pems. Schwartz, for example, says: “My own view is that poetic language does „defamiliarize‟ and so intensify perception, but that this serves a further end in facilitating our perception of what the work „means,‟ of the poet‟s vision” and offers to deal with poetry in its own harmony as a whole (5-6).
82
role of mimesis in this relation has eroded in the complex structure of modern philosophical and literary theories.
83
2.4. Modern Theories on Ekphrasis
Having covered the essential discussions before the twentieth century, it is fundamental to consider the modern critical ideas on ekphrasis to understand the complex philosophical and literary relations of ekphrastic exercises and the sisterly relation between painting and poetry. Hence, this section aims to cover the critical debates on ekphrasis especially in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries with reference to the noteworthy philosophers, art historians, poets, and literary critics.
Louis Marin is one of those theorists who believe that there is need to formulate some questions in order to find answers to the complicated ekphrastic phenomena.
Therefore he begins to investigate the issue by asking about the possibility of a visual language embedded in paintings that could be translated into verbal signs:
How does one go about discovering a way into a painting? And why does one even need to comment on a painting if the end envisaged by the painter‟s action can be achieved simply by experiencing pleasure or jouissance?... Is a discourse on painting possible? More precisely, is a discourse on painting possible that would be different from the discourse of a given painting? Can there be a verbal metalanguage for the language of painting? Are all systems of signification to be interpreted through language? (To Destroy 7-15)50.
He believes that painting has its special ways to communicate with its audience. Just as texts, painting contains a “metasemantics” of his own and it is this miraculous quality of painting that attracts poet‟s “…desire to know and decipher the enigma” in the paintings (ibid. 7, 16). Marin, then, divides the metalinguistic qualiy of paintings
50 Marin poses similar questions in his Sublime Poussin, where he studies the descriptive imagery and narration: “Can the general rules of transmutation be defined? What types of transformation are imposed on a linguistic configuration by the transfer to a visual configuration?” (29). 84
into three. For him, a painting uses the “enigma” either through autorepresentation, self-referentiality, or a combination of the two (ibid. 16-7). In other words, a painting may be a realistic one clearly presenting its message as a whole or it may let the characters, landscape, colours and lines express themselves. According to Marin, as long as the message or the represented image is created in our minds, the painting is successful.
The message or the image created in the mind‟s eye is often been called “an idea” in the twentieth-century criticism. The “idea,” created by imagery or language, is always dynamic since it is “mobilized by [the] signs” (Marin Sublime 153). Marin takes this concept of “idea” for granted by acknowledging Foucault, who owes this concept to Kant and the post-Renaissance humanist epistemology51:
To represent oneself is simply to cast a glance at the things that present themselves to our mind… through representation, the things as presence becomes accessible to the mind in the form of an idea… To speak of representation in general is thus to rely on a number of theoretical and historical assumptions concerning discourse and signs as well as on knowledge relevant to science and to the subject and its relation to being – in short, on what Foucault has called an episteme… (ibid. 17, 24).
Marin, therefore, puts the emphasis on the effect, or episteme, that a painting leaves on the poet. For him, the effect may produce inspiration more if the poet does not know the painting in advance. Otherwise the neutral corrolary becomes disturbed:
51 Commenting on this notion, Davies reminds us that aesthetic experience of an item‟s formal beauty and sublimity tends “toward the ineffable” (8). He claims that aesthetic experience is not solely perceptual; rather it is “...infused by a cognitive but non-perceptual process described by Kant as involving the free play of the imagination and the understanding” (ibid. 8).
85
…the viewer may be unfamiliar with the story represented in the painting [because]… it turns out that this neutralizing of the eye and gaze, of the relation between painter and painting, and painting and viewer, is itself the story expressed in the representational scene and its „frieze‟ of figures (ibid. 35)52.
Hence, according to him, if the poet is not acquainted with the painting and if he meets the visual impact of the painting for the first time, he is able to read “formal and expressive signs” and the relation between the painting and its background more adequately (ibid. 31, 102).
Another significant suggestion Marin presents is the idea of diagrammatic or sequential reading of paintings and poems. Similar to the structuralist view, Marin offers to read poetry and painting in smaller units, figure by figure, or clause by clause (Marin Sublime 46-53). Marin believes that this method is especially applicable to the reading of paintings as it allows the critic to find out about the similarities, polarities, and parallels in the painting (ibid. 57-66).
52 Marin opposes himself when he excludes mythological and pastoral or religious paintings. He states that the viewer must be familiar with the story because the text (or the story) actually comes before the painting and this is a crucial problem for the transformative process between the painting and its viewer (ibid. 56-7).
86
Figure III. Marin’s scheme to “read” paintings (Destroy 59-60)
As seen in Marin‟s proposed scheme, the critic should read the painting from A to b,
B to a, a to b, and A to B, and then should focus on the central points (indicated by the letter x). In this way, it is possible to see the light, shadow, line, and colour relations of a painting. Such a reading of paintings is quite efficient because an uneducated eye may miss the dimensional depth, illumination details, and the rhythmic movements of figures and bodies in the painting (To Destroy 60).
Although Marin, as an art historian, often turns to philosophy and literary criticism, there has been little appreciation concerning his commentaries from literary circles.
More critical observations and commentaries on ekphrasis and on the intricate relation between the visual and the verbal have been made by thinkers, art and literary critics, and poets. Especially after the second half of the twentieth century, there has been a substantial increase on the number of works on the complex structure of ekphrastic exercise. Smith believes that the interest in the relation 87
between painting and poetry is a result of a paradigmatic shift in our perception (2).
Because twentieth-century thought has replaced the conventional idea of mimesis and the understanding of the concepts such as realism, representation, impression, and expression has totally changed. This alteration related to the treatment of ekphrasis is usually conceived as an outcome of the pioneering philosophical and critical activities presented by theorists such as Krieger, Becker, Heffernan,
Hollander, Derrida and Mitchell in the twentieth century.
One of the essential works on ekphrasis in the twentieth century is Murray Krieger‟s
Ekphrasis: The Illusion of the Natural Sign. Published in the second half the twentieth century, Krieger‟s book focuses on Lessing‟s established spatial-temporal categorization. He argues that a poem achieves its freedom from the temporal flow that arbitrary signs of language provide. Besides the represented object in the poem also frees itself from the spatial limits of the frame by becoming “…the metaphor for the temporal work that seeks to capture its temporality” (Krieger The Illusion 107).
Like Lessing, therefore, Krieger argues for the superiority of the temporal (poetry) over the spatial and the limited (painting). Krieger‟s categorization of ekphrastic poetry as descriptive and narrative is thus a result of this understanding. For him an ekphrastic poem53 fights for dominance either by describing the object (spatial) or through narration (temporal), either made-up (as in Keats‟s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” or Shelley‟s “Ozymandias”) or historical (as in Lovelace‟s poem on Peter Lilly‟s painting).
53 Krieger adopts the earlier definition of ekphrasis as any desription of any object (The Illusion 19, 34-35). 88
Krieger‟s grouping has been criticized both for its inclusiveness and function54. It is true that categorizing ekphrastic poetry as descriptive and narrative is rather questionable because an ekphrastic poem may be descriptive or narrative at the same time as observed in The Iliad, The Odyssey, and “The Rape of Lucrece.” Davidson, for instance, denounces the need of such categorization and accuses Krieger of “self- enclosure” (72) while Heffernan calls this classification “too broad” (Museum 3).
Instead of Krieger‟s model, Davidson proposes another diachronic duality by dividing ekphrastic poetry into two. He believes that some of the ekphrastic poems are written about a visual work and he refers to these poems as “the classical painter poem” (72). Such poems are purely descriptive poems describing its subjects as they are freezed in time and this category immediately reminds us Genette‟s comments on mimesis as description. The other kind of poem is “painterly poem,” which
“…activates strategies of composition equivalent to but not dependent on the painting itself,” such as Ashbery‟s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” (ibid. 72). In a way, painterly poems deal with the story represented by the image on the canvas.
However, according to Heffernan, this attempt is just to replace Krieger‟s classification with a more “polarized” idea (Museum 3). Indeed, both Krieger and
Davidson seem to disregard the fact that the text at hand is a poem, a complex entity to be classified in this way. It is possible to claim that neither Krieger‟s ontological classification nor Davidson‟s seemingly pragmatic and straightforward definitions are able to satisfy the needs of the complicated ekphrastic apparati.
54 One of the few commentaries that is in harmony with Krieger‟s belong to Joseph Frank, who believes that “new descriptive categories” should be formulated for ekphrasis (204). Frank believes that, in modern ekphrasis,“poets undermine the temporality of language, allowing the reader to perceive the images in the poem not in the linear flow of time but as juxtaposed in space” (ibid. 200).
89
Becker, whose The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Ekphrasis provides a detailed analysis of the ekphrastic narrative in the Iliad, has attempted to replace former categorizations of ekphrasis. According to him, ekphrasis is a more intricate phenomenon and hence it requires a more complex structural method that can
“dissolve the subject” in a deconstructive manner (Sarup 2). He divides levels of representation in ekphrastic exercise into four. The first step is res ipsae, “a focus on events and characters that constitute the subject matter of picture” (Becker 40-41). In this level, which acts like a “naming process,” description is based upon “the recognition and elaboration of what is described by the image” (ibid. 42). The second step is termed opus ipsum, which is “a focus on the physical medium,” and it refers to the surface appearance of the work of visual art. Opus ipsum also serves to defamiliarize the object by “calling attention not to the world [the image], but to the window through which we see it” (ibid. 42-43)55. The third level, artifex and ars, focuses on the creator, creation of the work of art, and their relation to the medium and the referent respectively. It is the instance where the imagination of the poet and visual image meet. The final stage is animadversor, which is based on the effect of reaction of the audience. For Becker, this phase calls attention to the interpreter between the audience and the work and to the verbal medium into which these images are translated (ibid. 43).
During the course of this study, no ciritical commentary from other theoreticians has been found on Becker‟s classification but it is obvious that Becker, whose suggested ekphrastic stages rely on the earliest examples of ekphrasis such as The Iliad, The
55 Becker reminds us that this defamiliarization is not the same as Russian formalists‟. Rather he refers to the depiction of color, shape, and texture in the work of visual art (ibid. 42-43). 90
Odyssey, and Metamorphoses, falls short to consider the multifaceted ekphrastic relations presented in Figure II. To put it another way, Becker‟s suggestions, therefore, are purely linear and ignore the painting-poem, painter-poet, and painting- poet relations that communicate with one another.
Another classification belongs to Lynn Marsico and Rogers Capa56. Marsico and
Capa, unlike Krieger and Becker, follow Davidson‟s method to study ekphrastic exercises contextually. According to them, there are eight types of ekphrastic poetry and each of them is termed with their explanations. These are:
1) Giving voice 2) Praising art 3) Using the artwork to examine personal issues 4) Close study of a single artist 5) Wiriting in response to abstract art 6) Recreation of the visual object through verbal means 7) Creating narratives from the art 8) Museum ekphrasis (Marsico and Capa 210-211).
As it is going to be explained in the following paragraphs, compared to structural and mechanical classifications, contextual groupings provide more pragmatic and accurate results. However, Marsico and Capa‟s model too occasional to be considered as a well-set classification because only a limited number of poems can be applied to each of these categories. Besides their insistence on the limits of these groups makes it hard to decide which poem falls into which category.
56 Marsico and Capa acknowledge Terry Balckhawk as their primary source while formulating these categories (210). 91
Classifications as Marsico and Capa‟s, Krieger‟s, Davidson‟s and Becker‟s are undoubtedly important academic and critical contributions to the study of ekphrasis.
Nonetheless it is evident that these categorized groups are not products of vital critical and philosophical ideas. Rather they seem to serve particular aims or they are merely occasional and limited to particular canonized examples of ekphrastic poetry except for Davidson‟s contextual grouping. At this point, it is necessary to turn to the essential twentieth-century intellectual developments in literary criticism concerning the progress of ekphrastic criticism and poetry.
It is indispensable to refer to a thinker like Derrida who has written much on texts, paintings, and images while studying the relation between the verbal and the visual.
One of the vital concepts Derrida puts forward while analysing this relation is effacer. The word effacer literally means “to erase, efface, obliterate an inscription, or rub (especially inscription) out.” Derrida regards this concept as a metaphorical act to cover up, or to patch up, the old signs, lines, and textures on the canvas. He believes that a text could be taken as a canvas (or a canvas as a text) and each revision made on the text (or on the canvas) is efface the text and thus an attempt to cover, hide, cross out and even delete the original image or word (The Archeology
19-20). So what the ekphrastic poem does is to refer to an already modified visual image and to change, illustrate, and express it in a further modified way with a different system of signs. Effacer continues with suppléer. The English equivalent of the verb suppléer is “to fill in, to supply, or to provide.” However Derrida makes use of the word to imply maintenance and prolongation. The altered image that has been turned into words continues to exist in a different way and its existence, though 92
problematic, substitutes the former way of expression and supplies it with a transformed and even malformed arrangement (ibid. 23-26).
These relations, as in many of Derrida‟s works, are phenomenological and based on presence-absence and was-is-to-be associations57. Thus it is possible to claim that
Derrida‟s arguments on the interconnection between arts revolve around the ultimate philosophical question of being and reminds us the paragonal rivalry da Vinci had discussed in the fifteenth century:
Every presence is therefore contaminated by absence, for meaning exists in consciousness as a presence only because of the phonemic, graphemic, perceptual, and conceptual differences between it and absent terms (Mack Smith 29).
Consequently, Derrida, as opposed to the art historical conventions dealing with the visual-verbal relation, does not simply focus on the sign, message or the surface meaning of the image and the text but he draws attention to “any philosophy of language or perception positing Being as presence” (Smith 29) and the ultimate quality of such a presence, whether visual or verbal, is designated by “names” (ibid.
292). Transferring Derrida‟s assumptions to the field of ekphrasis, it is possible to claim that an ekphrastic poem carries the signs of its absent source, the unavailable
57 Mack Smith suggests that Derrida is indebted to Husserl and his phenomenological arguments concerning the idea of “the suspension of the natural standpoint as a foundation of perception,” which have been brought together in the term epochē (29). The term is related to the fundamental notions of phenomenology such as “presence of absence” or “absence in presence” as it is presented in the following paragraphs. Comparably, while commenting on the importance and complexity of “presence through existence” and on the limits of language to relate “presence,” Marin states that presence, unlike absence, can only be indicated by the verb etre (to be), as “the basic kernel of all verbs”(To Destroy 20-21). The verb “to be,” according to Marin, “…designates the being that all nouns signify… [and] all verbs are reducible to the present indicative of [this] verb” (ibid. 21) and therefore only through a logico-grammatical analysis (referring to his term diagrammatic reading) can a study reveal the importance of the sense of presence created by the verb “to be.”
93
painting, as it is read or studied by its audience. The visual, then, though absent, is yet able to communicate through the poem, the poem-effacer. Moreover the paradoxical presence of the painting in its absence could only be achieved by the poem‟s clear reference, that is, by naming the painting. It is probably due to this reason that many ekphrastic poets feel the need to “name” the paintings that inspire them, either in their titles or within their texts58.
The problem of presence, both for the image and the word, leads to one of Derrida‟s master concepts: differance. Derrida believes that no sign system shares a fixed meaning since fixation of meaning is impossible. Rather than a predetermined and preset meaning, each text, whether verbal, visual, or semiotic, is overrun and contaminated with the interplay of the signs or the “play of differences” it contains
(Smith 41). Defined by Derrida as “…the systematic play of differences, of the traces of differences, of the spacing by means which elements are related to each another”
(Positions 27)59, differance inevitably requires another term, trace60. Trace, like differance, could be regarded as a term to understand the absence of presence in a text. It could be likened to a metaphysical tool that helps us to deconstruct the meaning in a text by exposing certain presupposed points in that text. For Derrida,
58 See Heffernan‟s categorization of ekphrasis as notional and actual in the following paragraphs. 59 A parallel idea is also put forward by Wittgenstein who believes that reality or the real knowledge about texts could only be achieved by an understanding of language plays because reality itself is constructed upon these plays or differances, in Derridean terms (Mack Smith 40). Correspondingly, Davies argues that it is because of these language plays that the “potentially rich and complex” postmodern literary modes like “allusion, pastiche, quotation, caricature, homage” have become crucial and popular in postmodern literature (93). Likewise, Mason, too, believes that it is the language plays that produce meaning in a language by referring to Wittgenstein: “...some of our speech acts can rightly be called illocutionary acts of describing the world. There are... language- games of describing... [which] determine what counts as a good description and what a bad one, internal to the game which is played” (39). Sarup‟s description of postmodern thought, along with the question of sublimity, representations, and discourse strategies, correspondingly focuses on the “appeal of language plays” (150). 60 Although it has not been argued earlier, Derrida‟s trace could be likened to a Jakobsonian term, in absentia, which referes to the quality of a text that refers to objects or texts that are available at the time of referring (Talbot J. Taylor 57). In this respect, both trace and in absentia recall absence, rather than presence. 94
It is not the question of a constituted difference here, but rather, before all determination of content, of the pure movement which produces difference. The pure trace is difference (Of Grammatology 62)61.
When applied to ekphrasis, it is clear that trace is not the physical trace of the painting found in the poem. The term should be understood as the next step of differance, as the outcome of the differentiating and active signs in a particular text.
In other words, trace is the final step that defines the ontological identity of a text or in a more phenomenological way “the not-now [textual differance] discomforting the now [fixation of the signs] is the other to which the sign [text] must refer for self- identity [textual presence]” (Smith 30). This interaction at work in the text regarding differance and trace results in a new creation and construction of meaning. Each time a text is read or interpreted, a new writing takes place and the text, or the meaning of the text is reproduced due to the ever-active and interplaying signs. This is because
Derrida regards reading, interpreting, and writing as re-writing and re-producing, causing the original text, or the ur-text in the postmodern sense, become an “other” or an “outsider” to the reproduced (Derrida The Archeology 92; Of Grammatology
84-110)62.
61 Original emphasis. 62 Correspondingly Marin argues that writing or interpreting is actually a re-textualization process.The writing Marin is referring to is not the original writing or textualization of a text but the rewriting of it because:
…[original] writing could be said to exist only in the past. This idea is paradoxical indeed, for I could easily make exactly the opposite claim: the fleeting nature of speech entails a perpetual vacillation between „already‟ and „no longer…‟ [Re]writing, on the other hand, is always present in its traces… Although historical stories were written by someone, when I read, the effect of reading leads me to overlook the fact that the text was written. Indeed, the text articulates a paradoxical injunction: „Remember to forget‟ (To Destroy 25).
The same notion as Marin‟s motto “remember to forget” is surprisingly found in Derrida, too, when he states that the ultimate purpose of writing is to forget (Archieve 12-15; 110-116). 95
Parallel to this idea, Derrida, in his The Truth in Painting, opposes the Kantian categorization of ergon and parergon, two elements a painting encloses. Ergon refers to the centralized individual work while parergon evokes the marginalized adornments of framing, drapery, or colonnades. Traditionally erga, the structural and contextual unity of paintings, is thought to come before parerga, the supplementary materials around paintings. Derrida claims that such a subordination of “the other” or
“the outer” cannot be applied to works of visual art because the complementary
(parergon) usually preceeds the painting itself (ergon) (The Truth 54). Ergon, as the finished work, is bound to exist within the limits of its frame, which, framing the primary product, cooperates in the meaning making process initiated by the homo significant63 viewer (ibid. 57-58). Derrida‟s claim holds true within the twentieth- century idea to preserve the perishable works of visual art since no canvas is kept without a frame either in museums or in private collections. The differance is again at play as the driving force in the ergon-parergon relation of dominance and subordination. However, the crucial point about this argument concerning ekphrasis is the emphasis put on the contextual and structural limits of paintings. Symbolically speaking, Derrida states that the limits between the frame and the painting are no longer valid due to the continuous power relations between the two. Although it seems irrelevant to the relation between the visual and the verbal, it is essential to remember that much of the disagreement on the limits and interrelation between painting and poetry has resulted in debates on the limits of painting. Therefore, whether a poem describes, refers to, depicts or relates a painting is directly connected to the boundaries of that painting or to whether it denotes extra-pictorial meanings
63 “Meaning maker;” the coinage is introduced by Chandler (17). 96
outside what it represents. Subsequently, if the image represented on the canvas moves beyond its framing edges, the beyond-the-frame inexorably becomes dominant and adds to what the image on the surface on the canvas has to say already.
As it is going to be dealt with in the following parts, some ekphrastic poems are particularly interested in the additional, or the parergonal, signs and meanings rather than the ergon itself. Indeed, one of the central arguments in The Truth in Painting is the multi-referential and multi-layered meanings of paintings. In order to illustrate this point, one may consider Derrida‟s criticism of Heidegger and Schapiro. While analysing Van Gogh‟s Old Shoes with Laces, a painting that merely shows a pair of shoes, Derrida condemns Heidegger‟s and Schapiro‟s simplistic commentaries that regard the shoes as an allegory of the life itself64. Before an investigation on the meaning of the represented image of shoes, Derrida first doubts that the shoes may not be each other‟s pairs in the first place (ibid. 263-264). His questioning and analysis, in other words, works not from within the image but from the without the image, beyond the canvas and its frame. Hence, he warns the audience, who also takes part in the meaning-making process, to avoid the reading the surface image only by disregarding what has been left outside the image such as painter‟s imagination, paintings‟s historical context and background, and the additional meanings the painting may bring about excluding painter‟s intentions65.
64 See Heidegger (162-163) and Schapiro (“The Still Life” 205) for details of these commentaries. 65 A similarly central idea is also introduced in his Writing and Difference, where Derrida claims that to write (or to read) is to reproduce (11). Following Barthes, he further states that meaning is never stable either it is inside or outside of a text waiting to be discovered. Rather each reading and writing (exercised by the ever-receptive and ever-suggestive writer or reader) results in a new meaning-making process, defined by Derrida as “incessant deciphering.” Haines believes that this notion is inevitably in relation with the trace, which refers to the Derridean initiative that the meaning of each word shifts in relation to the meaning of its neighbours (49). 97
Derrida‟s deconstructive hypotheses, inquiring attitude and philosophical gestures on the ontological, epistemelogical, and archeological (in the Derridean sense of the word) aspects of texts and paintings have been quite influential on those who study the paragonal relation between the visual and the verbal though his views do not seem to relate to the canonized discussions of ekphrasis straightforwardly. In de
Man‟s words, postmodern ideas, especially Derrida‟s deconstructive attitude, have taugt the modern critic “to reveal the existence of hidden articulations and fragmentations within assumed monadic totalities” (249)66. The following paragraphs will cover these ideas that have flourished in the light of the already presented literary and critical developments.
Some of the most appreciated claims on ekphrasis belong to the American literary critic and poet John Hollander. His distinction between notional and actual ekphrases has been taken for granted by almost all of those who write on ekphrasis.
Hollander believes that there is a need to differentiate those poems which are written about “…purely fictional painting or sculpture that is indeed brought into being by the poetic language itself” (The Gazer’s 4). These poems, classified by Hollander as poems of notional ekphrasis67, such as Homer‟s description of the Shield of Achilles and Hesiod‟s description of the Shield of Herakles, are written on art works that do
66 Like de Man, Culler states that deconstruction has shown the ways to find and understand meaning in texts (Culler 131). Barbara Johnson echoes Culler and de Man when she states that deconstruction has resulted in “the careful teasing out of warring forces of signification within the texts” (5). 67 Notional ekphrasis may be likened to Eagleton‟s dream-texts, which refer to the made-up stories in dreams. According to Eagleton, a dream-text is a text composed on unreal situations or unexisting objects or characters and is shaped and manufactured in a similar way to literary texts, which are also fictional (199). The produced text, therefore, could be decomposed and deciphered in the same way a literary text is analysed and the similar process is supported by Hollander (The Gazer’s 7-10). 98
not exist or are not known to collectors, critics, or art historians today68. Actual ekphrasis, on the other hand, refers to the “…engagement with particular and identifiable works of art” (ibid. 4)69. In its core, actual ekphrasis includes
“…addressing the image, making it speak, speaking of it interpretively, meditating upon the moment of viewing it and so forth” (ibid. 4). The common practice in actual ekphrasis is to refer to the painter, the painting, the production date, or the owner or the museum that keeps the painting directly. That is why many examples of actual ekphrasis especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, whether “…good and bad, great and obscure, unglossed or overinterprete,” are entitled like “On
Michelangelo‟s Famous Piece of the Crucifixion” (Edward Young), “Formerly a
Slave: An Idealized Poertrait, by E. Vedder, in the Spring Exhibition of the National
Gallery, 1865” (Hermann Melville), “Museé de Beaux Arts” (W.H. Auden), or
“Monet‟s Water Lillies” (Robert Hayden) (ibid. 4)70. Hollander, although he does not focus on its importance, thinks that this shift in tendency from notional ekphrasis to actual ekphrasis is a result of the establishment of museums and the development of the idea of preservation (ibid. 10-12; “The Poetics” 209-210). As it is going to be explained, the opening of the museums was a milestone in the history of ekphrasis for the protection they provided for the works of art and according to Hollander, it was after the popularization of museums that the idea „artworks are not perishable‟ was well-established.
68 Other examples Hollander lists are Philostratus‟s Eikones, episodes in Virgil, Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser, and the majority of the progymnasmatic epigrams (The Gazer’s 4-5). Browning‟s “My Last Duchess” and Keats‟s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” could also be regarded as notional ekphrasis. 69 Both terms are going to be used in non-italicized fonts hereafter unless there is need to emphasize that the terms have been introduced by Hollander. 70 See Appendix I for more examples. 99
Apart from Hollander, another essential critic who has contributed to the ekphrastic studies is James A.W. Heffernan, whose book Museum of Words has produced a considerable amount of critical appreciation. Heffernan examines the relation between visual artworks and words within a museum visitor perspective. He believes that ekphrasis, which “first appears as a descriptive detour from the high road of epic narrative,” is a problematic phenomenon because of the involvement of the painter, the gazer-poet and the gazer-reader-audience (5). Therefore, he handles ekphrasis as a gazing issue. Besides, he argues that literary critics have only been regarding the gazer (poet or audience) as neutral and adds that the act of looking or gazing is actually “powerfully gendered” (ibid. 1)71. According to him, there is usually a male gazer looking at a female (the opposite relation barely occurs) in ekphrastic poetry.
Heffernan does not totally ignore looking at objects but believes that ekphrastic poems written by looking at objects are also gendered due to the feminine or masculine discourse dominating a text. Of course, it would be hard to apply this notion to all ekphrastic poetry but it is true that some ekphrastic poems, like
Browning‟s “My Last Duchess” for instance, noticeably contain such gendered discourses.
One of Heffernan‟s crucial points on ekphrasis is his tendency to regard modern ekphrasis distinctly different from classical examples of ekphrasis. He believes that ekphrasis has changed from the illusionistic and mimetic record of perception to “a site of sign-production” (ibid. 160)72 because in today‟s art, the artist intentionally
71 See chapters II, III, and IV for references to Heffernan‟s idea of gendered gaze. 72 Heffernan here is referring to classicist notion of art (exemplified by the art historian Gombrich) and the postmodern, Derridean, and deconstructive understanding of art (exemplified by the semiotician Bryson) (ibid. 160-161). 100
tries to add and produce meanings while composing his work73. For him, ekphrasis today represents a new creation which is totally unique and original in its production and material. As he himself explains,
…ekphrastic poetry is not art history even though modern ekphrasis approaches the border between the two, and postmodern ekphrasis… crosses it. Ekphrasis never aims simply to reproduce a work of visual art in words, so there is no point in judging ekphrastic poetry by a criterion of fidelity to the work it represents. We can much better judge it by asking what it enables us to see in the work of art (ibid. 157)74.
By overlooking the ancient rhetorical duty of ekphrasis, Heffernan at this point resembles Derrida who, as it has been provided previously, believes that our conceptual world is dominated by language plays, always producing new meanings
(Sarup 47; Derrida Positions 27). So Heffernan concludes that ekphrasis is a totally liberated with its meaning-making quality although it seems bound to a source of inspiration.
Probably more important than Hollander‟s and Heffernan‟s views, W.J.T. Mitchell‟s theoretical assumptions have been regarded as the foremost suggestions presented in ekphrastic studies in the twentieth century. While Lessing‟s innovative attitude to take sides with poetry is called “textual turn,” Mitchell‟s argument on the dominance of the image is called “pictorial turn.” Mitchell believes that beginning from the early decades of the twentieth century, the human environment is possessed by an image- driven culture (Picture 10-11; Iconology 21-24). Turning to da Vinci‟s concept, he
73 The same idea is echoed Strayer. Commenting on Duschamps‟s readymades, he claims that it is the intention of the artist that makes a work of art an artwork (1-2). Also see Erinç on the essence of artistic intention in arts (20- 21). 74 Emphasis added. 101
further states that this image based culture is the platform of a paragonal rivalry between the visual and the verbal. For that reason, Mitchell believes that ekphrasis, both as an intertextual literary device and as an artistic creation, is a process of
“otherness” (Picture 155). This “otherness” is explained by Mitchell with his term limitrophe, referring to the inter-dependence between the verbal and visual on a sort of signifying contamination (ibid. 220). For him, this contamination brings about iconophobia, the fear of the powerful image, which is closely related to the
“dangerous supplement” concept (Iconology 113). Then, taking da Vinci‟s argument one step further, Mitchell claims that ekphrastic texts always involve a tendency to dominate the image (the other for the verbal) although the visual, with the help of the pictorial turn in the twentieth century, has shifted the balance of this relation for its own safety and well-being (“Ekphrasis” 696-700).
Giving the priority to the visual, Mitchell, then, proclaims that ekphrastic experience occurs in two stages. The first is the stage where “the conversion of the visual representation into verbal representation” takes place (Picture 164). In this meeting level, the verbal regards the visual inferior because of its silence and stability. The next phase is “the reconversion of the verbal representation back into the visual object in the reception of the reader” (ibid. 164-165). According to Mitchell, this step represents the return of superiority to the visual because the reader, already knowing that the text is trying to represent (and replace) an image, wonders about the image behind the text and this gesture weakens the priority of the superior text by turning it to a simple mediator. So “every textual representation exacts some cost, in the form of lost immediacy, presence, or truth, in the form of a gap between intention and 102
realization, original and copy” and this cost results in the loss of power for the text and a paragonal “abyss” (qtd. in Lentricchia and McLaughlin 21)75. Besides
Mitchell, like da Vinci, argues that the image, although it is not regarded as ever- lasting, is able to outlive a text in memory76 for it is easier to remember an image than to recall a text unless it is learnt by heart77. Mitchell‟s celebrated argument on the paragonal relation between the verbal and the visual has therefore infleunced the discourse of ekphrastic studies. The image today is not labelled as dumb, silent or mute; rather it has special ways to communicate with its audience and the poet is a gazer and observer as much as he is a writer (Foster and Prevallet xv; Kermode 8,
192; Verdonk “Painting” 239)78.
Simiar to Derrida, Hollander, Heffernan, and Mitchell, more structuralist critics also put the emphasis on the relation between the signifying systems in ekphrasis.
Eagleton states that “to be a worthy structuralist, it must be conceived that not only the signifier but the relation between other signifiers” is essential (118)79. Because poetry is “made of words: conventional, instrumental signs” and because “these signs are organized into complex patterns of various sorts… in accordance with
75 This argument on semantic and paragonal “cost” recalls Derridean understanding of ergon-parergon relation. Poirier states that “a deconstructionist argues that when a word is used as the sign of a thing, it creates the sense of the thing‟s absence more than of its presence. This means… that the word is not the thing it represents. Language, so the argument goes, can create an abyss… and writing is constructed on that abyss” (149). 76 It may be useful here to remember the story of Moneta, goddess of memory in Greek mythology. As the sole divine survivor of the Saturnian age and as the mother of the Muses (and the mother of all arts by the same token), Moneta represents imagination. According to Kermode, it is because of Moneta‟s interest in the image, that image has an outlasting place in memory (12). Referring to the great body of lyrics composed on the image of a lady, Kermode whimsically states that “Moneta‟s face haunts many poets” (ibid. 30). 77 It is necessary to remember that memorizing texts are usually achieved by memorising of succeeding images since it is easier to remember images (Hughes). See Hughes for further details on memorising techniques. 78 Kermode, for instance, like Mitchell, gives the palms to images because he thinks that they are more successful in representing action (55). 79 Similar emphasis on the importance of the relation between signifying systems was also put forward by A. J. Greimas (in Uçan 45), Riffaterre (Semiotics 22, 45), Wimsatt and Beardsley (in Davies 118), Leach (311), and Davies (35, 75-76).
103
grammatical, rhetorical, logical, psychological or dramatic principles” poetry, as a form of discourse, attracts the attention of such critics (Brooks and Warren xxxiii).
This is maybe the reason behind the tendency of those stylisticians, linguists, and structuralists, who are more inclined to analize the textual and structural in texts, to deal with ekphrasis as a discourse and a rivalry on the grounds of signifying systems.
Although Halliday believes that “any work of literature can be analysed with linguistics” (302), it is Stylistics, as an established field today, that provides a better perspective for an analysis of ekphrastic poetry. As it has been explained earlier, due to its scientific (linguistic) terminology and holistic perspective, stylistic examination is closer to ending up in more accurate and literary analysis rather than superficial commentaries (Fowler “The New” 15; Ulu “Understanding” 11-13; Freeman 21).
Besides Stylisticians have been interested in ekphrasis, sister arts, and image-word relations, and the paragonal relationship more than other structuralists and linguists.
Style of a text reveals the metalinguistic aspects of these signifying systems
“superimposed” within the system and thus this saves style from being a mere supplement to literary analysis (Talbot J. Taylor 45). Within the light of the previous critical ideas, Verdonk argues that Stylistics, as an “interdisciplinary study of how readers process literary texts, or perhaps better still, „of what happens when a reader reads a literary texts‟,” provides an interconnection between the study of the image and the text (“Painting” 235; Stockwell 5)80. An important contribution of Verdonk
80 Here and elsewhere, by “Stylistics,” Verdonk means Cognitive Stylistics, a term initiated by him referring to the understanding of literary texts through cognitive linguistics and literary analysis. Verdonk states that Cognitive Stylistics, which aims to bring a “fresh inspiration” to Linguistics, opposes the Chomskian notion that 104
related to this notion is his argument on the transformation of the image. He believes that in ekphrastic poetry, images are transformed into words and these words are then transformed into images to be perceived in mind. This process is inevitable because it is in the human nature to think in images and group these images to make up a meaningful whole:
It is a well-known fact that humans are invariably charmed by linguistic quirks involving patterned structures of repetition. Most interestingly, cognitive linguists claim that our innate habit to structure things into symmetrical patterns, including patterns of repetition, is in fact a projection of our embodied understanding of symmetry in the world around us (Verdonk “Painting” 238).
Within the transfer of the image into word and the word into image, an interconnected shift takes place. This correlation, various aspects of which have been presented previously, is the central for ekphrasis. According to Verdonk:
Now, a representation implies not only that it represents something but also that it represents this something to someone. Therefore, it may be said that an ekphrastic poem embodies a communicative triangle between the artist, the poet‟s persona, and the reader. In other words, it is very much a discourse, which I define as an interpersonal and context-bound act of communication verbalized in a text, and waiting to be inferred from (“Painting” 236-7)81.
Hence Verdonk believes that it is the job of a stylistician to study this communication. Considering the “indefinite, undetermined, unstable and indeed
language is a separate cognitive faculty and argues that language is an intrinsic quality of human brain based on experiments (“Painting” 235). 81 Emphasis added. 105
often unsettling” reading each individual, this process could be hard but would produce a more complete analysis (ibid. 237).
Similarly, Davies believes that ekphrasis is a complex exercise for it involves looking at a picture, conceiving the image, processing it in mind, and creating a new text out of the processed image respectively. Correspondingly, he regards ekphrasis as a process of succeeding transformations from a concrete visual image to the mental image; from the mental image to text; and from text to mental image again
(74). With its complicated course, hence, ekphrasis requires a close cognitive inspection:
How do we recognize what pictures represent? It is likely we do so by using the same perceptual and cognitive modules and processes that govern the recognition of their actual subject. We are evolved visually to identify items in our own environment. When we do so, our brains “interpret” an image reflected on the curved surface of the retina into a visual representation of a three-dimensional world populated with objects. And we are evolved visually to re-identify items in our environment, though they are presented to us at different times from different perspectives, either continuously as we move with respect to them, or at temporally separated moments … We see the picture‟s subject in the painting because the painting presents a visual aspect recognized as of the subject on the basis of its resemblance to that subject (Davies 171-172).
Consequently, as Verdonk, Davies, and the theorists mentioned earlier demonstrate, ekphrasis has become an intricate term in the twentieth century rather than a rhetorical device simply defined as detailed description. This change, which is going to be explained in the next section and exemplified in the following chapters, has made ekphrasis an essential literary device practiced by remarkable poets. 106
Subsequently, it should be kept in mind that the study of ekphrasis and the ekphrastic tradition itself owe much to the notable assumptions and scholarly contributions presented above had been made.
107
2.5. “Ce n’est avec des Idées… C’est avec des Mots82:”
Ekphrasis, Ekphrastic Tradition, Stylistics, and Theorems
The introductory chapter and sections presented above in this chapter are intended to introduce a selection from the mainstream arguments that have dominated the literary and philosophical discussions on ekphrasis. As this survey has shown, some of the ideas are rather established and have been taken for granted throughout the study while some others have been occasionally appraised, interpreted or judged for their theoretical shortcomings or functionality. The final part of this chapter aims to develop new perspectives, assumptions and classifications that will be referred to in the analysis sections. Furthermore, the following arguments are also intended to contribute to the recently popular confrontations on ekphrasis.
In order to understand the ekphrastic tadition clearly, the philosophical, chiefly ontological, aspects of ekphrasis should be covered first. The paragonal relationship between the visual and verbal introduced above is a good starting point to interpret the ekphrastic relations and tradition because the ontological rivalry between the two media form the core of the visual-verbal struggle, whether it is called paragonal, pictorial turn, or enargeia. It is common practice to consider the end product, the ekphrastic poem, as far as this study is concerned, while exercising literary criticism83. In Derridean terms, the source, or the visual artwork, becomes a
82 The quotation is from a dialogue between the painter Edgar Degas and Stéphane Mallarmé (based on Paul Valéry‟s account in his Degas, Danse, Dessin [Paris, 1946]). One day Degas comes and says to Mallarmé that he wants to write poetry and has many ideas in his mind but mourns that, no matter how hard he has tried, he has been unable to compose any poetry. Mallarmé‟s replies “Mais Degas, ce n‟est point avec des idées que l‟on fait des vers… C‟est avec des mots” (“But Degas, poetry is not written with ideas, it is written with words” [Translation mine]) (qtd. in Yavuz 203). 83 Nietzche criticises Kant for his emphasis on the audience when he says “Kant, like all philosophers, instead of envisaging the aesthetic problem from the point of view of the artist (the creator), considered art and the beautiful purely from that of the „spectator‟…” (Genealogy of Morals 3d diss. Sec.6). However, this study, as it has been 108
supplement to which the poem is naturally tied to. The supplement is actually a
“dangerous supplement,” as Derrida and Heffernan call it, since the ekphrastic poem would not be an ekphrastic poem without it (The Truth 54-55; Heffernan 22-23). The visual, or rather the idea of the visual (the idea that urges the text to represent), hence, dominates the text in secret leading the poem to depict the image. Then, a text based on the absent image is created though the dominance of the image seems to dictate. Nevertheless, it is clear that, above all external elements (parergon), the verbal is powerful to depict, direct, and represent the image in the way it (and the poet) wants (ergon). Considering the ontological questions and ascendancy problems of ekphrasis, it is possible to conclude within the framework of a painting, the visual is more successful in representing and relating the artistic message the artist intends to present. The visual artwork, using the easily adoptable visual images, dominates the canvas and attracts its audience. However, considering the elements external to the internal image locked within the canvas, the poetic line seems to succeed the image albeit through the arbitrary and fabricated signs of the written language. What happens in an ekphrastic poem is, therefore, the communication between these two different sign systems.
Metaphorically speaking, the image (and the painter) communicates with the poet through special ways. Although it has been symbolically labelled “mute” in its history, the visual is able to murmur to its audience if not able to speak as presented in Mitchell‟s arguments above. It is probably for this reason giving a map to a friend who is trying to find a place is usually more efficient than telling him how to go pointed out a number of times, does not simply focus on the poem (end product) but also on the other interrelated factors such as artworks, history, and literary criticism.
109
there. Because human mind works with images and the written language requires the transposition of its arbitrary signs to be reshaped as natural signs in the brain while the natural images are conceived as already processed and cultivated as observed in the arguments of Verdonk and Mitchell. However, as it is going to be presented in the last chapter of this study, the shift of the image from the paragonal repression of the word to the visual-centred world in the twentieth century, or what Mitchell calls pictorial turn, is not finalised. Although the image, after a long period of pacified state, becomes at the centre of artistic expression as it has never been before, it would be unfair to think that the image dominates the verbal at the present, as Mitchell argues; therefore, maintaining the “war” metaphor between the sister arts, the result is a tie rather than victory and/or defeat. There are two reasons for this: first, as it is going to be exemplified in the ekphrastic poetry of the twentieth century, the visual hardly intends to surpass the verbal; secondly, and more importantly, the visual and the verbal co-work on every level instead of trying to dominate one another. It is as if they have realised the fact that they are inter-dependent and need to rely on one another within the artistic norms of the twentieth century. So modern ekphrasis is hardly a total pictorial turn or a paragonal battle84. Considering the calm, “sisterly,” and co-opretaive relation between the two arts, modern ekphrastic exercises could be labelled as deparagonal; undoing what they have been doing so far.
Connected to the deparagonal notion, if the curtain before these metaphorical utterances are unveiled and “talky poem” is regarded as a “poem” in the sense it is really understood (Hollander 6), a different phenomenon is revealed. Obviously a
84 See Chapter IV for details. 110
poem cannot talk or articulate itself unlike a painting which can present itself at once at the moment of being gazed at. In other words, a poem needs an activity, a process of being read in order to exist, and in the case of an ekphrastic poem, in order to represent the visual artwork that it is about. In this case, ekphrastic poem could be regarded as inactive or dead and this dead ekphrasis can only be vitalized through a reader just as a painting is labelled as “silent” and “mute” because of their veiled status. The term dead ekphrasis, therefore, refers to the weakness of the verbal text which needs to be processed after its production unlike the image which can at once be viewed and conceived. For the painting, however, the paragonal situation is more demanding. Because the verbal is able to trap the visual by using the arbitrary signs of the language, the visual medium mey be forced to maintain its stability as in the emblem poems such as George Herbert‟s “Easter Wings.” In the case of notional ekphrasis, dead ekphrasis is usually at work because the visual medium is fictional and already pacified. Consequently, ekphrasis, as a phenomenon, occurs between the dense inter-relation of dead ekphrasis, the textual recession, and ergon, the textual dominance outside the canvas85.
At this point, the distinction between notional and actual ekphrases that Hollander has introduced becomes less functional because it is the idea of the image that dominates the text, not the visual itself. Whether the source is real or imaginary has
85 Similar visual-verbal power relations are also found in exlibris, which aims to represent the content or the owner of a book in a stylishly designed way. The problem in exlibris is also one of dominance and property because it occurs within the book, in the exergue (literally referring to the small space below the main device in numismatics; here it is usually on the other side of the hard cover or on the initial page of the book), and is about the book. With its own artistic qualities, exlibris threatens the unity of the book, always trying to dominate the book as another ontological entity or “dangerous supplement.” Foucault comments on Derrida‟s emphasis on the importance of exergue when he talks about the symbolic imposition of power of the state through monetary affairs. He states that the old tradition to press the king‟s head on the coins serves both as an aide-mémoire emphasizing the unquestionable power of the king each time one holds or looks at it and as a means of possession (Power 54). The image is on the coins because they are valuable and the public (or the subjects) need it (ibid. 54- 55). See Derrida‟s Archive Fever for more details on the exergue (/eks' [:] erg/) problem. 111
little importance because the produced poem is already dependent on abstraction. In other words, Keats‟s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is an ekphrastic poem notwithstanding the existence of the urn and it would remain an ekphrastic poem if the subsistence of such an urn was proved86. Nonetheless, Peter Verdonk‟s comment on this issue is rather decisive and plausible. Commenting on Henry Widdowson‟s argument against the usefulness of Hollander‟s distinction between notional ekphrasis and actual ekphrasis, Verdonk states that
My response to this query is that when I say that Hollander‟s distinction between actual and notional ekphrasis might be useful, I am only thinking of ekphrasis from an art-historical point of view. So I entirely agree with him that the distinction is of little use to a stylistical or rhetorical analysis of an ekphrastic poem (“Painting” 242)87.
This remark is quite logical because it is hard to ignore Hollander‟s categorization totally because an art historian or an art critic will definitely feel the need to take notice of the represented artwork. It should also be remembered that if a particular poem is noticeably composed about a particular existing work of visual art then that work of art should be taken into consideration while commenting on the poem.
Otherwise, criticisizing the poem without having seen the painting or sculpture
86 The above presented relation has a pragmatic result. It illustrates the need of the verbal to rely on the visual as far as the text is to be called ekphrastic. However, looking at the issue other way round would result in metaphorical outcomes, rather than functional. If the poem is thought to be the supplement of the visual regarding that the visual needs the existence of the verbal in order to survive, at least symbolically, then the poem becomes a gateway for the image to represent itself in a totally different, more communicative and probably more longlasting way. To put it another way, the poem figuratively becomes the distributor of the silent image. 87 It is interesting to note that Verdonk has somewhat softened his claim in his e-mail addressed to me by saying “you need this distinction if you wish to analyse a poem that addresses a work of art which is purely fictional” (Verdonk). 112
would be pointless and non-academic88. It is because of this reason this study presents a list of figures that the poems use as source of inspiration.
The second essential point to clarify is the place and limits of ekphrasis in literary studies and criticism. As it is clear from the presented survey, ekphrasis is an established literary tradition. From a rhetorical and descriptive method, ekphrasis has irrecoverably become a poetic term and trans-textual device mediating between two different signifying systems; one using lines and colours and the other, as in
Mallarmé‟s words given in the title of this section, words. Although “there is no such thing as a „literary language;‟ that is to say, there are no items of modern English vocabulary or grammar that are inherently and exclusively literary,” the poet uses his medium in such a way that it is clearly differentiated from ordinary language
(Simpson 7)89. Davies, for instance, argues that it is always harder to categorize poetry because it has a special mode to deal with words (95). For ekphrastic poetry, therefore, it is unjust to claim that it is simply the description of visual works of art.
Returning to the definition presented in the introductory chapter, ekphrasis should be called the artistic verbal representation of visual works of art.
Another fundamental point about the ekphrastic tradition is the shift it has experienced in the nineteenth century. It is surprising to note that only two of the theorists who study ekphrasis (Hollander and Heffernan) have mentioned this
88 Some critics, especially those with Linguistics origins, totally ignore or pass little notice of the paintings that the ekphrastic poems refer to. Verdonk, for instance, while analyzing Williams‟s “The Dance,” does not feel the need to refer to Brueghel‟s painting and although it is a thorough study, the absence of the painting in his article weakens his points (“Painting” 238-240). 89 Original emphasis. 113
development in the tradition but this point, which could be regarded as a milestone in the history of ekphrasis, should be scrutinized and explicated in detail.
It is known that beginning from the Renaissance, there has been a “boom” in the number of images in the conceptual world of man (Crary 13). Discoveries followed by secientific, social and economic developments brought about a new understanding of the world, which required a new imagery and terminology, and the need became more pressing after the expansion of industry throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The man, in the midst of this abyys urged by successive developments and change, began to turn from a down-to-earth, not-too-many-sided creature into an individual and this was accompanied by his change from humble seer to gazer and observer, whose “ observing eye cannot be still” (Spiegelman 4).
Foucault, commenting on this change of perception, states that this was the time the simplistic and passive subject was replaced by the active and observing spectator
(Power 151; Order 96)90. Similarly Crary terms this development as the reproduction of the observer (18, 23-24). He seeks the reasons of this change in the invention and development of photographic devices of perspective. Camera obscura, for instance, which had commonly been used by painters and scientists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to perceive the visuality of images, became the camera in the nineteenth century (Crary 15, 24, 45)91. The camera in the nineteenth century,
90 Similar observations have been made by Berger but for him this change has began much earlier, in the seventeenth century (16-24). 91 Camera obscura was a device that provided the accurate image of objects by way of the mirrors inside a box. The device was used by painters, especially Flemish painters of the seventeenth century, to produce copies of images of objects (Crary 45). Vermeer, for instance, used it to produce the light-shadow effect in his depictions of interiors (ibid. 47). Among other devices used by painters are stereoscope, kaleidoscope, zootrophe, fenacitiscope, and stereograph. These devices were used in theatres for phantasmagoric (ghost) effects (Crray 123-138; 148). Foucault also talks about camera obscura as a metaphor of the panoptican system the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries superimposed (Discipline 217). 114
followed by the introduction of film making in the twentieth century, enabled the production of verisimilitude, copies and reproductions (of paintings, images, objects and so on) “were everywhere”(ibid. 24-25, 26).
While Crary puts the emphasis on the technical developments concerning the act of seeing, critics like Berger focus on the ideological background of the issue. For
Berger, the act of seeing and depicting the gazed object was shaped by the capitalist ideology (45). Particularly after the industrial revolution, painters were patronized by the middle class who dominated the industrial and monetary affairs especially in
England. These patrons either hired painters to paint them or collected artworks as a sign of prosperity (Yavuz 396-71). Finally, the artwork was turned into a commodity, bought and sold, as well as a symbol of the wealthy which yet resulted in a gradual increase in the number of imagery, reproduced artworks, and replicas92. For Walter
Benjamin, as people wanted to possess in the nineteenth century, reproduction grew ever more and the result was a great number of copies (Yavuz 370)93. This tendency still continues in the present. In Heffernan‟s words:
...in our age, the age of the museum, works of art have become commodities bought, traded, stolen, or acquired under conditions not always wholly distinguishable from robbery or fraud… And if the work of art has become a commodity, it can never be wholly detached from the reproductions through which we so often experience it (Museum 154)94.
92 In this respect, Mitchell‟s term “pictorial turn” could have dated back to the late eighteenth century. Berger, like Mitchell, believes that picture has occupied the dominant side in the last two centuries (albeit his focus is on the twentieth century like Mitchell) and to illustrate this point some of the sections are solely made of images, which can represent themselves as communicative entries (35-45, 65-83, 113-128). 93 It is essential to note that the replicas and copies also added to the value and originality of the artworks. This point is also mentioned by Benjamin (Yavuz 371) and Berger (12, 70). 94 At this point, Heffernan echoes Derrida‟s “dangerous supplement,” which has been explained earlier. Commenting on art as commodity, Landow states that until the nineteenth century, paintings were bought and sold by the guilds, nobility, upper-middle class, and aristocracy as a valuable currency (2). However, he also adds that it is in the nineteenth century that the value of paintings was doubled and became unaffordibly expensive (ibid. 2-3). 115
Heffernan, by regarding the present age as the “age of the museum,” also comments on the opening of museums, a more critical development concerning the ekphrastic tradition. Although Heffernan argument, like Hollander‟s previously covered ideas, does not focus on the opening of museums as a critical development, he accepts that the museums play role in the in growing interest in ekphrasis especially in the twentieth century (Museum 16-24; “Entering” 262-263).
Although the idea of museum dates back to the art collectors in the fourteenth century, the museum, as an institution and as it is understood in the modern sense, was a late sixteenth-century notion. Due to the Renaissance tendency to revisit ancient works of art, Italy, where this tendency had appeared first, witnessed the opening of first institutional museums such as the Uffizi Gallery (Alexander and
Alexander 23-26). Following the essential opening of museums such as Belvedere
Palace (Vienna), Museo Sacro (Vatican), and Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie (Besançon), England saw the opening of British Museum in 1753 and then the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768, both of which had been established by the order of King George III (ibid. 58-59). Added to the personal interest of the king in art objects, the contributions of Sir Hans Sloane, J.M.W. Turner, and Lord Thomas
Bruce (commonly known as Lord Elgin) resulted in the establishment of these museums. Sir Sloane, as a wealthy landlord and art collector, donated all his collections of antiques for the opening of the British Museum while J.M.T. Turner, the well-known painter of the time, exhibited and donated about two hundred paintings for the Royal Academy (Landow 4). Lord Elgin, who had travelled widely in Greece, Anatolia, and Italy, contributed the sculptures and marbles to the Royal 116
Academy. These marbles, referred to as “Elgin marbles” today, are regarded as the beginning of a preservation and collection process in museums in England (ibid. 60;
Heffernan 24; Hollander 50). In time, these museums began to gather all valuable art objects together, especially paintings and plastic artworks. On the surface, the result was a change of place for these artworks. However, this development turned out to be the end for the idea that the artworks, due to their textures and structures, were perishable95. Besides, as opposed to the previous habit to visit private collections to see paintings, museums drew poets, who then became “gazers” themselves, to show and inspire as they became a site of attraction at length. The astonishing number of poems composed in museums especially in the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries is, thus, a result of the briefly explained historical development.
There is one more central topic related to the historical and contextual background of paintings, the act of seeing and gazer‟s perspective which has been overlooked by the critics of ekphrastic poetry96. As it is going to be explained and detailed in the following survey of ekphrasis in the next chapters, the general scheme of the tradition shows that a conscious interest in ekphrasis is observed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, first in the works of Blake, Wordsworth,
Keats and Shelley and then in the works of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in the latter half of the nineteenth century. However, there is one more period during which ekphrasis had been dominant in English literature. In the late sixteenth and early
95 See the ideas of Derrida and Hollander presented earlier in this chapter for details on this idea. 96 The only exceptions are Hollander, who clearly but briefly refers to these poems but does not concentrate on their importance (The Gazer’s 23); Lee, who calls this convention the fashion of “learned painter” (or “encyclopaedic painter”) in passing (44), and Heffernan (Museum 36, 41).
117
seventeenth centuries, there was a growing interest in poems which may be called painter poems. The “instructions-to-the-painter” fashion is observed in the works of
John Dryden and John Evelyn who argue that painters should be people of certain wit and education in order to represent their subjects in a proper manner (Lee 44-45).
Painter poems, like Marvell‟s “The Last Instructions to a Painter,” “The Second
Advice to a Painter,” and “The Third Advice to a Painter” or Ben Jonson‟s “The
Picture of her Body,” share a special feature of urging painters to represent people, places, events, or objects, in the way the poet metaphorically instructs. This interest could be explained by the socio-economic and artistic developments in this period when many painters came to England to seek patronage of the wealthy English lords and camera obscura was used as a device to obtain accurate imagery by painters
(Crary 24; Berger 16).
Considering the variety of styles and the historical developments that have been mentioned above, a subsequent idea could be argued. As it is going to be shown in the following chapters, it is possible to divide ekphrastic tradition in English into three stages, or phases. The first phase of ekphrasis, as it is going to be referred to, roughly covers the tradition from the antiquity to the post-Renaissance, during which ekphrasis preserved its primary characteristics such as the paragonal relationship and enargeia. The second phase of ekphrasis begins with the Romantic age and continues until the twentieth century. The third phase of ekphrasis covers the previous century and still continues in the twenty-first century. Each of these phases, along with their relation to one another, will be explained in detail at the end of each chapter and will be exemplified with references to representative ekphrastic poems. 118
As for the categorizations presented so far, it is ideal to stick to contextual or art historical classification as Davidson‟s and Hollander‟s respectively. Hollander‟s division, as it has been discussed earlier, is helpful while dealing with ekphrasis within the limits of art criticism and art history. On the other hand, Davidson‟s categories, “the classical painter poem” and “painterly poem,” focus not on the painting or the painter, as opposed to their names, but on the context of ekphrastic poems. Since it is the end-product, the poem that should be analysed critically, it is pragmatic to consider the thematic background of the poem and not the poem‟s relation to the existence of object d’art or its structure. However, Davidson‟s classification may be regarded as too simplistic and clumsily-classified to cover an essential tradition like ekphrasis. Besides, as in many other categorizations,
Davidson, too, draws the line between the two categories rather strictly. Nonetheless, if it is art that is being dealt with, such clear-cut claims are always “dangerous and questionable” (Pekmezci). Instead a more inclusive and tactful categorization is possible. As it s going to be exemplified and analysed in the following chapters, some ekphrastic poems directly refer to particular paintings by primarily describing them as in Williams‟s “The Dance.” These poems deliberately depict what the painter had depicted in words like superficial copies or explanatory epigrams attached to the paintings. They, albeit with complicated poetic techniques, are usually short lyrics or long epic narratives97 and present precise images and concrete details often focusing on the external qualities of the artworks. Keeping in mind that the primary function of ekphrasis inherited from the ancients is to depict or describe the image in order to provide an accurate representation in the minds of its
97 Jameson believes that descriptive discourse is a “fetish” in epics since almost all epics are dominated by lengthy depictions and pictorial vocabulary (165). 119
audience98; these poems could be called mimetic or descriptive ekphrastic poetry99.
The term mimetic should not be regarded as copying a visual artwork. Because the aim of ekphrasis is not to copy or relate but to reproduce the image, the icon, the sign or the effect the painting provides and this reproduction or discourse is supposed to be unique100. Just as in the case of a musician who covers another artist‟s songs in an original way, the parameter to judge ekphrastic poetry, therefore, should be to consider how well, artistically, poetically, and aesthetically the source of inspiration is produced and whether this new work has brought about a new perspective, meaning, and novelty. Some other ekphrastic poems, on the other hand, usually ignore or seem to ignore depictive qualities of the paintings and use them as sources of inspiration like W.H. Auden‟s “Museé des Beaux Arts” or John Ashbery‟s
“Convex Mirror.” They meditate on the visual artwork and infrequently turn to it for reference101. These poems could be called meditative or inspirational ekphrastic poems102. Meditative poems usually focus on the image so as to philosophize on the
98 Marin, too, believes that “…the first and most immediate type of discourse produced about painting [is]… descriptive discourse” (Sublime 29). Referring to the photographic depictions, he calls this principle “zero- degree-landscape” (ibid. 38). Similarly, Hollander believes that “the relation of narrative and description is central to the rhetoric of ekphrasis” (The Gazer’s 16). Besides it is useful to remember that ekphrasis itself is defined as “the intense pictorial description of an object” (Cuddon 252). 99 A similar terminology is used by Chatman. However he refers to the word mimetic to refer to texts of “showing” and description while calling the texts of “action” diegetic (213-214). This classification, as Chatman himself states, could only be applied to the ekphrastic instances in epics, which contain massive depictive actions followed by dramatic parts (ibid. 214). 100 Image could be differentiated as the interpretable visuals, such as da Vinci‟s “Mona Lisa” in the Louvre Museum, while icon may be regarded as processed (reproduced or altered) such as the popularized and distorted images of the original “Mona Lisa” on t-shirts, billboards, or posters. Sign, however, could be thought as a more inclusive term, compared to image and icon because it may be visual, verbal, original, changed. Similar definitions are found in Berger (9-10), Davies (95) and Erinç (7). 101 This does not mean that the titles or the openings of such poems ignore naming the source. On the contrary, the majority of these poems give the title of the painting or painter‟s name within the text or in their titles. See Appendix I for examples. 102 A similar classification is made by Marin who tries to find the “rules, constraints, and norms” of iconological (Sublime 107). He believes that there are two levels in iconological exercises. One is the “pre-iconological level,” in which the surface or the visible description of the painting is taken into consideration. The other, “iconological level,” deals with the “inner meaning, intrinsic content” of artworks (ibid. 111-112). It should be mentioned that Marin owes this idea to Peter Lamarque who had previously made a distinction between the internal (imaginative involvement in the world of the artwork) and external (consideration of the fictionality of the world depicted in the artwork) perspectives in the works of visual arts (Davies 136). Surprisingly, Nicolai Hartman also claims that paintings share two spheres, real (objective) and unreal (subjective) (Erinç 40-1). 120
effect the painting creates as Auden‟s retrospective comments “about suffering” in
“Museé des Beaux Arts.”
There is a fundamental point of this categorization. Unlike many of the classifications, the mimetic-meditative distinction does not insist on a straightforward division. It is my firm belief that an ekphrastic poem cannot be limited with these labels; rather the poem may go in and out of these categories and may not be purely mimetic or meditative for it may contain the characteristics of both terms such as
Williams‟s “The Adoration of the Kings” or Ashbery‟s “Self-Portrait in a Convex
Mirror.” In other words, an ekphrasric poem may both depict and philosophize, and thus intermingle the mimetic with meditative regardless of the proposed classification. Therefore there are no “pure boundries” in this classification as in the majority of literary or scientific categorizations (Genette Narrative 99). The function of this classification, as it has been pointed out earlier, is merely contextual103. Since it is in the nature of human cognition to classify, like any other categorization should do, it aims to group similar poems in order to enable more precise and accurate analysis (Hughes; Verdonk).
This chapter, along with the canonized critical ideas on ekphrasis, has presented the theoretical background of the dissertation that is going to be referred to while analyzing sample poems from the ekphrastic tradition. In addition to that, definitions
103 Commenting on the proposed classification, Verdonk claims that such a categorization could only be applied occasionally and therefore a contextual-based classification should be followed. It is clear, however, that Verdonk, who was very busy at the time, has misjudged the explanatory e-mail from me since this categorization insists on being a contextual one (Verdonk). Pekmezci, who has produced an immense body of ekphrastic artworks, totally agrees with the functionality of this assumption (Pekmezci). Although an e-mail asking for evaluation and criticism has been sent to Mitchell, he has refused to evaluate this classification. Louvel, as one of the few critics who study ekphrastic theory, has also agreed with the mimetic-meditative division by calling it a “scholarly valuable contribution” (Louvel). 121
and terminology initiated and developed throughout, such as mimetic ekphrasis, meditative ekphrasis, deparagonal relationship, dead ekphrasis, painter poem, ergon-parergon, and the paragonal relation, are going to be acknowledged and reinforced with examples. Even though it was mentioned earlier in the Introduction, it is necessary to re-emphasise a fundamental point considering the following analyses. Parallel to Verdonk, who argues that the basic concern of Stylistics is to look for parallelisms and repetitions (“Poems” 103), the following analyses will particularly deal with foregrounding, repetition, parallelism, and deviation, which provide significant clues about their parallel and/or repetitive structures. Finally, by way of stylistic analysis, the study aims to find out about the general characteristics of ekphrastic poetry in English and to prove the reliability of the newly introduced terminology and categorizations and will end up with conclusive and comprehensive remarks on the ekphrastic tradition.
CHAPTER II
The Ekphrastic Debut: Ekphrasis until the Romantics
Rilke, weary of his temporary inability to write poetry, pays a visit to his carver friend Rodin for advice. Rodin listens to the unhappy Rilke and says: ―Why don‘t you look at objects? Poetry, very much like painting, is made in the same way – by looking at objects‖ (qtd. in Leisman 15). This anecdote contains clues about the general characteristics of early ekphrastic poetry. Indeed, as it has been explained before and seen in Rodin‘s suggestion, ekphrasis, especially before the Renaissance, was regarded as a rhetorical device of depiction to create an accurate image of the gazed and/or depicted object. Although it is hard to draw a strict line between
―ekphrasis as a rhetorical and functional device‖ and ―ekphrasis as an artistic and poetic device,‖ it is clear that ekphrasis was merely used as a descriptive and pictorial element in many larger narratives and epics especially until early seventeenth century. Besides, since early examples of ekphrasis are basically used to depict objects, places and events in a straightforward manner, the majority of these examples could roughly be placed in the mimetic category of ekphrasis.
123
This chapter aims to cover the ekphrastic tradition from its early examples until the
Romantic period. It also intends to find out about the general characteristics of these examples to shade light on the analyses in the following chapters. In order to do this, the earliest ekphrastic examples will be covered first. These examples, most of which are epics or long narrative poems, are not going to be analysed in detail since a stylistic analysis would take too long to apply. Besides, some of these ekphrastic examples, particularly the Shield of Achilles in the Iliad, have been explicated in detail by major scholars like Becker, Krieger, Francis and Heffernan. Instead, they are going to be used to refer to the ekphrastic qualities that had been influential on next generation of poets. Following the study of the initial examples of ekphrasis, a section that deals with ―Ekphrasis in England‖ will follow. The next section will focus on the tradition in England during and after the Renaissance and the
Renaissance painter poems until the Romantic poets while the last two sections will present stylistic analyses of two representative poems, Ben Jonson‘s ―The Mind of the Frontispiece to a Book‖ and Richard Lovelace‘s ―To My Worthy Friend Mr.
Peter Lilly: on that Excellent Picture of His Majesty, and the Duke of York, Drawne by him at Hampton-Court‖. The analyses will continue in the following chapters with other representative ekphrastic poetry like William Wordsworth‘s ―Elegiac Stanzas,
Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, Painted by Sir George
Beaumont,‖ John Keats‘s ―Ode on a Grecian Urn,‖ P.B. Shelley‘s ―On the Medusa of
Leonardo da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery,‖ W.H. Auden‘s ―Museé des Beaux
Arts,‖ William Carlos Williams‘s ―The Dance,‖ Derek Mahon‘s ―The Hunt by
Night,‖ and John Ashbery‘s ―Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.‖
124
3.1. Early Examples: Ekphrasis from Homer to the Renaissance
As it has been indicated earlier, the ekphrastic tradition dates back to the progymnasmatic writings in the ancient Greece. However, as a literary device, the initial example of ekphrasis is the description of the Shield of Achilles in the Iliad.
For many critics, Homer‘s use of ekphrasis is ―a stimulus… to explore the differences between visual and verbal‖ (Becker 9). The description of the shield, which lasts about one-hundred-and-thirty lines, is like a painting fixed in space. Of course, the Shield of Achilles is not the only ekphrastic instance in the epic; there are other detailed and lengthy descriptions of objects and events1. But it is true that the shield has been the primary example which contains both the guidelines and the borderlines of ekphrasis because, in Becker‘s words, ―the Shield of Achilles is the most magnificent work of art described in the Iliad‖ (77).
Apart from being the initial ekphrastic piece, the Shield of Achilles is also unique because few other works of art have been elaborated both in the Iliad (apart from teh description of Agamemnon‘s armour, which serves as a preparatory scene for the shield)2 and elsewhere in the history of literature. Instead of reminding us of its functionality and strength as the describer, Homer pulls out and presents another story out of a simple armour that could just be given in-between the lines. However,
1 Some of the other ekphrastic examples in the Iliad occur in 7.219-24; 10.260-71, 439-41; 11.36-37; 12.294-8; 13.21-6; 14.178-80, 214-8; 18.369-71, 373-81, 389-90, 400-2; 23.740-9. Among these examples, especially the Shield of Hercules, the Sceptre and the Shield of Agamemnon (which focuses on the horrifying image of the Gorgons), the Tapestry of Helen (which is the first representational piece of art described in the Iliad), the Bow of Pandarus; the Chariot of Hera, Aegis [the robe] of Athena, the Cup of Nestor, and the Arms of Agamemnon could be regarded as essential ekphrastic depictions. 2 Even in the section where Agamemnon‘s arms are described, Agamemnon himself is the subject of description as opposed to the narration of the shiled where Homer focuses on the object.
125
it is true that the shield is not simply a metal device of protection, it is a ―great and sturdy shield… elaborately crafted… and brighter than blazing fire‖ (722; 741-742).
The description of the shield has been a model for ekphrastic exercises especially until the Pre-Raphaelites. Homer does not merely relate the physical appearance of the object. In fact, considering its appearance, Homer only tells us that it is round, made of bronze, tin, gold, and silver, and it has five layers encircling one another.
Instead, he presents us a narration ornamented with personified abstractions, anecdotes, and astrological signs. Basically, there are eleven parts of this narration.
From the beginning of the production phase, Homer first relates us Hephaestus hammering the astrological designs and then the story of two cities crafted on the shield – one is of peace and prosperity and the other is of war and strife. Next, he depicts Hephaestus designing a well-ploughed farmland, a landed estate, a cornfield, a vineyard, a herd of cattle, a ―lovely valley bottom‖ (719), a dance floor, and finally the ―Ocean‖ (738) on the shield. However, more than Hephaestus making the shield,
Homer describes the inside story of each of these physically mute and stable items on the shield. In other words, foregrounding the details of each set of images, he animates the described events and people and eventually the totality of the silent metal shield.
Homer‘s animated story of the shield begins with the story of the two cities. The first of these cities enjoy feasts, wedding ceremonies, dances and music. Then a dispute on ―the blood-money owed for a murdered man‖ takes place, which is soon taken to elders to decide (617). The other city, on the other hand, is described under the siege 126
of two armies. As the surrounding soldiers are discussing whether to attack or to demand ―half of all the goods / contained in that fair town‖ (634-635). Meanwhile the inhabitants of the besieged city plan to lay an ambush and kill the flocks of the surrounding armies hoping that a shortage of food would force the siege to be postponed:
When the soldiers reached a spot which seemed all right for ambush, a place beside a river where the cattle came to drink, they stopped there, covered in shining bronze. Two scouts were stationed some distance from that army, waiting to catch sight of sheep and short-horned cattle. These soon appeared, followed by two herdsmen playing their flutes and not anticipating any danger. But those lying in ambush saw them and rushed out, quickly cutting off the herds of cattle and fine flocks of white-fleeced sheep, killing the herdsmen with them. When the besiegers sitting in their meeting place heard the great commotion coming from the cattle, they quickly climbed up behind their prancing horses and set out. They soon caught up with those attackers. Then they organized themselves for battle and fought along the river banks, men hitting one another with bronze-tipped spears. Strife and Confusion joined the fight, along with cruel Death, who seized one wounded man while still alive and then another man without a wound, while pulling the feet of one more corpse out from the fight. The clothes Death wore around her shoulders were dyed red with human blood. They even joined the slaughter as living mortals, fighting there and hauling off the bodies of dead men which each of them had killed. (630-666).
The chaotic atmosphere of the second city is contrasted first with the ―fertile spacious farmland‖ and then the happy landed estate of an ancient king. In the latter picture, the harvesters of the estate are depicted busy reaping corn while binders tie up the crop with straw as their kings stands some distance away with ―a sceptre in his 127
hand / …saying nothing, but with pleasure / in his heart‖ (684-686). Then Homer portrays a vineyard where grape pickers gather to harvest the field and young girls carry baskets full of grapes. The narration gets more and more energetic as he describes the story of the herdsmen herding their cattle:
Then he [Hephaestus] set on the shield a herd of straight-horned cattle, with cows crafted out of gold and tin. They were lowing as they hurried out from farm to pasture land, beside a rippling river lined with waving reeds. The herdsmen walking by the cattle, four of them, were also made of gold. Nine swift-footed dogs ran on behind. But there, at the front of the herd, two fearful lions had seized a bellowing bull. They were dragging him off, as he roared aloud. The dogs and young men were chasing after them. The lions, after ripping open the great ox's hide, were gorging on its entrails, on its black blood, as herdsmen kept trying in vain to chase them off, setting their swift dogs on them. But, fearing the lions, the dogs kept turning back before they nipped them, and stood there barking, close by but out of reach. (702-717).
Once again, Homer contrasts the chase scene with the happy valley and then ―an elaborately crafted dancing floor‖ that follows it (722). The dance floor is full of girls and boys all of whom are ornately dressed and are dancing after ―two acrobats led on the dance / springing, and whirling, and tumbling‖ (737-738). At length, Hephaestus adds the Ocean (probably the Mediterranean) to finalize the making of the shield3.
3 It is hard to imagine such a complex web of images crafted on a shield that contains stories of marriage, litigation, ploughing, sheep-herding, cattle-driving, grape-harvesting, festivals, dancing, singing, and acrobatics. However, there have been attempts to formulate Homer‘s depiction both on paper and in reality. See Illustartion I.ii., an anonymous engraving from the eighteenth century, and Illustration I.iii., John Flaxman‘s reproduction of the shield which has inspired well-known interpretations of the shield like Angelo Monticelli‘s. In Plato‘s understanding of mimesis, these works would be mimesis of misesis of yet another mimesis.
128
As seen on, rather than describing the shield merely as a means of war craft, Homer dramatizes the silent images on the shield and tells an uninterrupted story almost as theatrical as the story of the Trojan War itself. However, it is unnecessary to give the details of each story and description because the important point in Homer‘s ekphrastic example is his vigorous diction, lively depictions, and style. Indeed, what makes the account of the shield unique is his skill to present a silent work of art in such a powerful way that could energize and give life to the figures on the shield.
Lessing, who believes that the magnificence of the shield as a work of art depends on the detailed description and narration of events, claims that ―I find that Homer represents nothing but progressive actions‖ (79). As one of Lessing‘s first essential observations about the Shield of Achilles, this statement holds true. In Homer‘s description of the story of the shield, there is a distinctly active diction. Out of the twenty-seven verbs he uses for Hephaestus, only two of them indicate state, possession or passivity4 while the rest of the verbs are all verbs of action like
―make,‖ ―create,‖ and ―set.‖ The majority of the ekphrasized shield, however, does not feature the lame god Hephaestus but other subjects like kings, girls, boys, harvesters, and herdsmen. These sections form the stylistic parallelism between the two parts because only ten of the one-hundred-and-forty-five verbs indicate state or immobility. The remaining one-hundred-and-thirty-five verbs are verbs that indicate physical activity like ―dance,‖ ―turn,‖ ―dispute,‖ ―cheer,‖ ―rush out,‖ ―pick,‖ ―carry off,‖ and so on. In addition to the mobility these verbs provide, it should be noted that verbs phrases like ―loud music / of the bridal song,‖ ―young lads dancing,‖
4 By the phrase ―indicating state, possession, or passivity,‖ I mean the verbs ―be,‖ ―have,‖ or the passive case of the verbs of action like ―it was made.‖ 129
―constant tunes of flutes and lyres,‖ ―two men were arguing about blood-money,‖ soldiers ―discussing two alternatives‖ on how to attack the besieged city, ―two herdsmen / playing their flutes,‖ ―when the besiegers… / heard the great commotion coming from the cattle… / [and] prancing horses,‖ ―barking dogs,‖ and ―a boy with a clear-toned lyre / played pleasant music, singing the Song of Lions in his delicate fine voice. His comrades kept time, / beating the ground behind him, singing and dancing‖ add much to the energetic aura of the text with a clearly foregrounded sense of hearing. The stylistic exercise Homer uses to give voice to the silent image and to turn the readers into listeners through phonological uses has been applied greatly in centuries to come.
There is another level of parallelism that needs attention. Successive phases of action and the direct use of speech acts created by the use progressive verbs are further supported with the use of gerunds and continuous tenses. Apart from the introductory statements like ―Next, Hephauestus placed on that shield a vineyard‖ (690) or ―On that shield, Hephaestus then depicted Ocean‖ (738), the narrated stories are presented in gerunds or past continuous tense as in the following lines:
...By the light of blazing torches, people were leading the brides out from their homes and through the town to loud music of the bridal song. There were young lads dancing, whirling to the constant tunes of flutes and lyres, while all the women stood beside their doors, staring in admiration. (608-614)5
5 Emphasis added. 130
or in these lines:
Then he set on the shield a herd of straight-horned cattle, with cows crafted out of gold and tin. They were lowing as they hurried out from farm to pasture land, beside a rippling river lined with waving reeds. The herdsmen walking by the cattle … But there, at the front of the herd, two fearful lions had seized a bellowing bull. They were dragging him off, as he roared aloud. The dogs and young men were chasing after them. The lions, after ripping open the great ox's hide, were gorging on its entrails, on its black blood, as herdsmen kept trying in vain to chase them off, setting their swift dogs on them. But, fearing the lions, the dogs kept turning back before they nipped them, and stood there barking, close by but out of reach. (702-717)6
The obvious superiority of the stylistically and grammatically accusative, narrative, and gerund-based adjectival cases over nominative and passive cases makes Homer‘s diction exclusively dynamic. As seen on, although the narration starts in simple past tense, parallel to the body text of the epic, the narration occupies an energetic diction while presenting a mute and stable object. However, Homer is very tactful in keeping the balance between depiction and narration and in keeping the analogy between visual and verbal arts inexplicit as he clearly avoids crossing the boundaries of the images on the shield. In the representation of the shield, none of the stories related are complete or interpreted because they are not complete on the shield Homer is referring to. About this uninterpreted diction, Heffernan states:
6 Emphasis added. 131
Homer never explains how the meaning of the scenes is made, and no character in the poem has anything to say about what they mean; [in the next Book of the epic] Achilles himself simply looks at the shield with a paradoxical combination of rage and joy (40-41).
Therefore, similar to other ekphrastic instances in the Iliad where objects are presented as parts of larger narrative action(s), the reader-listeners are provided with no more than the exact incidents on the shield; in Lessing‘s words ―Homer does not paint the shield as finished and complete, but as a shield that is being made and…
[as] only one picture,‖ which makes Homer‘s narration an example of imitative ekphrasis because the mode of representation is like a puzzle being completed (95,
99). In this sense, Homer also fulfils the basic requirement of the progymnasmatic idea of ―describing the object for the listener‘s mind-eye.‖
The excessive use of the “–ing‖ forms along with the audibly perceptive lexis provide more than what enargeia requires and the appearance of the object in space in the poem; it invigorates the shield and what it represents in words. The Homeric ekphrasis, then, contains verbal liveliness, which is embedded in a narrative history of the object, along with a number of mimetic levels that depict the object no matter how Homer does not mind completing the stories he relates7. In other words, while depicting the shield down to every detail and image in a straightforward manner, he also takes part in the stories told on the shield and describes them as if they were real and the images were alive. This quality puts Homer‘s description of the shield somewhere in between imitative (or mimetic) ekphrasis and meditative ekphrasis
7 Becker believes that Homeric simile (or epic simile) is the basic element of the mimetic levels in the description of the shield. For him, Homeric ekphrasis is based on this idea in two ways: a) the narrative history of the object b) the detailed visual description of the object (52-3). 132
allowing him to both relate and comment on the images on a work of plastic – or rather metal – art.
Homer‘s ekphrastic style was imitated in the years to come. In the 300 BC (c.a.),
Theocritus used the same dynamic way of description to describe a decorated cup in his Idyll (35-36) while Apollonius of Rhodes, in his Argonautica, depicted the designs embroidered Jason‘s cloak in a life-like manner in which the ram image on the cloak talked and the bulls on the cloak were scaring people off (56, 1.764-67)8.
Although it is not a narrative about manufacturing, Hesiod‘s description of the Shield of Hercules, which is half as long as the Shield of Achilles, resembles to Homer‘s style in its excessive use of sounds, successive episodes and particular scenes of events, and the focus on the object (Hollander 9; Heffernan 22). Horace‘s theoretical support with the idea of ut pictura poesis, added to Homer‘s narration putting the theory into practice, ekphrasis had been thought to be the ideal literary way to give voice to the visual arts.
Other well-known early examples of ekphrasis belong to Virgil and Ovid. In many points, Virgil‘s Aeneid and Ovid‘s Metamorphosis follow Homer‘s uninterpreted and lively style (Heffernan 41). In both the Aeneid and Metamorphosis, objects and events are given in such a detailed way that the epic story seems overrun by the pictorial quality of ekphrasis. This Homeric tactic is actually an eloquent way to produce an accurate word-picture of the represented object:
8 See the Introduction chapter and the footnotes in Heffernan (62, 201) for further examples of ekphrasis in ancient texts. 133
…when description goes beyond what is actually on the imagined surface of the description, this is not a sign that the description is surpassing the visual image, nor a sign of a fault in description; it is a way of describing, whether objects or characters, within the epic (Becker 56).
The seemingly ―surpassing‖ description in the Aeneid and Metamorphosis are, as in the Iliad, presented through objects of craftsmanship. The most representative ekphrastic passages in these works are observed through the depiction of armours, monuments, and tapestry and, still like Homer, Virgil and Ovid try to give life to the silent ―visual‖ through the living ―verbal.‖
The ekphrastic instances in the Aeneid begin with Book I where Aeneas lands to
Carthage. The sculptures and paintings on the city walls of Carthage, which are still under construction like the Shield of Achilles, relates the story of the Trojan War
(41-43). As Homer did, Virgil provides the characters in the pictures with motion using verbs of action, gerunds, and continuous grammatical structures:
Elsewhere poor young Troilus was pictured in ill-matched combat with Achilles… he had lost his weapons… and he was on his back trailing from his empty chariot, but still grasping his reins, with his neck and hair dragging over the ground, and his lance pointing back and tracing lines in the dust. Meanwhile ladies of Troy… were seen walking in a mournful procession… they had been beating their breasts with open hands and they were bearing an offering of a robe to the temple of Pallas (42).
In Virgil‘s description of the pictures of the Trojan War, the readers would sense the presence of a narrator easily as he uses passive structures in order to introduce what the picture looked like at first sight as in ―it was pictured…,‖ ―he also recognized…
Greek chieftains,‖ ―he recognized another scene…‖ (42). This is probably the reason 134
why Heffernan believes that ―after Homer, all ekphrasis becomes doubly paragonal: a contest staged not just between the word and the image but also between one poet and another‖ (23). Parallel to Heffernan‘s view, Lessing argues that the object was more essential for Virgil, and this particular quality makes his ekphrasis original:
The work of art, not what it represents in it, is his model, and even if at the same time he describes what we see represented in it, he is only describing it as a part of [the work of art]… and not as the thing itself… In the first case the work of the poet is original; in the second is a copy (45)9.
Such kind of narrative seems to degrade the enargeia of the ekphrastic elements.
However, this short passage of ekphrasis is the first of lengthy epic depictions in
Virgil‘s work. Besides Virgil‘s hero, unlike Achilles, who does not respond to the magnificence of the shield, is very much effected by the horrifying battle scenes and, as he recalls those days, he sighs and cries (42-43).
Other than the city walls of Carthage, other ekphrastic passages also take place in the epic as in Book 3, where two herdsmen take turns describing the wooden cups newly carved by the divine Alcimedon (76-77), or as the story of Deadelus in Book 6.
However, probably ―…the most elaborate ekphrastic passage in the whole poem‖ is the depiction of the Shield of Aeneas, a gift from Venus (Heffernan 30). Apart from the fact that Homer tells the story of an unfinished shield being-made while Virgil presents a complete armour through which ―the action comes to a standstill during
9 Krier disagrees with Lessing‘s idea that regarding the art work as it is could provide the poem a unique outlook; for him physical distance between the observer (Aeneid) and the observed (images) results in loss of poetic power. Krier argues that the same idea holds true for Metamorphoses (73).
135
this time‖ (Lessing 95-6), there is little difference between the two depictions. Both shields are presented in such a detailed way that readers of these passages are immediately turned to viewers. The depictions, which often refer to ―res Italas
Romanorumque et Graecus triumphos‖ (Roman and Greek history and conquests), follow similar grammatical and contextual patterns such as the frequent use of elaborate adjectival structures, prophetic stories, and deliberate gaps in the narrative10.
In Metamorphoses, as in the Iliad and the Aeneid, there is a similar elaboration of a work of art. However, this time the represented visual object is not a piece of protective armour or a wall but a tapestry. Metamorphosis is a collection of didactic stories presenting the relationship between the Roman gods and the mortals. Minerva
(Athena) is one the basic characters playing an essential role in the development of
Ovid‘s work. Book 6 opens with Minerva‘s enthusiasm to meet a girl called Arachne after she learns about Arachne‘s weaving talent from the Muses. Minerva invites
Arachne to a weaving contest and Arachne accepts the challenge only to become victorious with her lifelike images (6. 104-134). Ovid‘s description of Arachne‘s tapestry takes place at this point. Arachne first weaves the story of Europa and how she was raped by Jupiter in the form of a bull: ―so perfect was her art, it seemed a real bull in real waves‖ (4.105-106). Then she goes on weaving other stories of raping like Asteria, Anthiope, Isse, Erigone, Arne and Melantho, all depicting the celestial gods deceiving mortals. Although the poem tells that all the images were
10 Heffernan thinks that all the stories related on the shields or the walls serve as Roman propaganda, first introduced by Homer and then retold by Virgil in his own tongue (30). Besides the stories function as guides for the heroes, especially for Aeneas, since they provide hints about the future as in the images of Augustus forcing Egypt to surrender. For Heffernan, such fortune telling outgrows the effect of the depiction and so they language (the verbal) becomes superior to the depicted image (the visual) (36, 41).
136
―woven true to life, in proper shades‖ and that ―Minerva could not find a fleck or flaw‖ (6.121; 129), Ovid keeps his depiction condensed. Almost all the depictions of the tapestry are straightforward and uncomplicated images of mythological events
―…and there was Bacchus, when he was disguised as a large cluster of fictitious grapes; deluding by that wile the beautiful Erigone;—and Saturn, as a steed, begetter of the dual-natured Chiron‖ (6.123-126). In other words, Ovid, unlike Homer and
Virgil, avoids distracting details and vocabulary and seems to have preferred a plain style. Besides, keeping in mind that Arachne‘s story presents important
―paradigmatic instances‖ concerning ekphrasis (Holander 12-13; Knox 68), it is clear that neither Arachne‘s nor Ovid‘s focus is on the tapestry but on the misdeeds gods play on men.
More important than the description of the tapestry, then, one finds the relationship between giving voice and silencing (through rape, injustice and so on), and between female (the weak or the helpless) and male (the manipulating gods and kings like
Apollo, Neptune, Jupiter, and Tereus). Indeed some of the authorities like Heffernan,
Hollander, and Joplin concentrate on the repressed and/or silenced female figure in order to analyse ekphrastic poetry. Heffernan, for instance, believes that a psychoanalytic perspective is required while considering the ekphrastic poetry especially until the twentieth century (53)11. However, it is basically the story of
Philomela in the fifth chapter of Book 6 in Metamorphosis, not of Arachne, that forms the basis of such commentary. In this story, Procne, the queen of Thrace, asks
11 Apart from the stories in Metamorphoses, Heffernan often refers to two ―ancient novels‖ that contain stories of manipulated females through rape. One of them is Longus‘s Daphnis and Chloe, which is basically a pastoral and the other is Achilles Tatius‘s Leucippe and Clitophon, a tragic love story that ends with the death of two lovers (Heffernan 53-59).
137
his husband Tereus, the king of Thrace, to bring Philomela to Athens to meet and talk to her. Philomela meets Tereus and bids farewell to her family. At first, the king seems to be protecting Philomela but he is soon attracted by the beauty of the virtuous royal lady. On the way, Tereus drags her to a lonely hut in the forest, locks her up and rapes her. Shocked and shaken, Philomela threatens Tereus that she will reveal all to Procne and other members of the royal family. Tereus gets furious, pinches and cuts her tongue, and then rapes her repeatedly. When the king‘s brutality is over, the violated Philomela comes to Athens and meets her sister. Unable to speak, she asks for a needle and then starts weaving a complex web of images.
Through her tapestry illustrating what the king has done to her, she manages to reveal the truth about Tereus. Ovid‘s story ends at this point and he does not mention the contents of the tapestry. For Joplin, Philomela‘s story, which is written in blood not in ink and words, is the most representative example that stands for the paragonal relationship between the female and the male in ekphrastic poetry (54). Heffernan, too, traces the signs of Philomela‘s tragic story in other stories of rape. It is interesting to note that almost each silenced female finds a way to speak through a visual means of art, such as weaving or painting. This is also the reason why
Heffernan assumes that all ekphrasis until the Renaissance is ―predominantly male‖ or ―masculine ekphrasis‖ (46).
Subsequently, as observed in the stories of Philomela and Arachne, weaving for Ovid is a female attribute and an escape to express the inexpressible. Philomela, who cannot talk, speaks through images while Arachne, who is discontented with the brutality of the gods, voices her feelings in her tapestry and metaphorically silences 138
Minerva, who loses the challenge. It is interesting to note that the enraged goddess punishes Arachne by tearing down her tapestry, which is also another rape-like action belittling her rival (6.131).
Following Ovid and Virgil, one last example of ekphrasis should be mentioned before moving on to ekphrasis in the Renaissance and how ekphrasis was received in
England. Dante‘s Divine Comedy, which contains representative examples of ekphrastic passages, is no less ekphrastic than the Aeneid or the Iliad (Hollander
13)12. The noteworthy ekphrastic section in Divine Comedy is the place where Dante the traveller, guided by Virgil, is introduced to the marble bas-reliefs carved within the threshold of the purgatorial gate in the Purgatory:
Thereon our feet had not been moved as yet, When I perceived the embankment round about, Which all right of ascent had interdicted, To be of marble white, and so adorned With sculptures… (X.30-34).
The marble reveals the catastrophic stories about mankind and how they have been led astray by evil as well as references to the Trojan War, which covers the rest of
Canto X. Dante‘s diction in this passage is quite similar to that of Homer‘s; the text is stylistically parallel to the sense it evokes. Reading Canto X creates the sense that
Dante is in search of a diction that would work between stasis and momentum. As in
12 Heffernan also laments about the lack of attention paid to Divine Comedy and states that a critic needs to visit Dante for a ―canonical genealogy of ekphrasis‖ along with Homer, Virgil, and Ovid (9).
139
the representation of the Shield of Achilles, readers do not only see, but hear and feel the presence of the images carved in the marble:
The Angel, who came down to earth with tidings Of peace, that had been wept for many a year, And opened Heaven from its long interdict, In front of us appeared so truthfully There sculptured in a gracious attitude, He did not seem an image that is silent. One would have sworn that he was saying, "Ave;"… (X.36-42).
Motion is foregrounded in such a way that every account brings about lexical energy.
Another example of such dynamic and lively presentation appears in ―another story on the rock imposed‖ about Mars (X.52). Having heard about the Angel speaking on the rock, the traveller also hears the oxen, the cart, and the people arguing as one hears Homer‘s herdsmen shouting and the feud dispute on the shield. However, apart from the sense of hearing, the sense of feeling evoked by the smoke is also worth mentioning:
There sculptured in the self-same marble were The cart and oxen, drawing the holy ark, Wherefore one dreads an office not appointed. People appeared in front, and all of them In seven choirs divided, of two senses Made one say "No," the other, "Yes, they sing." Likewise unto the smoke of the frankincense, Which there was imaged forth, the eyes and nose Were in the yes and no discordant made. (X.55-63).
140
Although the diction in this passage, with its use of continuous structures, gerunds, and recurrent verbs of action, seems to follow the ekphrastic representation found in the Shield of Achilles and the Aeneid, Dante‘s style does not simply copy and apply
Homeric and Virgilian in terms of diction. Indeed, there are two essential innovations
Dante brings about that would be used in ekphrastic exercises in the future. To begin with, Dante takes the sense of hearing one step further; he does not only let his listener‘s hear words and phrases but also see them conversing with one another as in the dialogue between a villager, who seeks vengeance, and God:
The wretched woman in the midst of these Seemed to be saying: "Give me vengeance, Lord, For my dead son, for whom my heart is breaking." And he to answer her: "Now wait until I shall return." And she: "My Lord," like one In whom grief is impatient, "shouldst thou not Return?" And he: "Who shall be where I am Will give it thee." And she: "Good deed of others What boots it thee, if thou neglect thine own?" Whence he: "Now comfort thee, for it behoves me That I discharge my duty ere I move; Justice so wills, and pity doth retain me." (X.83-94).
Considering the fact that meeting silent figures converse only through indirect verbs like ―dispute‖ (Homer XVI. 66) or ―talk‖ (Virgil 43) is a common stylistic tactic,
Dante‘s presentation of images making actual conversation is a totally new invention and thus a sign of stylistic deviation. One may assume that the exchange of words between the woman and God could have been already carved under the bas-reliefs as in the carved obelisk in Shelley‘s ―Ozymandias.‖ However the expression that these images ―seemed to be saying‖ weakens this assumption and leads one to suppose that 141
Dante, who is under the spell of the lifelike images, is making up this whole conversation.
Secondly, Dante-the-poetic-persona, unlike the unresponsive Achilles, responds to and talks about the marbles. No matter how Aeneid similarly responds to seeing the scenes of the Trojan War by pouring out his tears, Dante‘s reactions are more humane and realistic (Marianne Shapiro 99; Lessing 96). He comments on each figure as if each carved image was a living figure and individual:
But still I wish not, Reader, thou shouldst swerve From thy good purposes, because thou hearest How God ordaineth that the debt be paid; Attend not to the fashion of the torment, Think of what follows; think that at the worst It cannot reach beyond the mighty sentence. … "Master," began I, "that which I behold Moving towards us seems to me not persons, And what I know not, so in sight I waver." … O ye proud Christians! wretched, weary ones! Who, in the vision of the mind infirm Confidence have in your backsliding steps, Do ye not comprehend that we are worms, Born to bring forth the angelic butterfly That flieth unto judgment without screen? … True is it, they were more or less bent down, According as they more or less were laden; And he who had most patience in his looks Weeping did seem to say, "I can no more!" (X.103-108; 112-115; 124-129; 133-136).
Both his comments (X.103 onwards and X. 124 onwards) on the atrocious images and his conversation with his ―Master,‖ Virgil, show that the prosopopeial quality in 142
Dante‘s work is far more cognisant than Homer, Virgil, and Ovid‘s. In other words, as readers hear Dante thinking, speaking, and commenting on the marble, which is imaginary and ―visible parlare‖ at the same time (X.95), it is fair to attribute the innovation that presents poetic persona deviating and taking up active role in ekphrasis to Dante.
These ancient examples, which have usually been regarded as the ―extreme specimen of notional ekphrasis‖ (Heffernan 14; Hollander 10) and dominated the understanding of the ekphrasis in general until the late sixteenth century, have set the ground rules of ekphrastic exercises. The general characteristics of these ancient examples along with the conclusive remarks on the English ekphrastic tradition in the Renaissance will be presented in the last section of this chapter. It is now time to have a closer look at the ekphrastic tradition in English beginning from its early examples to the ekphrastic poetry in the Renaissance.
143
3.2. Enter Ekphrasis: Ekphrasis in England
It is commonly agreed that the ekphrastic debut in England is attributed to Geoffrey
Chaucer like many other initial literary activities. Although Chaucer‘s depictions of statues, temples, tapestry and artistic items are detailed verbal descriptions, they could only roughly be called ekphrastic because his basic consideration focuses on the narration and not on verbalizing the visual. Besides Chaucer does not seem to be dramatizing the silent pictures as Homer and Virgil does; instead he goes for a thorough portrayal of the object as in the embroidered pictures in The Legend of
Good Women (2358 – 63) or, the images of the Trojan War in The Book of the
Duchess (321-34), the frescoes about Aeneas in The House of Fame (151-467), or the carved images at the Venus temple in The Parliament of Fowles (284-94)13.
Chaucer‘s major contribution to ekphrasis, however, is found in The Canterbury
Tales (Lee 24; Heffernan 62-63). In his incomplete series of stories, Chaucer had felt the need to depict scenes, events, and objects frequently although the major description that could be regarded as an example of ekphrasis is found in the
Knight’s Tale (1918-2088) where he ekphrasizes on the wall-pictures at the temple of
Venus14:
First in the temple of venus maystow se Wroght on the wal, ful pitous to biholde, The broken slepes, and the sikes colde, The sacred teeris, and the waymentynge, The firy strokes of the desirynge That loves servantz in this lyf enduren. …
13 Similar depictions of embroidery (within the context of Philomela‘s story) are also found in John Gower‘s Confessio Amantis (132-474) and de Lorris and de Meun‘s Roman de la Rose. 14Parallel depictions are also made for the temples of Mars and Diana in the subsequent sections. 144
Ther venus hath hir principal dwellynge, Was shewed on the wal in portreyynge, With al the gardyn and the lustynesse. (1918-1923; 1937-1939).
Commenting on these lines, Heffernan states that ―Chaucerian ekphrasis is oddly non-pictorial‖ (62). Indeed, Chaucer‘s introduction of the temple and the Venus statue, along with other statues, is rather direct and simplistic. In that sense,
Chaucer‘s ekphrasis remains straightforwardly mimetic because he merely describes the inner temple with exact references to the building with an aim to create an accurate picture for the listeners so that, by the end of the tale, each traveller would know where each object is exactly located and see the temple:
A citole in hir right hand hadde she, And on hir heed, ful semely for to se, A rose gerland, fressh and wel smellynge; Above hir heed hir dowves flikerynge. Biforn hire stood hir sone cupido; Upon his shuldres wynges hadde he two, And blynd he was, as it is often seene; A bowe he bar and arwes brighte and kene. Why sholde I noght as wel eek telle yow al The portreiture that was upon the wal. (1959-1968).
In short, rather than aiming ―the effect of sublimity‖ (―the presentation of something unrepresentable‖) or the dramatic effect the visual object might create in words
(Marin Sublime 123), Chaucer goes for the realistic, unpretentious, and down-to- earth pictorial effect that is also observable in many of his works.
145
However, more important than his uncomplicated style, Chaucer has re-introduced the prosopopeial device following Homer and Virgil. As in the ancient epics,
Chaucer relates his tale from the mouth of a poetic persona who tries to retell the stories told ―pleynly… [and] proprely‖ (―General Prologue‖ 727-729). Moreover, each tale is told by a different member of the travelling pilgrims which makes
Chaucer‘s narration a story within a story. Following Chaucer, who himself follows
Homer, Virgil, and Horace, prosopopeia, or the use of a fictional persona to guide the narration, has become an influential element in ekphrasis in English (Heffernan
22).
As it is commonly known many of the ancient works had not been discovered until the late fifteenth century due to reasons such as the repression of the strict Roman
Catholicism and public illiteracy. Therefore, as it has been covered in the
Introduction and Chapter I, apart from Chaucer‘s efforts and some minor medieval lyrics, little is known about ekphrasis in the Middle Ages. Following the translation of the ancients into vernaculars, the Greek and Latin handbooks became available to the public and the literary circles. This was followed by critical pamphlets mimicking
Greek and Latin-oriented criticism of the antiquity and then the production of more original and national works (Graham 469).
Owing much of its influential power to the then-newly discovered ancient material, the Renaissance brought about a new understanding of man, universe, faith and arts.
What Lessing calls the ―mania for description‖ and the idea that ―painting [or the plastic arts in general] was still considered the nobler art‖ have been re-considered 146
within Renaissance norms (Lessing xiv; xv). Although the subjects used in ekphrasis are frequently drawn from the ancients since the content and context of painting and poetry were basically those of ancient epics until the late seventeenth century (Lee
40), the idea of ―immortality through art‖ shifted and the ―art‖ in this phrase turned out to be verbal art rather than visual. According to Lee, the raise in the number of poems (almost all following Horatian apologetic mode) entitled ―apologie for poetrie‖ or ―defence of poesy,‖ as in Sidney‘s ―An Apologie for Poetrie‖ which defended poetry against other art forms, shows that the art of poetry was re- structuring itself as the more dominant and dignified form of art (33; 40)15. More to the point, the dominance of poetry over painting is going to become clearer in painter poems in the following paragraphs.
The Renaissance was the time when art began to be considered as something more than a functional and recreational act. As the artworks of antiquity such as antiques and statues along with written works, became to be known as artistically and historically valuable, men of literature felt the need to be more tactful while defining art and the artistic (Erinç 33). The criticism applied to works of art, which simply relied on intuitions before, came to depend on more philosophical and analytical judgement (Davies 43). No matter how ekphrastic activities, and poetry in general, was under the influence of the ancients like Homer, Virgil, and Ovid, who provided
―the best model of all‖ (Lessing 104), some alterations had been made to apply the style of these masters to meet the needs of the time. For instance,
15 The title of Sidney‘s work varies according to its editions. The 1595 edition of Henry Olney and William Ponsonby‘s is entitled ―An Apologie for Poetrie,‖ while in the same year another edition entitled ―An Apologie: Poesy‖ is also known. The name has been changed much later to ―A Defense of Poesie‖ in (Robert Sidney's) the Penshurst copy ca. 1600 (Lee 22). 147
The representation of spatial as well as figural matters in Homeric, Virgilian or Ovidian lines becomes in the Renaissance, a question of framing phases, parts, regions, of a description in couplets…or in stanzas… (Hollander 16).
In terms of context, especially Elizabethan poetry focused on context and produced
―semantically significant‖ works (Haynes 238; Norbrook 147). As it is going to be seen in Herrick‘s poem, for example, the content usually seems surpass the structure in many of the Renaissance ekphrastic poetry though the elaborate diction of the
Elizabethan age is still present. A final remark concerning the scope and context of poetry and the relationship between the verbal and the visual material would be to note that, especially until late seventeenth-century, ekphrasis works other way round as opposed to modern ekphrasis; that is it is painting that carries poetry on the canvas albeit the number of ekphrastic poems is not small. Well-known painters of the
Renaissance like Poussin, Caravaggio, and da Vinci dedicated much of their energy to paint the stories of ancient epics and mythological stories.
Some of the noteworthy examples of ekphrastic poetry and passages are found in
Marlowe‘s Hero and Leander (1593), in which the heroine takes a vow of chastity in a temple decorated with images of rape (1.143-56), Sidney‘s The Countess of
Pembroke’s Arcadia: New Arcadia (1590), which provides detailed depictions of the pastoral world of Arcadia, and Milton‘s Paradise Lost, which is decorated with
Homeric ―musical pictures‖ (Lessing 72-74)16. Spenser, who was influenced by
Virgil and Ovid‘s dramatic and descriptive qualities to a great extent (Krier 8-18), makes use of ekphrastic elements in Book 3 of The Faerie Qveene where the walls of
16 In Lessing and elsewhere, Milton, who suffered from loss of sight like Homer, is usually compared to Homer for his ability to see images (Lessing 74). 148
the Castle Joyeous are adorned with tapestries depicting the story of Venus and
Adonis17. Some of the metaphysical lyrics, sonnets, and epigrams of Marvell and
Donne like ―The Gallery,‖ ―The Picture of Little T.C in a Prospect of Flowers,‖
―Witchcraft by a Picture,‖ and ―Thy flattering picture, Phryne, is like thee, / Only in this, that you both painted be‖ also contain ekphrastic elements.
Among the ekphrastic poems of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
Shakespeare‘s ―Rape of Lucrece‖ stands out with its diction and context that brings a number of ekphrastic qualities that had been inherited from the ancients. As one of the ―most provocative treatments of ekphrasis,‖ ―Rape of Lucrece‖ reintroduces and reshapes the Philomela story, which it often refers to, within a different context
(Meek 390). For Hollander, the poem is
…a remarkable moment… in the series of representations of the picture we have been given: the narrator‘s (Lucrece‘s) own representation, recited under the demands of sympathetic – rather than erotic – desire…‖ (21).
As ―a remarkable point‖ in the history of ekphrasis in English, the story of Lucrece18 have been so influential that it has inspired and/or influenced literary milestones like
T.S. Eliot‘s ―Waste Land‖ and some other Shakespeare plays like Titus Andronicus19 and As You Like It.
17 For Heffernan both Spencer‘s The Faerie Qveene and Sidney‘s New Arcadia contain examples of ekphrasis revealing the power relations between the gazed female and the gazer male. The women at the Castle Joyeous in The Faerie Qveene, under the influence of the overtly erotic Venus representations, are highly seductive and raise sexual enticement among the shepherds while Sidney‘s work, with the painting of Diana and her nymphs bathing, Musidorus who ―peeps‖ at the painting, and the verbalized depictions of beauty, rape, silencing, and suppression, show women consummated by male gaze (70-71). 18 Shakespeare was not the first to make use of the story of Lucrece (or Lucretia). Before him Chaucer in his The Legend of Good Women, John Gower in his Confessio Amantis, and John Lydgate in his Fall of Princes had referred to the story before the Renaissance. 19 Just as in the story of Lucrece, Chiron and Demetrius rape and cut Lavinia‘s tongue and hands in Titus Andronicus (2.4.38-43). Lavinia, then, is openly likened to Lucrece for her inability to speak (4.1.61-64). 149
The story of Lucrece, like that of Philomela, is full of transgression and brutality conducted by men. The poem, which takes place sometime in the sixth century (BC), opens with officers telling stories after dinner at the camp outside the surrounded city of Ardea. Collatine, one of the officers boasts about the virtues and beauty of his wife, Lucrece, upon which Tarquin, the king‘s spoiled son, feels lust for Lucrece and at night he secretly pays a visit to her in Collatium. Tarquin presents himself as a friend of her husband and gains her trust. But when everyone is asleep in the manor house, he enters Lucrece‘s room and rapes her against her pleading. The story ends with Lucrece revealing the truth and then stabbing herself which leads to the overthrowing of the tyrannical rule of the Tarquin family.
The ekphrastic passage in the poem takes place towards the end while Lucrece waits for her family to come and reflects on a ―skilful painting‖ depicting scenes from the
Trojan War:
At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece Of skilful painting, made for Priam's Troy: Before the which is drawn the power of Greece. For Helen's rape the city to destroy… (1366-1370).
The depiction of the painting lasts about two hundred lines and contains references to acts of rape, especially of Helen and Philomela. Shakespeare‘s style reminds us
Virgil‘s in that both poets occupy a clear prosopopeial mode; readers get to know the painting from Lucrece‘s eyes as opposed to the presence of a narrator persona who opens the poem. 150
In terms of diction, however, Shakespeare‘s work is closer to the ―oldest masterpiece‖ of ekphrasis, the Iliad, and to Dante‘s Divine Comedy because readers of the painting become viewers due to the highly dramatic lexical qualities (Lessing
118). This part of the poem is highly verbal containing a considerable number of verbs of action, gerunds, and dynamic grammatical structures that invoke the sense of seeing and hearing as in:
There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand, As 'twere encouraging the Greeks to fight; Making such sober action with his hand, That it beguiled attention, charm'd the sight: In speech, it seem'd, his beard, all silver white, Wagg'd up and down, and from his lips did fly Thin winding breath, which purl'd up to the sky. (1400-1406)20.
Rape occupies the contextual foreground as the central theme. Heffernan believes that in terms of its power to represent the cruelty of rape, ―‗The Rape of Lucrece‘ is unique among the works [of its time]‖ (89). However Shakespeare does not focus on a single rape but drives his context from a number of mythological and historical stories.
Unlike his predecessors, Shakespeare does not simply turn the painting of a single action into story, or represent the painting as a succession of chronologically ordered scenes. Instead he enumerates scenes in the chronologically random order with which a viewer might pick them up from a multitemporal canvas (Heffernan 76).
20 Emphasis added. 151
There is the rape of Lucrece, of Helen, of Philomela, as well as of the Troy, since the poem clearly implies a sense of military rape through fear, repression, peeping, fighting, and silencing:
... For Helen's rape the city to destroy, Threatening cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy. ... Many a dry drop seem'd a weeping tear, Shed for the slaughter'd husband by the wife: The red blood reek'd, to show the painter's strife; And dying eyes gleam'd forth their ashy lights, Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights. ... And from the towers of Troy there would appear The very eyes of men through loop-holes thrust, Gazing upon the Greeks with little lust: ... In great commanders grace and majesty You might behold, triumphing in their faces; In youth, quick bearing and dexterity; Pale cowards, marching on with trembling paces; Which heartless peasants did so well resemble, That one would swear he saw them quake and tremble. ... The face of either cipher'd either's heart; Their face their manners most expressly told: In Ajax' eyes blunt rage and rigor roll'd; But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent Show'd deep regard and smiling government. (1369-1370; 1375-1380; 1383-1383; 1388-1393; 1496-1400)21.
The implication in the above lines that war craft is an action of brutality that parts
―husband by the wife‖ and brings fear and lust in the hearts of the people under siege. In this case, the Trojan army, the soldiers of which suffer from the terror of the surrounding army forms the initial parallelism because it is metaphorically being raped by ―heartless peasants‖ of the Greek army. The difference between the
21 Emphasis added. 152
adjectives used for Ajax and Ulysses indicates an essential stylistic derivation while it also shows the emphasis on the theme of rape; while ―blunt rage and rigor‖ fills
Ajax‘s eyes as the aggravator, Ulysses is ―mild‖ and calm, nervously waiting for the attack. More to the point, although Hecuba is the central woman in the painting,
Helen, representing the attacked city of Troy, suffers from ―rage and rigor‖ of the
Greek army. Helen‘s face, like those of Lucrece and Ulysses, is frequently compared to the painted faces of Ajax, Nestor, and Sinon (1397, 1503). This is probably why towards the end of the poem, Lucrece tears Sinon‘s eyes off the painting as a revenge. In this way, she is not a pacified weaver of a tapestry but the rapist, revenging the brutality against herself, Philomela, and Helen (Kahn 152).
The critics of ―Rape of Lucrece‖ usually concentrate on the thematic components of the poem. But as far as the ekphrastic tradition in English is concerned another point should be noted. Some literary critics tend to dig out the context and structure of particular Renaissance, medieval, and ancient works to find out about ekphrastic qualities and to label these poems as ―ekphrastic‖ and at length they can usually come up only with limited proof. In other words, such a survey especially until the
Renaissance proves to be fruitless except for some major literary examples that have been mentioned and/or explained in the previous sections. Indeed, it would not be wide of the mark to call ―Rape of Lucrece‖ as the most representative and paragonal poem by far as far as the critical discussions about the male gazer and the female gazed are taken into consideration. The poem openly displays the paragonal rivalry between the word and the image, and the sound and the picture.
153
At first, Lucrece, as the poem itself, seems to be favouring painting and images over words. First time she sees the painting, she describes it as a ―skilful painting…[and a] well-painted piece… [of] the conceited painter… [who] gave lifeless life‖ (1367;
1443; 1371; 1374). She appreciates the painting for its true-to-life style and ―the painter‘s strife‖ to paint it (1377):
For much imaginary work was there; Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind, … In her the painter had anatomized Time's ruin, beauty's wreck, and grim care's reign: Her cheeks with chaps and wrinkles were disguised; Of what she was no semblance did remain (1422-1423; 1450-1453).
Praising the power of the visual and taking sides with the painting is rather understandable because soon after the act of ravishing, Lucrece recalls the tonguless
Philomela and her words ―the eye interprets to the ear‖ which indicate the usefulness of words as she is speechless (1325). Elsewhere in the poem, Lucrece also remembers Philomela‘s monologues and her decision (and compulsion and/or obligation) to break up with words and the verbal:
'Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools! Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators! … My sable ground of sin I will not paint, To hide the truth of this false night's abuses; My tongue shall utter all: mine eyes, like sluices, As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale, Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.' (1016-1017; 1074-1078).
154
First Philomela curses words, which have now become an unproductive media. This rejection is immediately followed by a substitution. As her ―eyes… shall pure streams to purge‖ her story, the eyes replace the tongue. The tongue-eye metaphor constructed on the ironic statement that ―[her] tongue shall utter all: [her] eyes‖ could simply be shortened to ―[her] tongue: [her] eyes.‖ However, palm-giving to the visual is simply an illusion and there is an unambiguous verbal turn22 towards the end of the poem where Lucrece recognizes that her espousal of the visual was a mistake:
On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes, And shapes her sorrow to the beldam's woes, Who nothing wants to answer her but cries, And bitter words to ban her cruel foes: The painter was no god to lend her those; And therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong, To give her so much grief and not a tongue. 'Poor instrument,' quoth she,'without a sound, I'll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue. (1457-1465).
Neither Shakespeare nor Lucrece is content about the power of the painter.
Suspecting the reliability of the images the painter had created, therefore, Lucrece promises to give voice to the sorrows in the painting. She believes that unless someone turns these images into sounds, they will remain silent and dead, as in dead ekphrasis. Finally, Lucrece re-mourns for Philomela for she had lost such a precious ability and been forced to remain silent until the end of her life.
22 Here I am reversing Mitchell‘s term, pictorial turn, which he uses to indicate the rise of the reliability of images especially in the second half of the twentieth century (Picture 22-30, 150-170; Iconology 14-19). 155
As seen on, the paragonal rivalry in ―Rape of Lucrece‖ is very dramatic and straightforward while it also encourages paragonal deviation. Presumably this is the reason behind its popularity as an ekphrastic narrative especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Hollander 18; Mitchell Picture 56). More essentially ―Rape of Lucrece‖ may be regarded as a representation of the territorial supremacy of the verbal against the visual in the Renaissance. Although this paragonal relationship has been introduced in the previous chapter, it should be remembered that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the times during which poetry (or writing in general) as a form of art began to dominate painting (or plastic arts in general) as the supreme form of expression and artistic activity (Lessing 76; Heffernan 44; Berger 13; Grahan
466). No matter how a small number of lyrics and epigrams praising painters and painting like Herrick‘s ―Upon a Painted Gentlewoman:‖ ―Men say y'are fair, and fair ye are, 'tis true; / But hark! We praise the painter now, not you‖ (1-2)23, had been composed during this period; the majority of notable poets like Dryden have followed Shakespeare and thanked God for the gift of poesy:
O gracious God! how far have we Profan'd thy heavenly gift of Poesy! Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, Debas'd to each obscene and impious use, Whose harmony was first ordain'd above, For tongues of angels and for hymns of love! (―Ode To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew‖ 56-61)24.
23 A similar epigram by Herrick entitled ―Painting Sometimes Permitted‖ reads: ―If nature do deny / Colours, let Art supply‖ (1-2). 24 The full title of the poem is ―Ode to the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady, Mrs. Anne Killigrew, Excellent in the Two Sister Arts of Poesy and Painting.‖ Apart from this poem, Lessing, in his Laoöoon, mentions Dryden‘s ―Song for St. Cecilia Day‖ as a great work full of ―musical pictures‖ and verbal power, still appreciating the governance of poetry against painting (76). 156
3.3. Painter Poems: “„Paint this,‟ „Draw that‟”25
An important development in the Renaissance and the seventeenth-century poetry was the popularity of painter poems26 and emblem poems. It is not surprising to find out that generations of poets, who had been educated with books of emblems, mythological imagery, and rhetoric at nunneries and grammar schools, come up with poetry about and with images, painting, and emblematic figures. Originally the source for painter poems is considered to be the Greek poet Anacreon‘s odes (sixth century BC), which was translated into English by Thomas Moore (Heffernan 100,
211)27. Anacreon‘s Ode XXVIII, for instance, both commands the painter draw in its opening ―Painter…/ Come, my absent Mistress take / As I shall describe her‖ (1, 3-4)
(qtd. in ibid. 214). Hence from Anacreon‘s odes to Quintilian‘s Institutio Oratoria28, which is considered to be the basic source for Renaissance rhetoric, and from
Horace‘s Ars Poetica to Dryden‘s 1695 translation of Dufresnoy‘s De Arte
Graphica, Renaissance and post-Renaissance poets had been familiar with the use of imagery, advice-to-painter diction, progymnasmatic rhetoric, and the close relationship between the word and the image (Warren Taylor 5)29.
25 From a seventeenth-century street ballad ―Poets of Old about to Write Did Use‖ (8). This lyric is probably composed by Edmund Waller‘s editor (Colie 147; Hollander 26). 26 These poems are also known as ―painter satires‖ or ―advice-to-a-painter genre‖ however these terms are not used to imply ekphrastic sense (Ray 172; Burrows 281). Therefore, I will stick to my own term, painter poem, as it has been indicated earlier. 27 Thomas Moore‘s 1800 translation was entitled Odes of Anacreon Translated into English Verse with Notes (London: John Stockdale). 28 Quintilian‘s Institutio Oratoria explains rhetoric in a series of steps: inventio (gathering materials), dispositio (arrangement), pronuntiatio (reduction), memoria (memorizing), docere (informing and depicting), delectare (delighting), movere (moving and forming a clear picture of the described object for the mind‘s eye). According to Warren Taylor the Tudor rhetoric has re-shaped some of Quintillian‘s items and their functions in order to adjust in accordance with the Renaissance norms (5-6). 29 Some of the other essential sources of Renaissance rhetoric that influenced the development of emblem poetry and painter poems are Andrea Alciati‘s Emblematum Liber (1531) (which was the first emblem book used in England), German theologician Johannes Matthaeus‘s curriculum, Sebald Hayden‘s Formulae Puerilim Colloquiorum pro Primis Tyronibus, Erasmus‘s De Civilitate, Joachim Camerarius‘s Praecepta Morum Puerilium, Hermes Trismegistus‘ hermetic philosophy, Christoforo Buodelmonti‘s Hieroglyphica of Horapollo (1419 - later on translated by Paggio Bacciollini), Leone Battista Alberti‘s architectural writings, Francesco Colonna‘s Dream of Poliphilo (1499), Valeriano‘s Hieroglyphica, which was very influential on English emblem poetry, Mantegna, Bellini, Durer, Geoffrey Whitney‘s A Choice of Emblems (1586), and George Wither‘s A 157
Both emblem poems, which illustrate the context of the poem on the page such as
Herbert‘s ―Easter Wings,‖ and painter poems, which urge painters to draw their subjects in appropriate ways such as Marvell‘s ―Last Instructions to a Painter,‖ are essential to understand the development of ekphrastic tradition in English especially in terms of paragonal relationship. First, these poems show that the relationship between the image and the word is moving away from its metaphorical state. For the first time in the history of ekphrasis, the verbal and the visual have the chance for physical contact on the page in such established forms. In ―Easter Wings,‖ for instance, the wings that form the two stanzas become the poem itself. It is also possible to think the opposite: Herbert‘s lines turn out to represent the two wings that help the poet to rise ―as larks, harmoniously‖ to meet God (8). Secondly, parallel to
―Rape of Lucrece‖ example, they demonstrate how the verbal was regarded dominant over the visual in the Renaissance. For emblematic poems, it is possible to claim that the poem on the page becomes a paragonal trap for the image it represents.
Although the image and the poem seem interdependent, it is primarily the poem the readers pay attention. Besides, the image is lost if the receivers of the poem are listeners, not readers. The momentary effect of the image, therefore, vanishes once the poem on the page rises from its silent ekphrastic state and begins to be read aloud in words; it is when the image becomes a mere literary gesture while the state of dead ekphrasis is removed from the verbal, or the poem itself.
As for the painter poems, the supremacy of the word is more obvious. It is the poet who advises and instructs the painter to paint through poetry. In this case, poet‘s
Collection of Emblems (1635) (Ulu ―New Voices‖ 165; Ormerod and Wortham xxv; Brooks 85; Hollander 37- 39).
158
words command the creator of images. One of the most notable examples of painter poems is Marvell‘s 1667 poem ―Last Instructions to a Painter‖ (Hollander 25).
Marvell satirizes Edmund Waller‘s ―Instructions to a Painter,‖ another painter poem itself. Waller‘s ―Instructions‖ elaborates and commemorates the 1665 English naval victory over the Dutch Navy and offers a painter to depict the English Navy in such a way that the English were to be represented as the favourite of God. Waller, following the narrative strategies of ancient epics, begins to instruct the painter right away: ―First draw the sea, that portion which between / The greater world and this of ours is seen‖ (1-2). The opening of the poem gives clues about Waller‘s point of view. The first is that he both instructs and directs the painter to ―draw,‖ with an imperative. Secondly, he wants to painter to draw the sea first which divides the
―greater world,‖ probably a reference to the newly discovered America, and the world of ―ours,‖ or the English world. Marvell opposes with this second point especially and criticises Waller‘s showy and overtly nationalistic diction (Colie 146).
The result, ―Last Instructions to a Painter,‖ which is almost ten times longer than
Waller‘s ―Instructions,‖ is a ―bitingly satirical‖ painter poem (Hollander 26).
Marvell urges the same painter to depict the engagements of the fleets more realistically:
After two sittings, now our Lady State To end her picture does the third time wait. But ere thou fall'st to work, first, Painter, see If't ben't too slight grown or too hard for thee. Canst thou paint without colors? Then 'tis right: For so we too without a fleet can fight. (1-6).
159
The poem opens with an invocation of the painter to finalize the painting he has been drawing. This ―sitting‖ being the third one, Marvell instructs him to be more precautious this time to do the painting ―right,‖ that is, accordingly and true-to-life.
The title of the poem also indicates that his guidance is the ―last‖ one and in this way
Marvell surpasses Waller‘s poem and proves it to be needless anymore. However, as far as ekphrastic tradition is concerned, Marvell‘s commanding paragonal diction is more important than urging the painter to stick to the photographic reality. His emphasis on painter‘s inability to represent reality is worth noting. Examining the
―fallen-to-work‖ painter, he finds out that representing the truth by way of painting is too ―hard for thee [him]‖ to deal with. After urging the painter to rise and ―paint,‖ he seems to mock the paragonal fallout of painting by asking the painter ―Canst thou paint without colors?‖ (5). The satire, then, does not only fall on Waller but also on the painter and the art of painting. Marvell, nevertheless, follows Waller in this respect; using imperatives as Waller does, he also seems to be instructing the painter not figuratively but literally. The poem contains the imperative use of the verb
―paint‖ for twenty-five times, ―draw‖ for eighteen times, and the verbs like ―see‖ and
―turn‖ for more than twenty times in a demanding way as in:
Dear Painter, draw this Speaker to the foot; Where pencil cannot, there my pen shall do't: That may his body, this his mind explain. Paint him in golden gown, with mace's brain, … Paint last the King, and a dead shade of night Only dispersed by a weak taper's light (1019-1022; 1076-1077)30.
30 Emphasis added. 160
The same decreeing manner of using imperatives is a common feature of painter poems. The use of imperatives, for instance, is easier to observe in Herrick‘s short poem entitled ―To His Nephew: To be Prosperous in His Art of Painting:‖
On, as thou hast begun, brave youth, and get The palm from Urbin, Titian, Tintoret, Brugel and Coxu, and the works outdo Of Holbein and that mighty Rubens too. So draw and paint as none may do the like, No, noth the glory of the world, Vandyke. (1-6)31.
The poem, addressed to one of Herrick‘s close relatives, is composed of two sentences; the first one occupying the first four lines and the second the rest.
Although the addressee is his nephew, it should be noted that both of Herrick‘s sentences are imperatives. As the first four lines asks his nephew to ―get the palm‖ of essential painters like Urbin (Raphael), Titian, and Holbein and to ―outdo‖ their works, the second part urges him to ―draw and paint‖ in a unique way.
There are around thirty painters poem in the canon and all these examples such as
Edmund Waller‘s ―Of the Misreport of Her Being Painted‖ (1666) and ―To Van
Duck‖ (1667), Sir John Denham‘s ―Directions to a Painter‖ (1665), ―Second Advice:
‗Nay Painter‘‖ (1665) and ―Third Advice‖ (1666), Herrick‘s ―The Eye‖ (1668) and
―To the Painter, to Draw Him a Picture‖ (1669), John Dryden‘s ―To Sir Geoffrey
Kneller‖ (1693?), John Donne‘s ―Elegie V: His Picture‖ and ―To Anne Killingrew‖
(1612-1613?), Ben Jonson‘s ―The Picture of Her Body,‖ and finally Marvell‘s series
31 In the same way, Herrick‘s ―To the Painter, to Draw Him a Picture‖ contains only eight verbs all of which are imperatives. 161
of satirical poems (other than ―Last Instructions‖) ―Second Advice to a Painter,‖
―Third Advice to a Painter,‖ ―Fourth Advice to a Painter,‖ and ―Fifth Advice to a
Painter‖ (all between 1666-1669) contain a diction that secretly undermines painting while they also directly put poetry over plastic arts. In other words, as they lay claim to the same artistic territory with painting, it is understandable that painter poems share such a charging fashion to gain supremacy as far as their diction is concerned.
162
3.4. Ben Jonson: “The Mind of the Frontispiece to a Book”32
Even though it is one of Ben Jonson‘s minor poems, one of the most representative ekphrastic poems of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is his ―The Mind of the
Frontispiece to a Book.33‖ The poem, which is basically an emblem poem since it accompanies an emblematic engraving, is composed on the frontispiece34 of Sir
Walter Raleigh‘s History of the World (1614). The frontispiece ―The Mind‖ is celebrating is an engraving by Renold Elstrack, one of Raleigh‘s editors (See
Illustration I.iv.). Elstrack‘s engraving is an allegorical picture displaying figures like
Experientia (History, as an old woman), Veritas (Truth, as a young lady with a glimmering right hand), Magistra Vitæ (The Mistress of Life, a bare-breasted sun- crowned woman carrying the globe), Mors (Death, a skeleton), Oblivio (Oblivion, as a sleeping Roman peasant), angels (represented by Fama Bona (The Good) and
Fama Mala (The Evil)), and Providentia (Providence, as an unblinking eye).
As an emblem poem accompanying an engraving, the poem, along with the engraving itself, carries the features of seventeenth-century art works35. Like a
Metaphysical poem, it investigates the structure of the engraving while the engraving is also displaying a Wren-style architectural design. Because the early seventeenth century experienced a considerable development in architecture, the engravings, paintings, emblems as well as poetry gave credits to architectural designs (Reid 229;
32 A full-text verson of the poem has been supplied in Appendix V. 33 Referred to as ―The Mind‖ henceforth. 34 The word ―frontispiece‖ drives from the Latin ―frontispicium‖ meaning ―frontview‖ or ―façade.‖ The word was used to indicate the first page, usually illustrated with an emblem or engraving, of a book from the early Renaissance to the nineteenth century (OED). 35 Ong argues for the opposite. He believes that Jonson‘s poem is an exception to the seventeenth-century conventions (Ong 117-118). This is probably because he regards the poem (and Jonson), not as a product of the scientific and artistic developments of the time as the Metaphysical poets were, but as a down-to-earth Cavalier poet and playwright. 163
Parry 175-177). Parallel to this, Jonson‘s poem follows the design on the paper and takes the readers to a tour on the engraving:
From Death and dark Oblivion, ne‘er the same The Mistress of Man‘s life, grave History Raising the World to Good or Evil Fame … She [Experience] cheerfully supporteth what she rears Assisted by no strengths but are her own, Some note of which each varied pillar bears (1-3; 14-16).
In this sense, the poem is a guideline to ―seeing‖ Elstrack‘s engraving teaching how to ―read‖ the images. This point is also illustrated in the title of the poem. The word
―mind,‖ as in Lovelace‘s line ―None but my Lilly ever drew a Minde‖ in his ―To My
Worthy Friend Mr. Peter Lilly,36‖ suggests the primary parallelism and the representation of what the engraving presents; it is the ―mind‖ and ―soul‖ that makes
―their ways…understood‖ (7).
The poem conducts its scanning and reading of the image in an orderly way.
Elstrack‘s work displays four levels of imagery37, all presenting allegorical characters. Each figure is foregrounded in the painting since they are the first figures that attract attention. The first level gives Death and Oblivion at the bottom, where they lay inactively. The second, and the central level displays the Mistress of Life, who is surrounded by the third level presenting History and Truth. The last level presents the Good, the Evil, and Providence and occupies the top. The poem
36 See section, 3.5., for details. 37 Hollander thinks that the engraving has three linear levels. He considers History, Truth and The Mistress of Life on the same (second) level (119). 164
surprisingly follows the foregrounded images in the painting. Both syntactically and lexically, Jonson foregrounds each of four levels in a peculiar way; there is not a stanza pattern but the poem has four sections as well. The poem opens with a reference to the level at the bottom (―From Death and dark Oblivion [rise]‖) though the central figure is the Mistress of Life, ―raising the World to Good and Evil Fame‖
(3). The first part, which relates the second level in the engraving, is composed of a single sentence in the first four lines. Then the second part of the poem comes that takes place between the next four lines, still in a single syntactical pattern. The second part, however, focuses on the upper level of the image:
Wise Providence would do so: that nor the good Might be defrauded, nor the great secured, But both might know their ways were understood When Vice alike in time with Virtue dured. (4-7).
The third and the fourth sections present Truth and Experience, respectively. It is interesting that, just as the first two parts, each of these sections consist of one sentence, though there are five lines in each. As the focus of the poem has now moved to the images in the middle, Jonson deals with details. He scrutinizes at the pillars, items, and emblems, which characterize the figures:
Which makes that (lighted by the beamy hand Of Truth that searcheth the most hidden springs … She [Experience] cheerfully supporteth what she rears Assisted by no strengths but are her own, Some note of which each varied pillar bears, By which, as proper titles, she is known:
165
Time‘s witness, Herald of Antiquity, The Light of Truth, and Life of Memory (10-11; 14-20).
The four sections, which are represented by the four pillars and the four ―proper titles‖ of History, almost follow the order of making the sign of the cross38. As the four edges of the cross lead while someone is crossing himself or herself, the poem, in its relation to the image it represents, begins in the middle, moves upwards towards the eye of Providence, then moves to the left and then to the right. This claim could sound over-stated39; nonetheless it is clear that the poem peculiarly follows the numerological order of the engraving as it follows the four levels (along with four figures and/or levels) in four parts and in four sentences.
Because the poem provides a step by step reading of the engraving and forms a syntactical parallelism between the word and the image, it is possible to label it as a mimetic ekphrastic poem. Just as ―This Figure, that Thou Seest Here Put,‖ another
Jonson poem that accompanies Shakespeare‘s first folio, ―The Mind‖ is an instruction, not to the painter (unlike his ―The Picture of Her Body,‖ another ekphrastic poem by Jonson), but to the reader. Focusing on the central images, it seems to be teaching the right way to analyse the engraving as opposed to the demanding diction in his ―The Picture of the Body,‖ where he advices the painter to paint Lady Venetia Digby in a dignified manner 40. Therefore, as far as the paragonal
38 See Illustration I.v. 39 The only reason why I am calling my statement ―over-stated‖ is because the book that accompanies Jonson‘s poem, History of the World, is slighly about faith, philosophy, and religion. Otherwise, I believe that the stylistic structure of my assumption would fit to the context. 40 In this sense, ―The Mind‖ is closer to Jonson‘s ―My Picture Left in Scotland,‖ a short poem that concentrates on the hurtful feeling a picture (a gift from a lady) has created. 166
relationship is concerned, one might call the poem a tie; neither Elstrack‘s engraving nor Jonson‘s poem seems to gain territorial supremacy on the grounds of paragone.
Technically the poem does not have metrical concerns. Apart from the abab rhyme scheme that is found in majority of emblematic pieces of the time, it shows that
Jonson did not have structural worries while composing ―The Mind.‖ Enjambment, as a poetic device, is effortlessly detectable and deliberately foregrounded in a way that mimics cross-motion the poem suggests. Lexically deviated, some of the words, especially names, are capitalised; such capitalisation of names of the allegorical figures makes the poem easy to follow. Jonson writes as he sees the engraving though a first person narration is not to be found in the poem. Indeed, the poem is very poor in terms of pronouns; there are only four pronouns (the subject pronoun
―she‖ occurring three times and the possessive adjective ―her‖ occurring only once) all of which refer to Experience at the last six lines. Lack of pronouns and prosopopeial statements may re-indicate that the poem is not trying to dominate the image; instead, it celebrates the engraving by focusing on the figures, and not on the poetic persona, narrator, or narrator‘s views and comments.
Subsequently, Jonson‘s poem, which is initially an example of mimetic ekphrasis, brings forward the image in front of its listeners. As a powerful poem as far as enargeia is concerned, it represents the picturesque and well-expressed ekphrastic poetry that describes visual works of art. Although it is hard to sense a paragonal relationship, the structural and thematic ties between the poem and what it represents makes ―The Mind‖ a genuinely ekphrastic poem. 167
3.5. Richard Lovelace: “To My Worthy Friend Mr. Peter Lilly”41
―To My Worthy Friend‖ is an occasional poem that celebrates both Sir Peter Lely‘s42 accomplished painting (See Illustration I.vi.) and King Charles then-troubled reign and dynastic line. Lovelace‘s poem has been regarded as a representative piece that contains clues about the Royalist spirit of the early seventeenth century (Farmer 57;
Anselment 367; Pace 12-14). It idealizes King Charles and the future king James, as eagle and ―the true Eaglet‖ (11). However, ironically, the painting was probably painted while King Charles was kept at Hampton Court and his public appearance was prohibited by the Republican forces (Hollander 122; Anselment 373). Hence, the poem, as well as the painting, could have aimed to rise the king‘s spirits up and to clear up the clouded skies for the ―Royall Sitters:‖
See! what a clouded Majesty, and eyes Whose glory through their mist doth brighter rise! See! what an humble bravery doth shine, (1-3).
The poem is divided into two sections in a clandestine way. The first section is composed of two stanzas. This section, which is further divided into two stanzas (the first in ten and the second in six lines), has sixteen lines; the latter part is, too, made of sixteen lines (four lines in the first and twelve lines in the second stanza). No matter how irregular the lineation may look, Lovelace was just enough to provide equal space for the painting (as well as the king and the duke of York) and his friend
41 The full title of the poem is ―To My Worthy Friend Mr. Peter Lilly: on that Excallent Picture of His Majesty, and the Duke of York, Drawne by him at Hampton-Court.‖ The poem will be referred to as ―To My Worthy Friend‖ henceforth. The full-text of the poem is available in Appendix VI. 42 The spelling of the name varies from Lily to Lilley (Pepys‘s spelling). In this study, Horace Walpole‘s spelling ―Lely‖ is going to be used as it is usually followed in the twentieth century (443-444). Although Lely was not knighted when he painted the painting, his title, ―Sir,‖ will accompany his name throughout. 168
Sir Lely. As the first part opens with an invocation to the readers to ―see‖ the painting, the second part draws the attention, not to the painting or the royal family, but to Sir Lely: ―These my best Lilly with so bold a spirit /… didst draw‖ (17-19).
The encomium for Lely, which contains references to precious stones and crystals, is no less eulogised than the first section, in which ―mightiest Monarchs‖ are depicted in ―richest looke‖ (9-10).
The poem is one of the early examples of actual ekphrasis, providing details about the painting it represents. For Sir Lely was a close friend of Lovelace, the poet seems certain about the name of the painting and where it was painted. The wordy title of the poem is not unusual because, functional as it was, there was a tendency to commemorate the events and/or people within the title of the poem especially in the seventeenth century. In terms of contextual ekphrasis, it is hard to label the poem as mimetic or meditative. No matter how the poem represents the painting in a straightforward manner, Lovelace‘s eloquent vocabulary and eulogised encomium with his commentaries put the poem somewhere between mimetic and meditative ekphrasis. The rhyme scheme, aabb, is in accordance with typical eulogy layout though the iambic foot is deviated and does not follow the rhyme regularity. The capitalized and italicised words like ―Majesty,‖ ―Eaglet,‖ ―Lilly,‖ and ―Flame‖ are often repeated as the seventeenth century literary convention of punctuated emphasis.
The elaborate diction is parallel to the elegantly dressed members of the royal family in Lely‘s painting; there are sophisticated similes (as Lovelace likens Lely‘s painting to ―Chrystall typified… spot‖ [25]), showy lexis (as in ―eyes / Whose glory through their mist doth brighter rise!‖ [1-2]), stylish puns (as in the ―Sun,‖ which is used both 169
for the king and for the ―Eaglet‖ prince [12]), and frequent exclamatory remarks (as in ―Never did happy misery adorn!,‖ ―So sacred a contempt!,‖ and ―How it command the face!‖ [5-7]).
Hollander criticises Lovelace for having misread the painting to a clearly Royalist end (123). However, Hollander probably ignores the fact that painting, as well as
Lely himself, was meant to represent the royal family within a Royalist perspective since Lely‘s Royalist tendency was publicly known. Anselment‘s criticism, on the other hand, is more acceptable. He states that the poem does not focus on the painting as a whole or on its artistic context as in the matter of the ignored pose, in which James hands out something to the king (369; 371)43. It is true that Lovelace, as does Lely, seems to pay little attention to the pose in which the king and his son is painted; neither the content of the paper (or letter) the king is holding nor the object
(penknife or scissors) the boy is handing out are referred to or explained. However, the poem does follow the painting‘s structural layout. At this point, it is better to explicate the stylistic parallelism that springs from the two sections of the poem as mentioned earlier. The covertly partitioned poem is actually representing the painting‘s artistic design on the canvas. Such an economy of the canvas by splitting it into two was known as Van Dyckian style and both the king and Lely himself were great admirers of Van Dyck (Walpole 443-444; Whinney and Millar 170-171). Here
Lovelace copies Lely‘s dual style that separates the painting into two by the dark
43 Anselment depends his point on the typified descriptions of the painting found in George Vertue‘s Vertue Notebooks (1929) and Baker‘s 1912 book Lely and the Stuart Portrait (369-370). In these descriptions, Lely‘s painting has been defined as a realistic work in which the future king offers his father a ―penknife or scissors‖ (qtd. in Anselment 370). 170
green drapery that hangs over Charles‘s shoulder44. The right side shows ―the true
Eaglet‖ in open air. The same stylistic portioning is repeated in the stanza division of the poem. The clouds in the background reveal that the ―clouded Majesty‖ in the poem is not the king but his son. The left side of the painting, however, is an indoors depiction showing the king shaded by dark drapery probably signifying the suppressed locked-in king although Lovelace is too shy (and maybe afraid) to admit it.
Lovelace‘s poem contains further clues on the divided nature of the painting.
Although the young James is depicted outdoors, which makes one assume that he has a long life to head on in the future, the sky is cloudy:
See! what a clouded Majesty, and eyes Whose glory through their mist doth brighter rise! See! what an humble bravery doth shine, And griefe triumphant breaking through each line, How it commands the face! so sweet a scorne Never did Happy Misery adorne! (1-6).
As the brighter side is occupied by James, he is the one who is supposed to experience the hopeful future, foregrounded by the ―brighter rise.‖ However, his future is ―cloudy‖ due to the problematic and politically-troubled Stuart dynasty because Lovelace is aware of the fact that the Hampton Court is surrounded by the
Roundheads. This dilemma is observed in the surprisingly substantial number of stylistic instances. Lovelace uses oxymoron and antithesis for fourteen times in a
44 See Illustration I.vii. 171
daring manner and the majority of these figures of speech occur in the first stanza, where the future king James is implied: ―clouded Majesty,‖ ―glory…mist,‖ ―humble bravery,‖ ―griefe triumphant,‖ ―happy misery,‖ ―sacred…contempt,‖
―shine…shaded,‖ ―victorious sorrow,‖ and so on. While readers are left with an ambiguous tone due to such contradictory lexis, the diction is dynamic and strong which indicates the youth and energy of the prince:
See! what a clouded Majesty! … See! what an humble bravery doth shine, … How it commands the face! so sweet a scorne Never did Happy Misery adorne! So sacred a contempt, that others show To this, (oth' height of all the wheele) below, That mightiest Monarchs by this shaded booke May coppy out their proudest, richest looke. (1-10).
The exclamatory and decisive aura created by imperatives, exclamations, and invocations contrasts with the second stanza. As in the poem, the painting saves the darker side for the king. There are only six lines, presumably indicating the shorter life span Lovelace foresees for the king, and the vocabulary is gloomy and the diction loses its energy:
Whilst the true Eaglet this quick luster spies, And by his Sun's enlightens his owne eyes; He cures his cares, his burthen feeles, then streight Joyes that so lightly he can beare such weight; Whilst either eithers passion doth borrow, And both doe grieve the same victorious sorrow. (11-16).
172
This passage devoted to the king opens with a reference to the young prince, ―Whilst the true Eaglet this quicker luster spies,‖ and ends with the deviated gloomy atmosphere that recalls the end of the troubled king: ―And both doe grieve the same victorious sorrow.‖ Both the king and the duke clearly suffers from the distressed
Stuart line. However, it is the king who seems to have given up and had his time:
―He cures his cares, his burthen feeles… / …so slightly he can beare such weight.‖ In short, both the poem and the painting draw a dim picture for the Stuarts: one with saddening vocabulary and the other through darker colours.
A final point considering the stylistic tie between the painting and the poem would be to focus on the gestures. The painting shows King Charles as standing before a darker panorama. Parallel to this, Lely has depicted the king in a dark seventeenth- century shirt bearing a shiny emblem that resembles the ―Sun‖ Lovelace is referring to. More to the point, he is standing on a stick with a note or a letter in his hand45. At the time of painting, the king might have asked for the stick to stand on throughout the pose for it takes hours to finish a portrait. Although the king is not leaning on the stick, he is holding it tight as represented in the king in Lovelace‘s poem who cannot
―beare such weight.‖ His looks do not meet those of James‘s; they lead into void as he can hardly hold out his hand for the reach of James‘s hand. On the other hand, the duke, who has the ―Flame‖ of youth, is depicted with his hand on his waist; he is able to stand without the assistance of an object. He looks confident in his looks, directed to his father, who refuses to exchange gazes. The penknife, or the pen, he is holding out does not reach the king but thinking about the long hours he had to hold
45 See Illustration I.viii. 173
out his hand on the air, one should not be surprised why Lovelace indicates his youth through his ―bravery,‖ ―glory,‖ and ―proudest, richest looke.‖ While James stands proud and strong (―How he commands the face!‖), King Charles only ―cures his cares.‖
The last two stanzas celebrate Lely the painter. As Lovelace celebrates Lely‘s accomplishment, further clues on the dual nature of the poem and of the painting are revealed:
These, my best Lilly, with so bold a spirit And soft a grace, as if thou didst inherit For that time all their greatnesse, and didst draw With those brave eyes your Royal Sitters saw. ... Thou dost the things Orientally the same Not only paintst its colour, but its Flame: Thou sorrow canst designe without a teare, And with the Man his very Hope or Feare; So that th' amazed world shall henceforth finde None but my Lilly ever drew a Minde. (17-20; 27-32).
Lely is praised for his ability to paint ―sorrow…without a teare.‖ The sorrow of the surrendered king is indeed successfully implied as it has been indicated in his empty looks, dark outfits, stick, and his dark background. As the dual structures of the painting and the poem match, the king is now called the ―Feare‖ and the son is called the ―Hope.‖
The paragonal lines that urge readers (and probably the viewers of the painting) to
―see‖ occur twice. The imperatives invite reader-viewers to see both the painting and 174
the condition of the ―Royall Sitters.‖ Unlike the painter poems, which challenge painters to ―draw‖ and ―paint,‖ Lovelace tries to evoke the readers to ―see.‖ As a friend of Lely and an admirer of the art of painting, Lovelace avoids getting involved in a verbal-against-visual dispute; he simply celebrates a well-accomplished painting of a friend of his which depicts the leading figures of his nation. In this sense, the poem remains loyal to the painting as did Lovelace to the Royalist cause.
175
3.6. The Ekphrastic Inheritance
The ekphrastic tradition until the Romantic Age provides general characteristics of ekphrasis in English. As it has been explained in the above sections, from the ancient examples to the eighteenth century, ekphrasis has articulated itself as a major literary device and a popular way of expression representing visual works of art. These qualities have passed to the future generations only to be developed and used more extensively.
Much has changed in ekphrasis from the simplistic progymnasmatic teachings like enargeia and perspicuitas46, and Plato‘s accusations that ―painting and poetry are false simulations‖ (The Republic 641). From Aristotle‘s assumption that verbal and visual arts should be considered as ways that lead to reality and as ―arts of rest,‖ to the Renaissance idea that verbal expression is more powerful than the visual, ekphrasis has been revitalised and exercised both critically and artistically (Harvey 2;
Lessing xii). Therefore, while painting told its own stories through the Middle Ages into the Renaissance and after (Alberti 93), poetry gradually and inescapably became acquainted with painting, emblems, iconography, and images (Graham 471).
Eventually the ambiguity of the word graph (referring to both writing and painting, or to image and discourse) and of the word schema (referring both to the figures and to the writings in rhetoric melted away to meet the verbal and the visual in the word ekphrasis and in Horace‘s axiom ―ut pictura poesis‖ (Plitz and Åström 50). In short,
46 Similar to enargeia, perspicuus, too, refers to ―pictorial vividness‖ in a more exact way (Sumi 8). Therefore, in addition to Sumi‘s translation, ―mere clarity,‖ or ―pure precision‖ could be regarded as more accurate explanations for the word. Here, it is also necessary to refer to Sumi‘s observation that even in eastern culture similar rhetorical concepts had been used as the Arabic wasf (along with the synonyms taswir and tamthil), meaning ―vivid representation or comparison‖ (Sumi 7, 15).
176
until the Romantic Age, poetry and painting had already made it into a mutual relationship though this relationship usually involved an attempt to capture the visual in words.
Blackhawk believes that by the end of the seventeenth century the idea that fields of art had already begun to share parallel territories in terms of creativity in a conscious manner. Comparing the development of ekphrasis until the seventeenth-century to the modern ekphrasis, he states that the common feature in ekphrasis is the invocation of creativity:
It seems that works of art, in and of themselves, have the power to create creativity […] looking at a work of art is like looking into the act of creation […] Art gives us imagery – images that are representational rather than ‗real‘. Art requires leaps of perceiving and experiencing… [and] the image is a wonderful stimulus to writing‖ (2)47.
Indeed, the idea that images provoke ―a wonderful stimulus to writing‖ and creativity is the leading force that has invited poets to ekphrasize. Poets, under the visual charm of art works (either actual as in Lovelace and Jonson or fictitious as in Virgil and
Shakespeare), have composed works that proves this thought-provoking feature of images. Before moving on to the general characteristics of ekphrastic tradition until the Romantics, it is necessary to illustrate how a poet (or a viewer in general) is attracted to compose poetry by looking at a work of art and how the very drive of
47 At this point, Blackhawk reminds us Edward Hisrch‘s claim that ―works of art initiate and provoke other works of art: the process is a source of art itself‖ (qtd. in Blackhawk 2). Balckhawk also frequently refers to Susan Langer‘s term, ―virtual space.‖ Langer claims that paintings create a virtual space, or semblance, and that the viewer experiences this space as he experiences a dream, abstracted from reality. Yet it is real and alive in its own terms (2). The virtual space the painting creates is a living space which is capable of taking the viewer to a ―mind journey‖ (Blackhawk 2). 177
visual attraction brings about ekphrasis. Marin, in his Sublime Poussin relates how he was influenced by the sight of Poussin‘s 1627 painting Echo and Narcissus48:
[Echo and Narcissus]…which I go to see in the Louvre, strikes me as not so different from the sleep of the still life, dead nature in its body of paint… By leaning over the mirror of the painting, like him [Poussin], toward the smooth water that constitutes its edge, I believe I am deciphering in the mouth with lips half open upon a final breath, in the rings under the eyes, in the clenching of the hand as it relaxes, the surface of quiverings of the unhappy passion of self-love, which deadly sleep fixes in an ultimate mask… Three gazes without origin or end, without subject or object, since they are passing simultaneously into the sleep of things or into the reverie of the imaginary and yet are absenting themselves from the canvas according to the three dimensions of its space as painting (Sublime 166-7).
The ekphrastic phenomenon, which is driven by the semi-mystical attraction Marin explains and which has dominated what might one call the first ekphrastic phase could be defined and explained in some points. This final section of this chapter, thus, aims to cover the general characteristics of the first ekphrastic phase (the ekphrastic period from the ancients until the Romantics) that has shaped the ekphrastic exercises in the following literary periods.
One of the first points that need attention in the first phase is that ekphrasis had developed as part of larger narratives. As observed in Homer, Virgil, Dante, Ovid, and Chaucer, ekphrasis appears in the form of a functional device in epics or long narrative poems. Especially until the end of the seventeenth century, ekphrasis had remained loyal to its progymnasmatic roots. Although there is not a clear-cut division between ―ekphrasis as narrative element‖ and ―ekphrasis for the sake of ekphrasis,‖ it
48 See Illustration I.ix. 178
could be claimed that it has only begun to move away from its ancient label as a rhetorical technique in order to turn poetry into an individual literary mode when poets began to compose idiosyncratic and original poems that were unique verbal representations of works of art as in Jonson, Lovelace, Marvell, and Donne. As in
Lovelace‘s ―To My Worthy Friend,‖ the poet is conscious that he is composing on a genuine art work to appreciate and represent by means of poetic line.
A second feature of these genre-setting examples is that the majority of these early ekphrastic poems were examples of notional ekphrasis, as Hollander would put it. In this case, they were not composed on actual works of art, or these works of art are not known to us. The Shield of Achilles or the tapestry of Philomela may have been real in the antiquity however there is no substantial information about their existence.
The first examples of actual ekphrasis are observed in the Renaissance as it has been indicated in the Lovelace example. Parallel to this, it should also be mentioned that much of these ekphrastic passages were composed on handcrafted materials other than paintings such as cups, tapestries, armours, shields, and statues. Because the art of painting initially developed after the fifteenth century (in Italy, first, and then in the rest of the continent), the painting-poetry encounter took place much later in
Engand. As it has been pointed out previously, painting was regarded as a liberal art only in the early decades of the Renaissance as found in da Vinci‘s Paragone. In time, poets became acquainted with painters and their work as the court and the wealthy began to patronize painters and to spend on arts.
179
Notional ekphrasis is also the reason why the term dead ekphrasis is applied best to the ekphrastic poetry in its first phase. As it has been introduced earlier, dead ekphrasis refers to the continuity of the silence and immobility in the works of visual arts; then, unless a poet ekphrasizes on it or a viewer meets it, the work of visual arts may remain locked up in its frozen world. Dead ekphrasis occurs more clearly if the poem is notional; in this case, it is impossible for the visual, the tapestry of
Philomela, for instance, to break through if Shakespeare‘s poem, in this case, is not read or studied. The tapestry, then, as an already inexistent object, is bound to stay on still and soundless. This does not mean, however, that every piece of notional ekphrasis is dead ekphrasis or that every actual ekphrasis is ―living;‖ a poet like
Homer is capable of giving life to an imaginary object through sounds, dialogues, and senses as opposed to Rosetti, who deliberately imprisons the Arcadian shepherds in the eternity, as it is going to be explained in the following chapter.
Since the majority of early ekphrastic poetry are epics or epic-like narrative poems, heroism is a recurrent theme. Epic characters like Achilles, Agamemnon, Aeneid, and Virgil (as Dante‘s guide) are usually the leading characters in these poems.
Along with them, eventually, come the supernatural qualities, intervening gods (Deus ex machina), and other characteristics of epics such as personified inanimate objects or aggression. Besides it should be recalled that references to the Trojan War is surprisingly repeated apart from Homer; Virgil, Ovid, Philocratus, Hesiod, Dante,
Chaucer, and Shakespear all refer to the battle scenes either through tapestry or bas- reliefs.
180
However, there is another thematic quality that surpasses heroism. Rape or acts of aggression against women dominates the contextual background of ekphrastic passages especially until the Renaissance. It is possible to call Ovid the initiator of this theme for his story of Philomela has come down to the twentieth-century through
Shakespeare‘s Lucrece. The attraction of Philomela‘s story undoubtedly lies in the act of silencing and the ―commonly gendered antagonism‖ that has influenced many poets (Heffernan 7). In this picture, the female is usually and brutally forced to remain unvoiced through abduction (Lucrece), molestation (Helen, Europa), rape
(Philomela, Lucrece) or physical torture of the male (or a powerful god or goddess as in the story of Arachne). As the general idea dictated until the twentieth century, the women were regarded as the ―weaker sex‖ and therefore a reversed occasion (a man being forced to remain silent) never happens in the history of ekphrastic tradition.
Subsequently, the female, who is locked up in her silence, could be likened to the visual object while the male becomes the dynamic verbal and the aggressor through his threatening exclamations as in the cases of Philomela and Lucrece. In other words, the ―dynamic energies‖ of the male is always ―balanced with‖ the pacified outlook of the female (Davies 180). So the relation between painting and poetry (as in the relation between the poetic male and the poetic female) is one of the power relations between word (male) and image (female):
Ekphrasis, then, is a literary mode that turns on the antagonism – the commonly gendered antagonism – … [and] since this contest is fought on the field of language itself, it would be grossly unequal but for one thing: ekphrasis commonly reveals a profound ambivalence toward visual art, a fusion of iconophilia and iconophobia, of veneration and anxiety. To represent a painting or sculpted figure in words is to evoke its power – the power to fix, excite, amaze, entrance, disturb, or intimidate the 181
viewer – even as language strives to keep that power under control (Heffernan 7).
To put more on Heffernan‘s point, the poet himself becomes the rapist, forcing the she-visual slip into his own verbal territory. Only after the Renaissance and the artistically conscious encounter of the verbal and the visual, then, the poet could be regarded as the all-powerful, ultimate, life giving creator. The rivalry between the art object and the poem, the female and the male, and the poet and the painter take place between the fictitious figures (and sometimes between the poet and the narrator).
Hephaestus, for example, is depicted superior to his human counterpart Deadelus in the Iliad in creating a flawless armour. For Heffernan, the rivalry between the verbal and the visual is more dramatic when the sculptural status of the depicted objects is taken into consideration. Especially in Homer and Virgil ―[the] dynamic pressure of verbal narrative meets the fixed forms of visual representation and acknowledges them as such‖ and this results in a metaphorical battle between the word and image on grounds of literary language (Heffernan 19). Heffernan‘s point is further explained by Ingarden who believes that the writers of the ancient epics were aware of the fact that painters were limited for they are bound to depict a single moment compared to poets who have the power to represent every phase of action (237).
Similarly, Lessing, referring to Homer, believes that the poet is more able than the painter because he can present both the visible and the invisible (gods intervening, spirits flying and so on) within a series of action (66). The power relations between painting and poetry will re-appear in the Romantic Age, and in the periods following the Romantics, in a new form where the verbal and the visual will encounter in closer 182
physical competition and where the female is at the centre of the rapist gaze of the male.
Because the major ekphrastic examples take part in narrative poems, early ekphrasis is basically mimetic. Homer describes the Shield of Achilles in such a way that readers almost actually see it while Ovid describes Arachne‘s tapestry only to create a ―mind picture‖ of her accomplishment. In such examples, it is hard to observe a meditative mode, where the poet philosophises on the work of art. Although
Shakespeare, as the narrator, and Dante, as the traveller, comment on the images they come across and show reactions to the cruel scenes of the Trojan War, their contemplation do not make their works purely meditative; rather, such reflections are only functional meditative bridges that bind the two ends of mimetic passages and word-picturing. Consequently, there is a tendency to remain loyal to the physical appearance of the object being described and to the contextual setting the object represents. So as in Poussin‘s words, who invites his painter friend Chantelou to consider the context and the images at the same time, the idea was about to ―read the story and the painting‖ especially until the nineteenth century (qtd. in Marin Sublime
45)49.
The use of prosopopeia is also very common in the first phase. There is typically a narrator relating the events and the presence of the narrator is always felt. The narrator could be a third-person objective narrator like Homer-the-poet, or a first person narrator like Dante-the-traveller. The narration may even change hands;
49 Nicholas Poussin‘s letter to Chantelou (28 April 1639). See Marin (Sublime) for details (45-49).
183
Shakespeare leaves a considerable space for Lucrece‘s monologues or; as it is observed more dramatically in Chaucer, the narration could become a story-within-a- story with more than one narrator. The poetic persona sometimes takes over the narration and turns the poem into a monologue if there is an assumed receiver as in
Marvell‘s ―Last Instructions‖ and other painter poems.
A final feature of these poems is that they commonly present a process. The viewer- listeners of these poems are exposed to acts of making or producing. The whole shield passage in the Iliad presents Hephaestus crafting Achilles‘s armour. Similarly
Ovid represents the figures on Arachne‘s tapestry as she weaves her work. Readers come across the bas-reliefs as Dante‘s journey leads into the Purgatory. It is even possible to assume that many painter poems, the most representative example of which being Marvell‘s ―Last Instructions,‖ were meant to be delivered to the painter as he painted. This ekphrastic quality, which has not been applied as frequently as the previous ones, provides dynamism to the ekphrastic text which is composed on the yet stable and passive object of visual art. This is why the image of Hephaestus with a sledge hammer or the image of Virgil walking and talking on the way is always operating even though readers feel lost in the detailed depictions of fixed and stabilized works of art.
CHAPTER III
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty1:” Ekphrasis in the Romantic and Victorian Ages
After ekphrastic tradition won itself a noteworthy place in English literary history in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the next generation of poets showed more interest in this attractive literary phenomenon and eventually ekphrasis made a second yet more powerful re-appearance during the Romantic and Victorian Ages.
Under the influence of critics like Lessing, De Quincey, and Burke, that has been introduced in Chapter I, the Romantics and Victorian poets produced a notable number of poems on plastic arts. As it is going to be explained in the following sections, although the majority of Romantic and Victorian poets seem to favour the verbal over the visual in basic terms, the period marks the beginning of a new direction and literary taste as far as ekphrasis is concerned. This chapter will focus on the ekphrastic tradition in Romantic and Victorian Ages, respectively, by referring to some of the major poems and poets of the time.
1 From Keats‘s ―Ode on a Grecian Urn‖ (49). 185
4.1. Sisters Re-United: From the Romantic into the Victorian
As it has been indicated earlier, after the first encounters in the antiquity and the
Middle Ages, sister arts have experienced a closer relationship in the Renaissance courts. The visual and the verbal began to commune with one another as their relation came to be conceptualized in more physical terms in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Especially towards the end of the eighteenth century, there were significant developments that brought poetry and painting together in a new way and understanding. Apart from the attempts of critics like Lessing and De Quincey in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which have been introduced in Chapter I, there are three noteworthy points that need attention in order to see how the eighteenth-century re-union of the two sisters took place in a clearer way.
To understand the Romantic ekphrasis, William Blake and his work should be covered first. Blake, as a family-educated son of a hosier, grew up with images, hoses, engravings, and emblems (Bentley 34-36). He began copying Greek antiques and images at the age of ten and his adolescence passed by studying Raphael,
Michalengelo, and Dürer, and copying engravings for James Basire, who was a famous engraver in London (Ackroyd 40-42). Following his apprenticeship to
Basire, Blake became a professional engraver at the age twenty-one and entered the
Royal Academy in 1779 (Bentley 39). Three years later, Blake met John Flaxman, the famous craftsman and artist2, who would become Blake‘s patron, and then
George Cumberland, who was to become one of the founders of National Gallery in
London. Next year, in 1783, he published Poetical Sketches, his first poetry
2 Flaxman was also the artist of the reproduction of the Shield of Achilles. See Illustration I.iii. 186
collection. He also continued his engravings and published illuminated collections of
Chaucer‘s Canterbury Tales and Dante‘s Divine Comedy (ibid. 44-54). However, his
―great poetic achievement‖ came with the publication of Songs of Innocence and of
Experience in 1789 (ibid. 54). The book, as many of his publications, was an illustrated collection of his poetry and drawings published by Blake himself. The entire collection concentrated on the human spirit and its journey through life as well as the contradiction between innocence (usually represented with children, lambs, shepherds, the colour green, Arcadian settings) and experience (usually represented with wolves, darkness, tiger, fire, and the colour red).
Blake was probably unaware of the ekphrastic developments concerning the close relationship and/or rivalry between the verbal and the visual. However, his work provides a turning point for ekphrasis due to his illustrations and engravings that accompanied his hand-written poetry. Indeed, never before in the ekphrastic tradition had the image come this close to the word even though illustrated pages were common in many medieval books3. Blake‘s unique mixture of the visual and verbal, as observed in the entire volume of his Songs of Innocence and of Experience and in his interest in illustrating the noteworthy poetic works such as Chaucer‘s and
Dante‘s, proves that poetry in the Romantic Age had made a courageous move to share the same physical space and intermingle with the image. Each poem in the book is illustrated in such a way to form a contextual and formal unity with the
3 These books, which have often been referred to as ―illuminated pages,‖ contained drawings illustrating the content of the books, usually on the initial pages (and letters) (Saul 50-51). However these illustrations should not be mistaken for ekphrastic exercises; the aim in these drawings was simply to appeal to the simple-minded and illeterate commoners and influence them with the church dogma. 187
drawing it represents4. Therefore, Blake, as an image-maker and a poet, is exclusively original in his treatment of poetry within imagery (or imagery within poetry) and in the equal economy he provided for the visual and the verbal. In other words, Blake symbolically represents the close relationship between the word and the image of the time. It is also interesting to note that Blake‘s memorial stone5 in
Bunhill Fields, London, reads: ―Nearby lie the remains of the poet-painter William
Blake.‖ It is surprising that the memorial stone does not simply label Blake as a
―poet‖ or ―painter;‖ or more essentially it does not call Blake a ―painter poet,‖ as it is usually the case with many poets who have produced ekphrastic poetry. The name
―poet-painter‖ refers to Blake‘s poetic and painterly qualities while it also reminds us that he was really a ―poet-painter‖ for he illustrated the narrative poetry of significant poets like Chaucer, Dante, and Shakespeare.
Blake‘s work, thus, marks the beginning of a new phase, in which the visual is revitalized and saved from its neglected position. In other words, Blake was influential on the attention the eighteenth century poet gave to paintings as he recalled the ancient ways of ekphrasis such as description and creating word- pictures6. These two points are undeniably clear and easily observed in the poetry of proceeding Romantics like Wordsworth and Shelley in different ways.
4 See Illustraions II.i. and II.ii. 5 Although the tombstone seems to indicate that Blake‘s exact burial place is unmarked, the phrase ―Nearby lie...‖ refers to the fact that the place of the stone has been changed due to a beautification project in 1965 in Bunhill Fields (Lovejoy). See Illustration II.iii. 6 Blake was influential on the future generations to a great extend. Blake‘s interest in images, along with the French symbolist influence that came to England with Arthur Symons‘s translation, Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899), was also highly important in the development of English and Irish symbolist poetry (especially of W.B. Yeats) (Kermode 127-128; 138). 188
No matter how Chapter I has dealt with the importance of the opening of public museums, there is still need to re-emphasize and explicate how the idea of ―museum‖ has shared a seminal role in, what might be called, the second phase of ekphrasis.
Due to the socio-political, intellectual, and economic shifts in the continent, there was a break from the traditional, the dogmatic, and the ancient in many aspects
(Gombrich The Story 480-481). The continental atmosphere of change came to
England quicker than the Renaissance, which had arrived about a century late
(Bergin 217-219). Especially the intellectual shift under the influence of the French
Revolution and the prosperity that came as a result of industrial developments in
England, the English (at least the middle and upper classes) had time to get involved in arts more than ever. The ultimate result considering ekphrasis was the opening of public museums. As it has introduced in Chapter I, the museum opening became a noteworthy event in Europe in the late eighteenth century; museums opened one after another in a frenzy of love and curiosity for art. Eventually, following essential museums and galleries like the Vatican collections, the Vienna collections, the
Uffizi, Kunstareal, and the Louvre in the continent, England came up with two significant institutions (Fisher 7)7: British Museum and the National Gallery8. The first was the British Museum, which began to be institutionalised after the generous donations of Sir Hans Sloane, J.M.W. Turner, and Lord Elgin. The museum began to collect its collections in 1753, when Sir Sloane donated his private collections of antiques, drawings, and engravings and after a couple of years, the gallery enlarged as the government acquired Townley collections (Simonsen 139). Sloane‘s
7 The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is an exception. Although it was not instutionalised until the late eighteenth century, the private collection of Elias Ashmole was opened in 1683 for public viewing (―The Historical Development‖). 8 The names of the institutions (―British Museum‖ and ―The National Gallery‖) reflect the eighteenth-century sense of nationalism caused by the French Revolution. 189
generosity was followed by Lord Elgin, J.M.W. Turner, and George II himself. In
1759, the museum was finally ready to open its gates for viewers. Until 1847, when it moved to its present building in London, the museum continued to enlarge the scope and the number of its collections (Fisher 10-12; ―History of the British
Museum‖). The National Gallery, on the other hand, opened much later. After the
British government bought the Angerstein oil collections and Sir George Beamount bequeathed a large amount of paintings to the government (including twelve invaluable Claude, Rembrant, and Rubens paintings), there was need to collect these new paintings and many others in an open-to-public space; so The National Gallery, in two different places then, opened in 1824 (Simonsen 81; ―Collection History‖). In a short time, thanks to the donations from painters and collectors like J.M.W. Turner, the Gallery grew out to be an important centre of arts. The opening of the Tate
Gallery in 1897, which was founded to store the over-loaded painting collection of the National Gallery and to save these works from the frequent fire accidents of the
National Gallery, added to the sophisticated artistic atmosphere of the time.
The opening of such museums and private collections to public is really significant for the second phase of ekphrasis. The primary duty of a museum is to store and protect the works of art in a safe yet public space. This means that works of art, which had been stored in the attics and basements or had decorated the walls of mansions and coffee houses, were to be preserved and looked after officially. The preservation of works of art brought an end to the idea that works of art, especially works of plastic arts, were perishable and bound to decay; as it going to be explained, this was reflected in ekphrastic poetry as ―the expression of a profound ambivalence 190
toward the timelessness of visual art‖ (Heffernan 133). Therefore, as paintings began to be collected in museums, they were not vulnerable to the harsh treatment of time, dust, and sun. Although the idea that assumed the existence of ―immortality through art‖ was known and developed in the Renaissance, the opening of museums turned this metaphorical claim to reality. Now art was thought to be the source of longevity and survival if not of immortality. Culminated with the agile Romantic spirit, this notion brought about a new dynamism to the already energised eighteenth-century
England and ―the Child [who] was the father of the Man‖ (Wordsworth ―My Heart
Leaps Up‖ 7) was to live through ―hope, imagination, honourable Aims / Free
Commune with the choir that cannot die‖ (Coleridge ―The Blossoming‖ 9-10)9.
Secondly, and probably more importantly, the accessibility of works of art resulted in a great interest in paintings, sculptures, and antiques (Simonsen 140). The valuable paintings that have been kept in private collections were now open to everyone. Even the lower-class workers, who did not have right to vote, was permitted to experience these precious works of art. Poets were no exception to the newly growing art-loving community. In fact, visiting museums was a classy pass-time activity and a ―novelty‖ that required preparation and planning for poets (Bennett 110; ―The Historical
Development‖)10. Hence poets of the time, such as Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley, are known to be paying regular visits to museums (Bennett 66; Burwick Mimesis 10-
9 Emphasis added. ―The choir‖ refers to the muses and the arts in general. 10 A 1706 book New World of Words defines the word ―Museum‖ as ―a Study, or Library; also a College, or Publick Place for the Resort of Learned Men‖ (―The Historical Development‖). Also a German visitor expressed his displeasure (because visitors were allowed to touch items) of the English Museums in 1710 with the following words:
[I am displeased] at the presence of 'ordinary folk' in the Museum and surprise[d] that the collection survived their attentions... even the women are allowed up here for sixpence; they run here and there, grabbing at everything and taking no rebuff from the sub-custos (ibid.). 191
12; Simonsen 1-12). Consequently there are many eighteenth and nineteenth-century poems written on particular (and sometimes unnamed) works of art, which had been composed either in the museums or after the museum visits such as Shelley‘s
―Medusa‖ or Keats‘s ―Ode on a Grecian Urn‖. Besides, it could be beneficial to recall that the word museum, meaning ―the House of the Muses,‖ was etymologically derived from the Greek ―mouseion,‖ which refers to the patron divinities of arts; accordingly, it is explicable for poets to visit museums for ―mouseial‖ inspiration.
The last factor that played role in the development of ekphrasis is the shift in
―seeing‖ and ―looking‖ that took place during the second phase. By the ―shift in seeing‖ I mean the scientific progress made in optics while ―looking‖ refers to the socio-cultural reception of painting and images in the late Romantic and early
Victorian ages. To begin with, it could be stated that the realistic paintings that aimed the true-to-life and photographic projection of the target object was being replaced with the photograph itself. As camera obscura was developed into camera, a device that could fix the appearance of the object permanently, painting lost much of what it has gained in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (Berger 18, 28;
Crary 19-25). To put it another way, although the art of painting was still considered a noble art, some of its functions such as recording family images (usually seen as portraits of wealthy patrons or their family members) had been lost away to the photographic territory of camera. The development led to the idea that painting could only provide a simulacrum of the target object while photography was able to give the accurate and real appearance of the same object. Therefore, the art of painting as 192
the representation of visual arts11 had to suffer from another incursion after the charge of the verbal in the last two centuries (Greenberg 36).
The inventions in optics also influenced the act of ―gazing.‖ No matter how the
―calm of the painted colours on the canvas‖ saved some safe space for painting, photograph took painting‘s place as the real image-provider (Berger 31). Besides painting also lost its pornographic functions as museums replaced private collections; so the naked female images that laid in pacified and inactive poses and ornamented the walls of wealthy lords, who enjoyed looking at them, were now hanging on the museum walls12. A similar case is also observed in still lifes and landscapes. Berger believes that the increasing number of still life and landscape paintings in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were because of the interest of the wealthy landlords to show off their prosperity (99). The works of Henry Alken, Heywood
Hardy, William M. Harnett, William Jones, and Marmaduke Craddock, for instance, usually displayed the English upper-class pass time activities such as hunting parties, collecting antiques, gardening or banqueting13.
Although photography made an impressive entrance, the result of these developments was a visual-centred society with a keener eye to appreciate the visual, whether it was a painting or a photograph. The verbal arts still held the upper hand but the close relationship between the verbal and the visual that began with Blake
11 Photography had not been considered a branch of visual arts until the twentieth century (Gombrich The Story 490). 12 Berger explains that many lords had paid painters to paint their mistresses or favourite women images only with pornographic reasons (49-55). For him, the male gazer enjoyed looking at the passive nudity of these mute and mesmerised sleeping images and this was a common exercise in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (ibid. 54-55). See Illustrations II.iv., II.v., and II.vi. for some of these paintings. 13 See Illustrations II.vii., II.viii., and II.ix. for examples. 193
continued to grow into a more intimate relation and eventually ―the primary pigment of poetry [became] the IMAGE‖ (Kermode 164). Indeed, nineteenth century put the emphasis not on the subject matter but on the image and the abstract process that formulated the image, and soon, ―image‖ was believed to be ―the essence of an intuitive language‖ (ibid. 151). Hence, as museums turned the passers-by and viewers into gazers, both poets and their works had been reshaped in terms of the second phase of ekphrasis just as in Keats‘s ―Ode on a Grecian Urn‖ (Heffernan 93).
The emphasis on the image is reflected in Wordsworth and Coleridge‘s manifesto in the ―Preface to Lyrical Ballads.‖ According to Wordsworth and Coleridge, poetry, which should be composed in ―the very language of men‖ of the nineteenth century, is ―the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings [and] it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility" (51); or from:
…tranquil scenes, that universal power And fitness in the latent qualities And essences of things, by which the mind Is moved with feelings of delight… (Wordsworth The Prelude, ―School-time‖ II. 324-327)14
Poetry, then, as formulated in their well-known definition, is both a reflection and an expression of the human mind and heart that requires immediacy and sincerity; to be more precise, it is a ―picture of the mind‖ (Wordsworth ―Tintern Abbey‖ 62).
However, the second part of the definition is more revealing for the ekphrastic tendency of the time; the spontaneity and overflowing feelings are rooted in the
14 Emphasis added. It should be noticed that the three of the keywords in the definition are found in these lines, which itself summarises the Romantic poetic code in poetic lines. 194
―emotion‖ and memory, which are ―recollected‖ and stored in the tranquil mind of the poet (Bate 86; Burwick 150-155; Ganguly and Sengupta). The tranquility, then, refers to serene memory of the human mind15. As observed in many Wordsworth and
Coleridge poems such as ―Tintern Abbey,‖ ―Composed upon Westminster Bridge,
September 3, 1802,‖ ―Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath,‖ ―Recollections of
Love,‖ and ―On a Ruined House in a Romantic Country,‖ the ―recollected‖ reflections ―in tranquility‖ are the bits and pieces of images from the poets‘ memories, childhoods, or visits. Accordingly one of the basic contextual favorites of the Romantic Age was the nature outside as in the famous Romantic poems ―I
Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,‖ ―My heart Leaps Up,‖ ―The Nightingale,‖ ―To a
Skylark,‖ and ―The Echoing Green‖. This is probably why Romantic poets are often referred to as ―open air poets‖ (Bate 49)16:
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. (Wordsworth ―I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud‖ 1-6).
With their images collected from the outside world, the picturesque quality of their poetic diction, and idea of capturing the fleeting moment, the Romantics initiated the break from typified Renaissance conventions and artistic modes; T.E. Hulme, who
15 At this point it is useful to think about Wordsworth‘s acquitance with J.J. Rousseau‘s ―Essay on the Origins of Languages,‖ in which Rousseau states that language progresses ―from pictures to words‖ (109). The same notion is also discussed by Derrida (Of Grammatology 294). 16 The focus on the optical reflection and images in the Romantic poetry seems like a culmination of Plato‘s idea of the ―reflection of the ideal form‖ and Aristotle‘s idea on ―the process of the mind‖ (Burwick 157). 195
stated that ―Renaissance represented a prime historical crisis,‖ believes in the resisting power and inspiration of the Romantics to have solved this ―crisis‖ (qtd. in
Kermode 146).17 He further states that
Never mind what the philosophers say… ask instead, what emotional requirement in themselves [arts] are trying to satisfy… [Put] emphasis on the visual quality of all imagery… not on their physical quality (qtd. in Kermode 148, 150-1).
Hence the Renaissance emphasis on ―humanity‖ was replaced by the nineteenth century emphasis on the ―humane‖ while the seventeenth-century pretentiousness and stylish diction were replaced with intuitive knowledge of the individual and the purified, transcendental and pictorial style of the Romantics18. This shift is taken one step further in the Victorian Age as arts became distinctly separated from sciences and crafts as it is going to be explained in the following sections (Haines 40-41).
The second phase of ekphrasis, which began with Blake in the early nineteenth century and continued with the proceeding Romantic poets in the latter half of the century to become the Pre-Raphaelite tendency culminating the visual and verbal, is observed in a clear way especially in the works of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats.
Other major Romantic poets such as Coleridge and Byron had produced fewer ekphrastic pieces compared to these three poets although they were familiar with the
17 See Hulme‘s term ―critique of satisfaction‖ for further details. 18 Heffernan believes that this notion has resulted in a ―paradox‖ as far as the Romantic ekphrasis is concerned. He states that, Romantic ekphrasis constructs and deconstructs the concept of visual art as a medium of transcendence simultaneously (91). He also reminds us that the idea that a work of visual art perpetuates a fleeting appearance is so deeply embedded in the Romantic ideology that ―...we may be startled to learn just how recently this idea has emerged in the history of discourse about art. It is nowhere to be found in the ekphrastic literature we have examined so far‖ (ibid. 133). 196
Romantic imagery and ekphrastic theoreticians like Lessing and De Quincey
(Simonsen 15). Apart from a number of lines such as Coleridge‘s ―The Picture; or the Lover‘s Resolution‖ and Byron‘s ―On the Bust of Helen by Canova‖ and the passage in Child Harold’s Pilgrimage (Canto IV) (both of which are composed not on paintings but on sculptures), the majority of ekphrastic poetry of the age are attributed to Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats (Heffernan 124-126). Subsequently the following sections focus on some of the most representative ekphrastic examples of
Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats19.
19 In addition to the major Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Keats, some of the sources note that, Felicia Hemans is the most prolific ekphrasizing Romantic poet with her poems like ―Properzia Rossi‖ and ―On a Picture of Christ Bearing the Cross.‖ However, as her abscence in many anthologies shows, her work has never been sufficient enough to find a notable place in the literary canon (Burwick 108; Hollander 37; Simonsen 71). Because her work is not representative enough, Hemans and her work has not been included in this study. 197
4.2. “Fruitless Task to Paint:” Wordsworth’s “Peele Castle”
All praise the Likeness by thy skill portrayed; 20 But ‗tis a fruitless task to paint for me
Wordsworth‘s treatment of the relationship between the verbal and the visual is clear.
As he had openly declared in the epitaph above, the lines below and elsewhere, he believes in the ―verbal superiority‖ of poetry over painting:
Discourse was deemed Man's noblest attribute, And written words the glory of his hand; Then followed Printing with enlarged command For thought -- dominion vast and absolute For spreading truth, and making love expand. Now prose and verse sunk into disrepute Must lackey a dumb Art that best can suit The taste of this once-intellectual Land. … Avaunt this vile abuse of pictured page! Must eyes be all in all, the tongue and ear Nothing? Heaven keep us from a lower stage! (―Illustrated Books and Newspapers 1-8, 13-15)21.
Indeed ―…it would be hard to imagine anything more logocentric, anything more fervently devoted to the intellectual superiority of words over pictures‖ than
―Illustrated Books and Newspapers,‖ a poem which aimed to criticize the new tradition of ―illustrated novel‖ in daily papers, more precisely Charles Dickens‘s
Pickwick Papers, which was first published in the Illustrated London News in 1842
(Heffernan 94). However, Wordsworth the poet is a paradoxical case within the
20 From Wordsworth‘s painter-poem ―To a Painter‖ (1-2). 21 Emphasis added. 198
norms of ut pictura poesis dictum. In 1837, Wordsworth went on a tour to Italy with two of his close friends. Strolling around the galleries in Florence, he stopped in front of a classical painting and put on a discontented gesture on his face.
Wordsworth‘s accompanying friend, Henry Crabb Robinson, who relates this story, states that Wordsworth ―…[would] not allow the plastic artist of any kind to place himself by the side of the poet as his equal‖ (qtd. in Shackford 72). Wordsworth is also known to have mocked Sir Walter Scott, who had been keeping notes on landscapes for his writings, by stating that it was utterly ridiculous to keep notes on images while man is capable of recollecting ―mind pictures‖ (Heffernan 97)22. It is ironic for a poet like Wordsworth, who clearly believes in the overpowering dominance of poetry and regards poetry as the supreme form of art, to have composed poetry on visual arts more than any other Romantic poet; he had written a total of twenty-four ekphrastic poems23 the majority of which reflect the beauty and neatness of these works24. It is still ironic that Wordsworth, as a poet of the exteriors banishing the reproduced visuals like engravings and paintings, is one of the few
Romantic poets to entitle his ekphrastic pieces with exact details of the paintings as in ―Elegiac Stanzas, Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, Painted by
Sir George Beaumont‖ or ―Upon the Sight of a Beautiful Picture Painted by Sir
George Beaumont,‖ both praising Beaumont and his paintings (Simonsen 29, 127;
Heffernan 95).
22 See Heffernan (96-97) for details of Aubrey de Vere‘s anectode, who was one of Wordsworth‘s close friends. 23 Some of these poems are ―The Egyptian Maid; Or the Romance of the Water Lily,‖ ―Brugés,‖ ―The Pillar of Trajan‖ and ―The Bay of Winander.‖ While some of these ekphrastic poems belong to the latter years of Wordsworth‘s poetic career like ―To Luca Giordano,‖ which display a decay in his creativity and visuality, some of them are found in his Yarrow Revisited and Other Poems (1835) (Simonsen 1, 124-126). 24 The exact number ―twenty-four‖ belongs to Uzundemir, who believes that none of these twenty-four poems have been considered worth studying because Wordsworth‘s other poems on nature have surpassed these poems in quality and quantity (22). Kroeber gives the number a little above ―twenty,‖ probably being uncertain on some of the decscriptive poems in Wordsworth‘s Yarrow Revisited and Other Poems (45). Heffernan sounds certain about the fifteen sonnets and names eight more poems from the poet‘s Poetical Works (213). 199
Written in the early summer of 1806 and published in the frontispiece of
Wordsworth‘s 1815 Poetical Works, ―Peele Castle‖ is a representative poem that provides important clues about Wordsworth‘s diction, attitude towards visual arts, and ekphrastic style and this is probably the reason why this poem has met more critical appreciation than his other examples of ekphrasis25. While some critics call the poem ―unusual‖ due to its exact references to the painter and the painting
(Kroeber 45), some others regard it as something ―new‖ for Wordsworth, as he himself states in the poem: ―I have submitted to a new control‖ (34) (Hollander 132).
The poem, as its title indicates, is composed on Piel Castle in a Storm, a 1805 painting by Sir George Beaumont (See Illustration I.i.), Wordsworth‘s friend and patron (Simonsen 71-80; Hollander 131)26. It is known that Beaumont had tried to keep Wordsworth away from seeing the painting as he knew that it would remind him of his brother John Wordsworth, who drowned at sea that year (Simonsen 91-
92; Hollander 131). However, Wordsworth eventually saw the painting and, ―fixated by a picture that he sees only in memory… [he could] reproduce [it] only in words‖
(Heffernan 101)27.
The poem is composed of fifteen quatrains and displays a clear stylistic deviation through a dramatic change in its mode and diction. Although no division is found in the poem except for the spaces between quatrains, it is possible to divide the poem into five sections in terms of content. The first three quatrains concentrate on the scenery surrounding the Castle, which Wordsworth regards as the ―rugged Pile‖ (1).
25 See Appendix VII for the full-text version of the poem. 26 Wordsworth has composed three more poems on Sir Beaumont and his paintings. 27 It is probable that Wordsworth saw the copy of Beaumont‘s painting in a smaller-scale (both the larger and smaller versions were painted by Beaumont). The first version of the painting, which is in Leichester Museum at the moment, is less dark and about twice the size of the smaller one. The smaller version of the painting had been given to the poet as present by the painter the following year (Jonathan Wordsworth et al. 231). 200
In these lines, the poet remembers having seen the Peele Castle earlier and depicts the background the Castle stands on. The image in these lines reflects Beaumont‘s painting:
I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile! Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee: I saw thee every day; and all the while Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.
So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! So like, so very like, was day to day! Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there; It trembled, but it never passed away.
How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep; No mood, which season takes away, or brings: I could have fancied that the mighty Deep Was even the gentlest of all gentle things. (1-12).
As the mode changes, the next four quatrains present another clear deviation.
Wordsworth offers an alternative picture and word-paints a brighter scenery as opposed to Beaumont‘s painting. He states that if his hand ―had been the Painter‘s hand...‖ he ―…would have planted thee [the Castle]… / …[in] a world how different from this [Beaumont‘ painting]‖ (12, 16-17). The third section, which covers the eighth, ninth, and tenth quatrains, wraps up the second section: ―Such Picture would
I at the time have made… / A stedfast peace that might not be betrayed‖ (30, 32).
The fourth part, however, is a section that reminds us Renaissance and post-
Renaissance painter-poems where he states ―this work of thine I blame not, but commend‖ (45). In twelve lines, Wordsworth both appreciates and comments on
Beaumont‘s work, which he celebrates by calling the painting a ―passionate‖ and 201
―wise and well‖ (45). The final section, containing the last two stanzas, is highly elegiac. Although Wordsworth does not mention the death of his brother, it is clear that the last two quatrains are composed after him:
Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind! … Such sights, or worse, as are before me here – Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. (53-54, 59-60).
As seen on, Wordsworth depicts both Beaumont‘s painting (the first and the fourth sections) and a new painting of his own (the second section) then he also philosophises on the feeling that the paintings (Beaumont‘s actual painting and his visionary painting) create in his mind (the third and the fifth sections). Moving from depiction to meditation, from meditation to celebration, and back to contemplation again, Wordsworth presents one of the first important examples of meditative ekphrasis. Inspired by the gloomy Beaumont painting and carried away by the sight of the Castle, he looks into his own heart to find ―a new control‖ at the same time as he mourns for his loss. However, as far as stylistic analysis is concerned, it is useful to concentrate on the sections where the visual (Beaumont‘s painting and
Wordsworth‘s mind-picture) and the verbal (word-painted sections of these painting) meet; particularly speaking, the second section (the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh quatrains) and the fourth section (the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth quatrains) provide more concrete and clear references to ekphrastic tradition as they also represent Wordsworth‘s ekphrastic style. Therefore, in order to be precise, firstly the second section will be studied followed by the fourth. 202
The fourth stanza, which is a typical example of enargeia, opens with wishful thinking where Wordsworth draws his ―mind picture‖ (Hollander 132):
Ah! then, if mine had been the Painter's hand, To express what then I saw; and add the gleam, The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the Poet's dream;
I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile Amid a world how different from this! Beside a sea that could not cease to smile; On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.
Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven; – Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine The very sweetest had to thee been given.
A Picture had it been of lasting ease, Elysian quiet, without toil or strife; No motion but the moving tide, a breeze, Or merely silent Nature's breathing life. (13-28)28.
He suggests Beaumont a different picture from what the painter had actually painted.
Although it is clear that this is an imaginary painting demonstrated by the unreal past clauses, the style recalls painter poems. He does not directly instruct the painter but states that he would have painted a ―different picture‖ – not Beaumont‘s. However, there is a more significant element that attracts attention at first sight. Because it is a painting that Wordsworth is drawing, the diction is highly descriptive. Indeed,
Wordsworth, who broke away from the ostentatious style of his predecessors with his
―self-created... poetic diction‖ (De Quincey ―Poetic Diction‖ 194), he prefers a
28 Emphasis added. 203
precise and common language with a straightforward ―nouny‖ style. On the lexical level, there are only a few adjectives and verbs in these four stanzas as indicated in the line ―No motion but the moving tide‖ (27). More importantly, the vocabulary used in this section peculiarly contrasts with Beaumont‘s painting, which is the basis of the major stylistic lexical deviation in the poem. Wordsworth‘s suggested painting, as opposed to the dark vision of Beaumont‘s work, is rather soothing;
―smile,‖ ―bliss,‖ ―sunbeam,‖ ―shine,‖ ―sweetest,‖ ―ease,‖ ―quiet,‖ ―breeze,‖ ―silent,‖
―peaceful,‖ ―tranquil‖ all evoke a sense of amity and calmness. The serene atmosphere is foregrounded by two basic background lexical motives. First is the
―glassy‖ diction (Hollander 132). The vocabulary is quite shiny and bright and it creates a sense of relaxation: ―gleam,‖ ―light,‖ ―bliss,‖ ―sunbeam,‖ ―sea,‖ ―treasure,‖
―heaven,‖ and the verb ―shine.‖ These words contradict both with what the painting represents and the few phrases like ―hoary Pile‖ and ―toil or strife,‖ which refer to
Beaumont‘s work. The second is the ―aerial‖ lexis, which adds to the tranquillity created by the gleaming atmosphere. Wordsworth successfully provides extra relaxation by using vocabulary like ―sky,‖ ―heaven,‖ ―breeze,‖ ―breathing life,‖ and
―tide.‖ Moreover the alliteration on ―s‖ and assonance on ―i,‖ and ―i:‖ provide a phonological sense of sea and quietness as in: ―To express what then I saw… / The light that never was, on sea… / The consecration, and the Poet‘s dream‖ (14-16);
―Beside a sea that could not cease to smile / … beneath a sky of bliss‖ (19-20); ―Of all the sunbeams that ever shine / The very sweetest had to thee been given‖ (23-24);
―A Picture had it been of lasting ease, / Elysian quiet, without toil or strife‖ (25-
26)29.
29 Emphasis added. 204
The picture Wordsworth paints is almost as concrete and visible as Beaumont‘s painting. Moreover Wordsworth‘s picture is more lively and soothing than the actual painting. Paradoxically, Wordsworth achieves this effect through a noun based descriptive lexis which is ―surrendered in utter passivity,‖ just like the Castle itself
(Burwick 115). In other words, he gives life to a mute work of art but his life-giving is limited to a frozen yet brighter setting; as he begins ekphrasizing, he immediately deconstructs the dynamic qualities of the ekphrastic act of giving voice to the painting. Beaumont‘s painting, then, maintains its silence.
The verbal compression parallelism applied on the mute art work continues in the fourth section where Wordsworth returns to the painting. Although he states that he is ―submitted to a new control,‖ the tone does not change. Whether the ―new control‖ is moral, intellectual, or power-operational (as in the dictating and silencing mode in the second section) is unclear but the diction still surpasses the visual qualities of the painting putting words over colours:
Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend, If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore, This work of thine I blame not, but commend; This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.
O 'tis a passionate Work! – yet wise and well, Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!
And this huge Castle, standing here sublime, I love to see the look with which it braves, Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time, The lightning, the fierce wind, the trampling waves. (41-52).
205
The non-verbal style is maintained in these lines even though exclamatory phrases like ―Then, Beaumont, Friend!‖ and ―O 'tis a passionate Work!,‖ and forceful synonymy like ―The lightning, the fierce wind, the trampling waves‖ occur from time to time. The diction is more vivacious yet it is based on harsher vocabulary:
―anger,‖ ―dismal,‖ ―deadly swell,‖ ―rueful sky,‖ ―fear,‖ ―unfeeling armour,‖ ―the fierce wind‖ and the like. The stylistic vitality is also achieved by the repetition of demonstrative adjectives ―this‖ and ―that.‖ It is clear that Wordsworth deliberately creates the this-that anaphora by using ―this‖ for five times and ―that‖ for three times in five lines as in ―This work of thine I blame not, but commend; / This sea in anger, and that dismal shore‖ and in ―Well chosen is the spirit that is here / That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell, / This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear‖ (42-43, 45-47).
The contextual selection of words also continues. While the eleventh stanza focuses on the sea as in ―this sea in anger, and that dismal shore,‖ the twelfth stanza recalls the aerial atmosphere of the second section as in ―this rueful sky.‖ The theme of light dominates the thirteenth quatrain as Wordsworth introduces ―see[ing],‖ ―look[ing],‖ and ―lightning.‖ No matter how obviously the tone changes from calm to harsh, it is worth noting that Wordsworth does not refer to any colours; to put it another way, he avoids using the media of visual arts even though he reflects two different paintings.
―Peele Castle‖ is a prosopopeial poem. The poetic persona, who is assumed to be
Wordsworth himself, moves from one subject to another in various modes and moods. Although the Castle, as the key image of the poem, is not mentioned until line forty-six, it is assumed that he is already talking about the ruin because the title of the poem informs readers in advance. It has often been claimed that the Castle 206
stands for memory and what memory represents for the persona (Levinson 112). As a building amid the callous nature outside, forced to face hardest conditions, the Castle is pacified and let to rest in its idleness. From this aspect, it recalls the sleeping or silenced female that evokes the desire to gaze in its viewer. In other words, both the painting and the Castle are bound to stay gazed and stand still. Wordsworth‘s attempt cannot mobilize it either. Comforting at first, the painting Wordsworth draws turns out to be unsympathetic and does not provide accurate dynamism as in Homer or
Shakespeare. In this respect, the painting could also be seen as an example of paragonal relationship between the mute image and its counterpart, the poem. If the painting, as the scrutinized object, is the ergon, then the parergon is the supplementary object drawing its boundaries. In this case, the parergon becomes the second painting introduced by the poet in words and it replaces the ergon. Then the complementary becomes superior since it is basically the imaginary painting
Wordsworth is referring to. Although Wordsworth turns to Beaumont‘s painting from time to time, the focus falls on his own version especially in the second and fourth sections. In Heffernan‘s words, ―only after he [Wordsworth] remakes the painting verbally can it represent his new vision of the world, which embodies a new, stoic version of transcendence‖ (107). At the same time, the poet is also aware of the tie between the two paintings (one in colour and the other is in words) as indicated in the title of the poem. However, in a Lessing-like manner, the verbal painting as the parergon comes to replace the original on the grounds of a different semiotic code30.
Subsequently, although ―Peele Castle‖ is basically an occasional poem, the paragonal conflict outdoes the inspirational elements and removes the painterly atmosphere
30 Simonsen reminds us that it is very likely that Wordsworth was familiar with Lessing‘s work (14). 207
which results in a highly paragonal, paradoxically meditative, and forcefully verbal poem.
Wordsworth represents the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century tendency to regard the verbal over the visual. However, although Wordsworth believes in the superiority of poetry, he is also aware of the co-existence of the two arts as observed in the fact that he is one of the first Romantic poets to compose actual ekphrasis by honouring Beaumont and his painting. Likewise, considering his highly pictorial style and ability to word-paint the ―exact nature‖ (Vogler 65), William Hazlitt champions Wordsworth as the initiator of the ―visual turn‖ of the nineteenth century
(qtd. in Simonsen 69). Consequently it would not be a mistake to claim that
Wordsworth‘s focus on the visual qualities of his poetry and interest (though with probable dislike) in painting have been influential on the later generation of
Romantic poetry.
208
4.3. The Urn of the Irony: Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
With regards to his brief life-span, Keats‘s success and productivity is startling. It is probable that his ―ever growing poetic power‖ would have matched or exceeded
Wordsworth or Coleridge if he had not died at the age of twenty-six (Keats xviii;
Ricks 159). Still, his ―Ode on a Grecian Urn‖31 is considered to be one of the most appreciated works among English poetic tradition. Representing the ekphrastic relation between plastic arts and verbal arts and projecting on the paradoxical arguments on the idea of immortality through art, the poem is also well-known as an ekphrastic poem. Indeed, if W. H. Auden‘s ―Museé des Beaux Arts‖ is the most acknowledged poem as far as ekphrasis in English poetry is concerned, Keats‘s ode is the close second.
Thanks to the key development of the second phase of ekphrasis, the opening of public museums, English poetry has come up with a remarkable poem as ―Grecian
Urn.‖ It is known that Keats enjoyed visiting museums as he enjoyed nature walks like other Romantic poets such as Wordsworth and Byron (Motion 389; Jack 217;
Vogler 17). In writing ―Grecian Urn,‖ Keats was inspired from a classical collection in the British Museum. The collection was probably the Elgin collection (also known as the Elgin marbles since all pieces were donated by Lord Elgin)32 which consisted of vases and marbles from ancient Greece (McGann 43; Jack 218-219; Motion 390-
401; Broomwich 247)33. In fact, Keats was carried away with the beauty of these
31 Referred to as ―Grecian Urn‖ (not as ―Ode‖) henceforth in order to avoid confusion with odes like ―Ode to a Nightingale.‖ 32 Lord Elgin bequeathed his collection of Greek vases first in 1772. This was followed by a larger amount of donation of marbles, urns, statues, and other artefacts in 1816 (McGann 44-45). 33 Jack believes that the source of inspiration for Keats was a combination of neo-Attic vases, Elgin marbles, and Renaissance and post-Renaissance paintings from Claude and Poussin (217-219). Broomwich, on the other hand, is certain that the first version of Keats‘s poem is composed shortly after seeing a Greek vase in 1817 (247-248). 209
works so much that he rendered an engraving of a Greek vase to accompany his collection34.
As in Keats‘s other museum poems like ―On Seeing the Elgin Marbles‖ and ―Ode on
Indolence,‖ ―Grecian Urn‖ represents and celebrates ―…a perfect and complete idea of The Beautiful‖ (McGann 44). To be more precise, he actually revisits an ancient ekphrastic method introduced by Theocritus by making use of handcrafted objects35.
―Grecian Urn‖ is primarily a notional ekphrastic poem due to its unknown target objet d’art; it is not a representation of an exact painting ―recollected in tranquility‖ or a reproduction of a sight or vision as in Wordsworth and it leaves little space for the ―memory discussion‖ of Romanticism. In this respect, Scott believes the poem to be a representation of ―the new vogue of ekphrastic poetry‖ by referring to its museum-based background (Scott viii). As in many of his poems, Keats deals with nature, mythology, love, human condition and arts in the poem (Vogler 17; Keats xviii). In short, as it is going to be explained in the following paragraphs, it is a poem extending ―personal experience to describe a general truth‖ (Motion 403).
Because ―Grecian Urn‖ is a notional piece, it is not possible to talk about the connections of a target object as it was in Jonson or Wordsworth. Instead, it is necessary to deal with the content, artistic arguments and philosophical assumptions in the poem since ―Grecian Urn‖ is a significant work giving clues about the ekphrastic developments in the nineteenth century, which will be effectual on the
34 See Illustration II.x. It is probable that the engraving was a reproduction of the Sosibios Vase in the British Museum (Motion 490). 35 Theocritus often referred to carved wooden cups and vases offered as rewards for musico-poetic achievement in Greek and Roman pastoral poetry (Hollander 9). In his first idyll, for instance, the shepherd Thrysis is offered an ivy wooden cup for his lyric success (Theocritus 11. 29-59).
210
development of Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite notions on arts36. Therefore, instead of focusing on particular stanzas or sections, it is beneficial to study the poem as a whole as far as the tradition is concerned in order to see the general idea the poem presents37.
The poem is a celebration of the undying images on an antique urn. Neither the chasing lovers nor the trees have died away on the urn because the images are captured in time and space; this is also why the lovers can never kiss and the trees are evergreen. Considering the continuity of the ―deep frozen‖ action on the urn, the poem brings to mind the idea of immortality through works of art. As Shakespeare keeps fresh both his works (as his poetry ―…may still shine bright‖ ―…in black ink‖
―Sonnet 65,‖ 1-2) and his beloved (as in ―So long lives this, and this gives life to thee‖ ―Sonnet 18,‖ 14) through poetry, Keats tries to immortalise ―a scene full of flashing light, color, movement and music caught in a moment of ceremony and communal worship‖ (Sperry 38). So, the influence of the opening of museums is observed in two levels: firstly the museum has inspired the poet to contemplate on the urn. Secondly and more fundamentally, the poem reflects the idea of the preservation of works of art that was initiated by the institutionalised collections. As the museums took away the common belief that works of plastic arts are bound to perish, the poem, too, brings about a sense of preservation of the fleeting moment that is temporally and spatially ―arrest[ing] action into story‖ (Heffernan 109).
36 For instance, the same thematical background is observed in Elizabeth Barrett Browning‘s ―Hiram Powers‘ Greek Slave.‖ 37 See Appendix VIII for the full-text of ―Grecian Urn.‖ 211
Technically the poem consists of five stanzas with ten lines in each rhyming as abab.
The diction sounds archaic, especially in the first and last stanzas that echo the exclamatory and elegant ode style of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Parker
114). However, the technical aspects of the poem like meter and rhyme scheme do not bring out much about the ekphrastic qualities of the poem. The most striking feature of ―Grecian Urn‖ is its exceedingly deviational structure and the paradoxical
―interplay between arts‖ (Ricks 158). The contradictory synthesis is clearly not a coincidence; it is apparent that Keats, who had edited the poem three times before its publication, wanted the poem to look paradoxical and stylistically mid-stirring
(Motion 410; Parker 104). In fact, the paradoxes are formed in such a way that they seem like moving in a ―striking balance‖ and in successive parallelisms and repetitions (Motion 401). The deliberate negation is observed in every level of the poem as in the frequent uses of oxymoron, anaphora, and parataxical structures like synonymy:
Thou still unravished bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, … What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? (1-2, 9-10).
The relationship between mobility and immobility, as seen in the conflict between
―quietness,‖ ―silence,‖ ―slow time,‖ ―ecstasy‖ and ―pursuit,‖ ―escape,‖ is very obvious. The opening stanza, which also introduces the urn to the readers, begins with the activity-passivity conflict, but as the poem progresses this paradox is carried into a more complex structure. While the second, third, and fourth stanzas depict the 212
topography depicted on the urn, the paradox develops to become a tricky dispute on the idea of immortality that will not be resolved in the last stanza, where the paradox reaches the climax. In other words, just as in the ten unanswered questions, Keats does not offer a solution or an explanation to the much debated quote ―‗Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know‘,‖ which is at the heart of ―immortality through art‖ problem (49-50). However, before studying the importance and function of the last two lines, it is necessary to cover some of the essential points that might help comprehending the paradoxical diction of the poem.
Resonating Homer and Dante, Keats makes use of the phonolexical quality of
English language. However, the sounds in the poem are paradoxically ―unheard;‖
Keats, unlike omniaudivi Homer, is deaf just as Wordsworth‘s peaceful sea. Keats compresses these sound effects by presenting them in a contradictory way; the nouns like ―quietness‖ and ―silence,‖ (as well as adjectives, verbs, and phrases like
―unheard,‖ ―silent‖ (twice), and ―no tone‖) are clearly opposed to words and phrases like ―melody,‖ ―pipe[s][-ing]‖ (five times), ―song‖ (three times), ―play on,‖ ―sensual ear,‖ ―hear,‖ ―melodist,‖ ―tongue,‖ ―tell,‖ and ―say.‖ The speech and sound contradiction is also repeated in ability-inability relationship but in a deviational style. As opposed to the lively diction, the poem contains direct references to inactivity and incapability such as ―still,‖ ―slow time,‖ ―remain,‖ and ―ecstasy.‖ The sense of inability is clearer in the use of modal ―can‖ in the forms of ―can‘t,‖
―cannot,‖ ―cans‘t,‖ and ―(n)ever can‖ that occur six times in the poem:
213
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve; … She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair! (15-20)38.
A similar case is observed in the anaphorical use of ―(n)ever,‖ which also occurs six times, and ―forever,‖ which occurs five times in a repetitive manner:
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, … Forever piping songs forever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! Forever warm and still to be enjoyed, Forever panting, and forever young; (17, 24-27)39.
The ―unheard‖ melodies, lovers, and the background (the sea, sky, mountains, flowers, trees and towns) are presented in repetitive comparatives as in ―Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on‖ (11-12) or in ―More happy love! more happy, happy love!‖ (25). Parallel repetitive patterns are exemplified in rhetorical questions:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? …
38 Emphasis added. 39 Emphasis added. 214
Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands dressed? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? (4-10; 41-47).
The rivalry between the verbal and the visual is almost climactic in the poem because this time they are not simply fighting for spatial dominance on the page but for temporal maintenance and permanence. On one hand Keats celebrates the durability of the urn as a work of art and on the other he mourns for the passivity of the images on the urn, which forms the crucial paradox in the poem. Although Parker believes that it is the urn, as the embodiment of the visual, which is victorious in the battle of temporality (113), the stillness in the poem is so prevailing that it cannot be disregarded. On the lexical level, passivity is ever present; for instance, the poem opens with the urn labelled as the ―still unravished bride of quietness‖ (1) and ends with the final image of the urn as the ―silent form… / Cold Pastoral!‖ (44-45).
Similarly and more significantly, the urn, which seems to offer an atmosphere ―more sweetly than our rhyme‖ (4), Keats does not let it speak or make sounds. In other words, the urn, the unique addressee of the poet, is mute and cannot answer any of the questions asked nor can it comment on what Keats has to say. Besides there is not any sign of an attached epigram or carved writing on the urn. In this case, just as the tongue-pierced Philomela or ravished tapestry of Arachne, the urn is suppressed by the gaze and becomes a she-urn under the ―male authority‖ (Mitchell ―Ekphrasis‖
699; Scott 34). Keats, as the poetic persona, then, locks the urn into a lonely
―changelessness‖ thus making it remain as the ―gazed‖ to the eternity; as the male 215
gaze watches the urn as if watching television, the urn is bound to relate the same story over and over (Heffernan 112-113).
As for the last two lines, which have also been adopted as the title of this chapter, the paradoxical nature of the poem still rules. Much has been discussed on the meaning of these lines. Robert Bridges has commented that ―because of its unchanging expression of perfect; and this is true and beautiful… [although] its amplification in the poem is unprogressive, monotonous, and scattered (qtd. in Murry 210). Eliot‘s remark is more down-to-earth: ―I am at first included to agree ... But on re-reading the whole Ode, this line strikes me as a serious blemish on a beautiful poem, and the reason must be either that I fail to understand it or that it is wrong…‖ (―Dante‖ 230-
231). Other critics from the New Critical and modernist schools like Cleanth Brooks and M.H. Abrams have agreed the couplet to be a rhetorical statement since beauty usually brings out truth and the vice versa (Rylance 730). More recent criticism, however, focuses on the intellectual background of the nineteenth century (ibid. 730-
731). In my opinion, the couplet in quotation marks should be read as a straightforward synopsis of the paradoxical poem40. ―Beauty is truth, truth beauty‖ is a circular statement that summarises the contradictory condition of the urn. It is in quotation marks because now it is Keats speaking out loud. Having pitied the time- captivated urn, he talks to the urn before he leaves it in the silence of the museum and piteously says ―…that is all / ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.‖ The pronoun ―it‖ refers to the rest of the poem, then, where Keats explains the state of the mute urn. So, knowing that beauty is truth and vice versa is the only thing the urn
40 As opposed to this idea, Heffernan believes the statement to be an iconophillic expression displaying the rivalry between the verbal and the visual (Heffernan 113-4)
216
knows and this is more than enough. In other words, the urn, which never responds throughout, is obliged to listen to Keats and take his advice.
For Kermode, Keats is the ―first to achieve in English a characteristic poetic statement of the joy at the cost of the image‖ (10). Indeed, as the ―least political of all
Romantics,‖ Keats avoids exaggerated statements or references as he focuses on the artistic qualities of the urn though the urn is notional (Heffernan 93). As observed in the above paragraphs, Keats, under the influence of the developments in the second phase of ekphrasis, has initiated the new understanding of immortality through art.
Aware of the conflicting notion and the paradoxical arguments it brings out, he is troubled to make a decision between pacified immortality and dynamic temporality:
Traditionally… ekphrasis is dynamic and obstetric, delivering from the pregnant moment of visual art the extended narrative which it embryonically signifies. Keats‘s poem simultaneously excites and frustrates the narrative urge (Heffernan 113).
The handling of this delicate matter in a mind-stirring way is rather original.
Previous examples of ekphrasis usually took sides, either with the verbal or with the visual. However, as museums changed the reception and the value of the visual arts, the debate won a new direction. Therefore Keats‘s method is not simply to discuss the debate on conventional paragonal grounds. Subsequently, it is necessary to state that Keats‘s paradoxical way of dealing with the nineteenth-century notion of arts has been influential on the next generation of poets as it is going to be seen in Auden and Ashbery.
217
4.4. Shelley: The Medusa Paradox
Shelley‘s journey to Italy in 1818 brought him to Florence, once the intellectual centre of the Italian and continental Renaissance. The city has influenced him to a great extend. On 20 August, he writes to Mrs. Shelley:
As we approached Florence, the country became cultivated to a very high degree, the plain was filled with the most beautiful villas, and, as far as the eye could reach, the mountains were covered with them; for the plains are bounded on all sides by blue and misty mountains. The vines are here trailed on low trellises of reeds, interwoven (qtd. in McMahan 13).
As he walked about the city through its historical and artistic treasures, he came to admire the Florence more. This is when he wrote his ekphrastic poem ―On the
Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery‖41 after his visit to the Uffizi
Gallery. Among other Medusa paintings in the Gallery, Shelley chose to compose on what he was told to be da Vinci‘s, which makes the poem an example of actual ekphrastic (Rogers 12). Until the mid-twentieth century the painting was attributed to da Vinci when it changed hands to belong to an unknown Flemish painter of the late sixteenth century (See Illustrations II.xi. and II.xii)42. Therefore, it is an honest mistake of Shelley to attribute the painting to da Vinci. Besides Shelley is not the first to compose on the painting or on Medusa in general but his poem has become an established work since it gathers the contextual and technical qualities of other
41 Referred to as ―On the Medusa‖ henceforth. 42 There are two essential Medusa paintings in the gallery. One of them (Illustration II.xii.) belongs to Caravaggio while the other, which was once thought to be da Vinci‘s, belongs to an anonymous Flemish painter (Illustration II.xi.) (Hollander The Gazer’s 144; Rogers 14). It is the latter painting Shelley ekphrasizes on. After the first speculations in the early twentieth century, the painting, which was in the Uffizi collection since 1631, was attributed to da Vinci but in the 1960s the painting came to be regarded as anonymously Flemish (Hollander ―The Poetics‖ 211; Rogers 119). There are some other speculations claiming that the painting could be a copy of a lost original by da Vinci (Hollander The Gazer’s 144). 218
Medusa paintings and the Romantic ekphrasis43. As it is going to be explicated in the following sections, ―On the Medusa‖ reveals Shelley‘s own poetic tendencies culminated with the Romantic convention to merge the image into words along with the paragonal norms of the nineteenth century.
The poem is divided (and numbered) into five stanzas with eight lines in each.44 Each octave follows rime royale with ababaacc scheme. Moving between meditating on the Gorgonian and describing the painting (and Medusa), the poem seems closer to meditative ekphrasis45. In terms of contextual framework, the poem focuses on particular sections of the painting. The first octave concentrates on the eyelids and the eyes, ―gazing on the midnight sky,‖ while the second stanza deals with the head of Medusa. The third and fourth stanzas are on the ―serpent-locks‖ and the objects
(stones and serpents) surrounding the head. The final stanza returns to Medusa and her eyes ―gazing in death.‖ In other words the poem opens and closes with the
Gorgonian eyes and the looks: ―It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky… / …Gazing in death on heaven from those wet rocks‖ (1, 40). Indeed the poem is in line with the primary literal focus of the painting: the head of the mortal Gorgonian. Just like the
43 One of the other well-known examples composed on the painting is Cavaliere (Giambattista) Marino‘s poem entitled ―Head of the Medusa in the Palace Gallery of the Grand Duke of Tuscany‖ (in his small book Galleria Distinta) in which the Duke of Tuscany, whose shield bears a reproduction of the painting, is celebrated (Friedlaender 88; Hollander The Gazer’s 145). Marino‘s poem is composed on the same anonymous painting as was Shelley‘s. William Drummond of Hawthornden‘s epigram ―The Statue of Medusa‖ was probably composed after Caravaggio‘s version (Hollander The Gazer’s 146). Ovid, too, had left space for Medusa, whose ―lovely hair [turned] to loathsome snakes… / …for fitting punishment transformed‖ (4.799, 802). 44 See Appendix IX to read the full-text of the poem. Hollander mentions a final stanza the originality of which is uncertain found in the 1959 edition of Shelley’s Poems by Neville Rogers. This stanza has also been added to Appendix IX. However the analysis of the poem sticks to the canonized five stanzas. 45 The poem is one of the hardest ekphrastic poems to categorize. While the first, second and last stanzas contemplate on the state of Medusa in general, the third and fourth stanzas focus on the surrounding images observed on the painting. In fact, in almost each stanza, the mimetic and the meditative are intermingled and it is hard to divide and study them syntactically and lexically. Shelley is loyal to the painting except for the mountains in the first stanza, which are not visible in the painting; it is probable that Shelley recalls the details of the myth and refers to them at this point (Hollander The Gazer’s 145). All in all, the poem is more likely to be a piece of meditative ekphrasis though the imitative and the inspirational encounter frequently. 219
painting itself, the poem is centralised around Medusa‘s bodiless head and looks. The accompanying creatures such as snakes, lizards, toads, reptiles, and bats are used to complete the picture and none of these creatures refer to the good46. From this point of view, too, the poem and the painting are analogous. The dark atmosphere of the painting indicated by dark colours, vague and black background and the gloomy perspective have been reflected in the poem as serpents. The same point is observed on lexical level. The vocabulary is harsh, disturbing, and terrifying as in: ―horror,‖
―terror,‖ ―fiery,‖ ―tremblingly,‖ ―death‖ (three times), ―ragged jaw,‖ ―pain,‖
―stone… [and] rock(s)‖ (four times), ―torture‖ and the like.
Syntactically Shelley‘s poem differs from the monotonous nouny style of
Wordsworth and Keats. There are only five gerund structures like ―gazing‖ and
―struggling‖ but the diction is still highly dynamic and fluid. Contradicting with the head that ―…lieth, gazing on the midnight sky‖ impotently, the poem is energised with verbs of action like ―grow,‖ ―flow,‖ ―flit,‖ ―trace,‖ and ―come.‖ In fact, with its thirty-six verbs of action (not mentioning the adjective and adverb forms like
―thrilling vapour‖ and ―tremblingly‖), only thirteen lines (out of forty) in the poem lack a verb of action:
And from a stone beside, a poisonous eft Peeps idly into those Gorgonian eyes; Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise Out of the cave this hideous light had cleft,
46 The snake could be an exception for it is regarded as the symbol of medicine and health. After Perseus kills Medusa, Athena shows up and takes two drops from the bleeding head and the snakes to give them to Erichthonius; one was a curing medicine and the other was a deadly poison (Ovid 4.770-795). 220
And he comes hastening like a moth that hies After a taper; and the midnight sky Flares, a light more dread than obscurity. (25-31)47.
The foregrounded dynamism created by the verbs of action seems to be paradoxical.
Unlike Keats and Wordsworth, who try to slow down the syntactical rhythm of their works in accordance with the target objects, Shelley provides a kind of poetic enthusiasm. This paradox is also seen in the oxymoronic uses that provide and prevent motion at the same time like ―peep[ing] idly,‖ ―l[ying]… gazing,‖ ―beauty… terror,‖ ―dead face… graven… characters be grown,‖ and ―unending involution.‖
However, there is a point that needs attention. Both target images Wordsworth and
Keats addressed contained action: Wordsworth‘s castle was stormy place trembling with waves while Keats‘s urn represented chasing lovers and playing pipes. Shelley‘s image, on the other hand, is already dead. The head is cut off, the mouth is only reflexively open, the eyes are stale and the nature is silent. In other words, Shelley probably did not need to stabilise an already pale and stable painting that offered no action or dynamism. A similar case is also found in ―Ozymandias,‖ where the king
Ozymandias and his ―trunkless legs of stone48‖ are already dead and destroyed (2)49.
The despotic arrogance of the king has already been forced to meet the levelling effects of time that have left him defenceless and incapable; in other words,
Ozymandias, as the personification of the kingly arrogance, is harmless (qtd. in
Heffernan 118). In ―Ozymandias,‖ therefore, Shelley is pitiful; he leaves some space
47 Emphasis added. 48 Shelley‘s ―Ozymandias‖ may not be totally notional since it is probably a depiction of a statue of Ramses II he saw in Diodorus Siculus‘s book (first century AD). The book was displayed in the British Museum in its early days after it was brough to London (Freedman 63-4). 49 It may be useful to keep in mind that ―Ozymandias,‖ first published in January 1818 in liberal journal Examiner, was an occasional poem on British politics criticising the celebrations of the victory of Duke of Wellington at Waterloo held at the Statue of the Duke in Hyde Park (Heffernan 116). 221
for the already silenced image to speak because he knows that there is no need to
―despair‖ Ozymandias, whose ―passions‖ are well-read by its sculptor (11, 6). In other words, as the poem suggests, Ozymandias‘s challenging call, ―My name is
Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" goes to waste (―Ozymandias‖ 10-11)50. Similarly, the beheaded Medusa is also a safe image and a dynamic diction will not overpower the verbal poem. Besides Shelley‘s inclination with the idea that the verbal arts (especially poetry) is above all arts is well-known (Uzundemir 7). At this point, Shelley‘s ―Defence of Poetry,‖ written in the Renaissance apology manner is worth remembering:
Poetry is the record of the happiest and best moments and best minds… it exalts the beauty of that which is most beautiful, and it adds beauty to that which is most deformed… It transmutates all that it touches and every form moving within the radiance of its presence is changed by wondrous sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it breathes… It strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty which is the spirit of its forms… Poetry is indeed something divine… Poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man… It is at once the centre and circumference of knowledge; it is that which comprehends all science, and that to which all science must be referred… (951-956)51.
Shelley, therefore, like Wordsworth, considers objet d’art only spatially and not as an artistic act over poetry (Simonsen 6). Although, in some of his other poems, he offers powerful examples of enargeia, or in Burwick‘ words ―prophetic images… of the future,‖ he still gives the palms to poetry (151).
50 As far as ekphrasis is concerned, the verbal construct in the poem is essential. The inscription in the sestet of the sonnet displays another kind of paragonal relationship. Inserting the verbal in the work of art could be regarded as a violation of the ergon; in this way the parergon both dominates and leaves its trace (as Derrida would call) on the image. Along with the prosopopeial feature (the traveller, the poetic persona, and the king in the poem), the verbal-within-the-visual makes ―Ozymandias‖ a genuinely ekphrastic poem. However, due to lack of space, the major concerns of the study will focus on ―On the Medusa‖. 51 Emphasis added. 222
One final point about the poem that needs attention is the paradoxical problem of gazing. As the painting and the opening of the poem suggest, ―On the Medusa‖ is a poem on gazing, or ―un-gazing.‖ The lexical parallelism based on verbs related to the act of looking like ―gaze,‖ ―peep,‖ and ―look‖ occur for fourteen times in the poem, not mentioning the other related words like ―eye,‖ ―eyelid,‖ ―radiance,‖ or ―mirror.‖
Critics like Hollander and Mitchell have asked questions about the identity of the
―gazer‖ (or ―gazing‖) problem52. According to one view, the gazer is the newly slain
Medusa, the only mortal Gorgonian sister; this point of view is based on the painting.
Another claim takes the reader as the gazer and this ―readerly‖ claim focuses on the poem from a distance. The idea that the actual gazer is the poet is also common
(Hollander ―The Poetics‖ 211). Mitchell, on the other hand, believes that the gazer is
Perseus, the victorious avenger, and that the poem is basically a monologue of
Perseus (―Ekphrasis‖ 709; Hollander 145). Moving on from this point, Mitchell develops his hypothesis that there is a unique paragonal relationship (ibid. 709-710).
For him, there is a shift of the identity of the gazer, from Perseus, describing Medusa to readers as ―it lieth, gazing on the midnight sky,‖ to the reader-viewer, who scans the painting in the third and fourth stanzas. Heffernan, too, believes that the poem is an unsolvable riddle of paragonal relationship between the painting and the poem, the poet and the painting, Perseus and Medusa, and finally the reader and the viewer
(121-122; Hollander 145). Indeed, considering the complex gazing-looking relationship between the gazing Medusa, who turns his ―gazers‖ into stone (as the poet and reader-viewers are carried away and amazed by the image on the
52 These questions have been so essential for Hollander that the line ―turns the gazer‘s spirit into stone‖ has given him the title of his book, Gazer’s Spirit (10). 223
painting)53, and the gazing Perseus, who uses a shield to mirror the looks of the
Gorgonian (and kills her by turning her looks back to herself), ―On the Medusa‖ is a highly paragonal poem that forces the limits of ergon-parergon contradiction54.
The Gazers The Gazed object (Ergon / Master) (Parergon / Subject)
Shelley the poet The actual anonymous painting (Medusa) Reader The image ekphrasized in the poem (Medusa) Reader-viewer The painting and the poem The poet persona Medusa image Perseus Medusa Medusa Perseus Medusa Medusa (her reflection on Perseus‘s shield) Medusa Viewer
Figure IV. Relationship between the gazer and the gazed in Shelley’s “On the Medusa”
The debate over the gazer has also reached to a point where the ancient Philomela myth was revitalised. While Freud, in his posthumously published Das
Medusenhaupt (Medusa's Head), calls the slaying of Medusa an act of castration,
Seelig calls it an act of rape (Seelig 895). As the torn-out tapestry of Arachne or the mistreated Philomela, Medusa‘s head could be referred to as a kind of ―rape‖ only in that it silences the Gorgonian. In this context, as far as the painting is concerned,
Medusa has been raped twice, both by Perseus and by the unknown Flemish painter.
Moreover, as in the cases of Arachne (being watched by other girls in her village) and Lucrece (monitored by the eyes of the images of the Trojan War), readers become viewers (or ―peep[ers]‖) of this act. In any case, regarding the painting and
53 Hollander suggests that the nineteenth-century usage of the word ―gaze‖ was very similar to the verb ―look‖ of our time; it was used both as a transitive verb as ―gaze [at]‖ or as a noun ―gaze‖ (look, appearence) (145; OED). 54 See Figure IV. 224
the Medusa‘s image on the canvas would end up with parallel paragonal assumptions for Shelley: the dominance of the poetry.
To sum up, ―On the Medusa‖ provides enough evidence to place itself among the
Romantic line of ekphrasis in the second phase. Focusing on the paragone, mutual gazing relationships, and depicting and contemplating on the painting at the same time, Shelley has strengthened the qualities of (actual) ekphrasis, which has begun to be more influential in the literary canon. Shelley‘s influence on future poets like
Browning and Auden will be observed almost with the same ekphrastic characteristics in the proceeding sections.
225
4.5. The Victorian Age and the Pre-Raphaelites
The Victorian age brought about new developments both on socio-cultural, political, and scientific levels. In arts, new tendencies were beginning to attract artists.
Especially visual arts was experiencing a time of revision and artistic leap as the formerly favoured didactic and purely descriptive moods were being replaced with aesthetic concerns (Uzundemir 7, 9). Particularly painting, after the establishment of public museums, was regarded in a different context. As painters and their work secured a more central space in the art circles, different ideas considering the aesthetic value and function of visual arts began to be discussed. Merleau-Ponty states that the boundaries between arts melted down due to the new understanding of visual depth and perception during this period (254)55. The Romantic rejection of the stylish became the artistic ―mode,‖ a nineteenth-century ―concept of theory of painting‖ (Marin Sublime 189)56. Besides theorists like Burke, Kant, Schelling, and
Schiller, who were also influential on the Romantic world-view and philosophy, were re-interpreted to substantiate the l’art pour l’art notion (Burwick 18; Graham
472).
55 Merleau-Ponty believes that particularly the idea of new aesthetic depth is very essential in the development of painting as a genuinely liberal art free from the verbal constrains. Basing his argument on Berkeley‘s theory of artistic depth, he states that there is a dual and reciprocal relationship between time and space and that it is the artistic depth that combines this relationship:
Traditional ideas of perception are at one in denying that depth is visible. Berkeley shows that it could not be given to sight in the absence of any means of recording it, since our retinas receive only a manifestly flat projection of the spectacle… Berkeley‘s argument, made quite explicit, runs roughly like this. What I call depth is in reality a juxtaposition of points, making it comparable to breadth. I am simply badly placed to see it… The depth which is declared invisible is, therefore, a depth already identified with breadth and, this being the case, the argument would lack even a semblance of consistency (Merleau-Ponty 254-6).
56 Original emphasis. 226
The result of these developments was an important shift in the conception of art. At the heart of this shift was a rupture; now visual arts parted themselves from sciences, philosophy, and literature and regarded themselves distinctly different from other creative activities of man. It was believed that ―a work of art never aims at deluding the spectator into thinking that he has the real object before him,‖ which reflected the notion that a work of art was a unique entity in itself on grounds of its existence and aestheticism (Burwick 67, 108). In painting the image on the canvas began to be regarded as an artistic representation filtered through the imaginative mind of the artist thus paintings turned out to be aesthetic re-creations of their target objects. The conceptual separation of the object and objet d’art is an essential development in terms of ekphrasis. Visual arts that secured themselves as immortal representations in the museums gained more autonomy by freeing themselves from other fields of art and science. Mitchell believes that the development in visual arts in the late nineteenth century is the reason behind what he calls ekphrastic entrapment57, or the offensive state or pressure the visual causes the viewer-writer to get precautionary, which could be observed in the tactful manners of the poetic persona in Browning‘s
―My Last Duchess‖ (Picture 110).
In England, the Victorian age, as the age of alteration, gave birth to a movement reacting against the cliché dogmas of previous centuries in visual arts. Founded by a group of young artists and intellectuals, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was an avant-garde artistic group protesting the mechanic and stylish approach of the
Mannerist art that was under the influence of Raphael and Michalengelo (Barringer
57 Also called ekphrastic fear (Mitchell Picture 111; ―Ekphrasis‖ 699). 227
21). Criticising the fake poses and unrealistic exaggerations of the visual arts after
Raphael, Pre-Raphaelites, as their name suggests, aimed to reform art by putting the emphasis on pictorial details, realistic (almost naturalistic) poses, the medieval and the archaic, and individual creativity of the artist used by painters preceeding
Raphael and his time. Initiated by painters like William Holman Hunt, John Everett
Millais, and James Collinson, the Brotherhood was a reaction in painting against the high Renaissance standards of the Royal Academy and among the founders of the group, Dante Gabriel Rosetti was the only poet (Gaunt 33-43; Lottes 253)58.
Therefore, as opposed to the general point of view, the Pre-Raphaelites were initially influential on painting though the Germ, a literary magazine edited by D.G. Rosetti‘s brother William Rosetti, contained essays attempting to carry the reform in painting into poetry59. The theorems and assumptions of the group were also supported by
John Ruskin, who defended ―the primal inspiration‖ in arts (335). However, the group began to part in the mid-1850s due to various reasons such as the modern- medieval debate and personal problems (Barringer 110).
With regards to ekphrasis, the Pre-Raphaelite movement is an essential development.
Especially through the poetry and paintings of painter-poet D.G. Rosetti, the second phase of ekphrasis completes itself. Even though the Victorian age seems to be a totally disparate period that needs to be studied in a different chapter and context, a closer look shows that neither D.G. Rosetti‘s poetry nor the late nineteenth-century artistic notions can be separated from the preceding Romantic tendencies as far as the
58 Thomas Woolner also had some published poems however he was primarily a sculptor (Gaunt 23). Other poets like Christina Rosetti and C.A. Swinburne were not official members of the brotherhood. 59 However, the Germ was only published for five months, from January (1850) to April (Barringer 50; Gaunt 12). 228
ekphrastic tradition and poetic tendencies are concerned. It is important to remember that there is only a time span of fifty years between the first publication of Lyrical
Ballads (1798), the cornerstone of Romantic poetic dictum, and the foundation of the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. So, regarding the characteristics of the second phase of ekphrasis, it is liable to assume that there is little difference between the
Romantic ekphrasis and the ekphrastic works of D.G. Rosetti. Indeed, the Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood and its doctrines were inspired by Hunt‘s (ekphrastic) painting The Eve of St.Agnes, inspired from Keats‘s poem with the same title
(Prettejohn 159). The encounter between the visual and the verbal was encouraged and, as in the case of Blake, they experienced close contact with one another because
―painting is properly opposed to speaking or writing, but not to poetry‖ (qtd. in
Landow 1)60. As poetry was still under the influence of the later Romantics such as
Keats and Shelley, the Pre-Raphaelite poetry maintained its close relation to the picturesque culminated with Romantic imagination, memory, and creativity (Graham
470-474). Besides, the importance given to individuality in the Romantic age reflected in the idiosyncratic utterances of the wandering nature poet was observed in
Browning‘s monologues in the Victorian age. Subsequently, in many aspects, the major characteristics of the second phase of ekphrasis were carried on in the nineteenth century. From its pictorial quality to individuality, from the close visual- verbal relationship to the paragonal battle, the nineteenth-century poet was loyal to almost every aspect of the Romantic poetic reform with regards to ekphrasis.
60 See Chapter I for further references to Ruskin, the Victorian idea of ekphrasis, and the full-version of this citation. 229
4.6. Titian’s “Venetian,” Rosetti’s “Giorgone”
Dante Gabriel Rosetti resembles Blake in that both artists were painters and poets who rejected the conventions of the eloquent and elaborate poetic modes of their predecessors. Like Blake, Rosetti, too grew up with works of visual arts. He was only four years old when the National Gallery opened in 1824 but his adolescence passed wandering around the aisles of the gallery (Ash 20-21). However, unlike the self-educated Blake, Rosetti was educated to be a painter, first at Henry Sass‘s
Drawing Academy and then at the Royal Academy of Arts (Prettejohn 93).
Rosetti‘s interest in medieval and early Renaissance works of art is well-known; he admired Boticelli, Titian, and tales of King Arthur while he also tried to imitate their styles in painting. As a poet, he followed Keats, who was little-known in the 1850s, and like Keats he was a gallery lover (Ash 21). Unfortunately and unlike other poets who had been associated with the Pre-Raphaelites like C.A. Swinburne, Rosetti has never been to Italy to see the masters he loved. Italy was the place that owned the majority of Rosetti‘s favourites and all he could do was to collect photos of the galleries like the Uffizi (Lottes 239, 254)61. For him, the early Italian Renaissance was ―an age productive in personalities, many-sided, centralized and complete‖
(Pater 31); so at this point he agreed with John Ruskin, who had supported the Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood, and believed in the idea that the manner of the early
Renaissance masters should be revitalised (Lottes 253)62.
61 John Addington Symonds‘s Renaissance in Italy (especially his chapter on Boticelli in Vol. 3) (1877) and his friend Edward Burne-Jones‘s pamphlets on Boticelli provide the chief sources for Rosetti‘s Italian material (Lottes 251; 256). 62 Although Ruskin celebrated Rosetti‘s work and defended the principles of the Brotherhood, Rosetti was against Ruskin‘s religious preoccupations and moralist views (Lottes 247, 251-253).
230
Rosetti used ekphrasis in both ways: as a painter, he painted from Bible, Dante,
Keats, and Morte D’Arthur while as a poet he composed on Boticelli, Giorgone, and even his own paintings as in ―Lilith‖ and ―Found‖ (Hollander 48-50). Among his well-known ekphrastic poems like ―For ‗Our Lady of the Rocks‘ by Leonardo da
Vinci,‖ ―For Spring by Sandro Boticelli,‖ and ―Lilith,‖ one poem stands out with its stylistic and ekphrastic characteristics that provides important clues about Rosetti both as a poet and a painter63. ―For a Venetian Pastoral by Giorgone in the Louvre64,‖ first published in the Germ in 1850, is a sonnet composed after Rosetti‘s encounter with Titian‘s Le Concert Champêtre (The Pastoral Concert) in the Louvre (See
Illustration II.xiii.). As in the case of Shelley, Rosetti was blameless to confuse the painting to be a work of Giorgone since the painting was attributed to Giorgone, rather than Titian, until the late twentieth century (Hollander 157; ―For A Venetian
Pastoral: Scholarly Commentary‖).
―For a Venetian Pastoral‖ is a sonnet which lacks a regular rhyme scheme and measure apart from the iambic feet it recklessly follows; it is probable that Rosetti wanted to make the poem spontaneous as in ―Lilith‖ and ―For ‗Our Lady of the
Rocks‘ by Leonardo da Vinci.‖ However, such an assumption only holds true as far as the poetic metrics is concerned. Indeed, the poem is a re-reading of the painting in a manner similar to Jonson‘s. A closer inspection reveals that Rosetti almost scans the painting from one end to another like a copying machine. Although the poem is
63 It is useful to remember that Rosetti composed a series of poems (primarily sonnets) on paintings from his favourite painters or on his own paintings under the title Sonnets for Pictures. Among the major poems from these twenty-six lyrics are ―For ‗Our Lady of the Rocks‘ by Leonardo da Vinci,‖ ―For an Allegorical Dance of Women by Andrea Mantegna,‖ ―For ‗Ruggeiro and Angelica‘ by Ingres,‖ ―For ‗The Wine of Circe‘ by Edward Burne-Jones,‖ ―Mary‘s Girlhood: for a Picture,‖ and ―‗The Holy Family‘ by Michalengelo in the National Gallery.‖ 64 Referred to as ―For a Venetian Pastoral‖ henceforth. The full-text version of the poem has been provided in Appendix X. 231
not divided into sections, it is feasible to talk about five sections, each of which leaves equal space to the figures on the painting and helps to the formation of stylistic parallelism65. The first three lines open with reference to the naked woman pouring water from a jar:
Water, for anguish of the solstice:—nay, But dip the vessel slowly,—nay, but lean And hark how at its verge the wave sighs… (1-3).
The second section is a reflection of the background, where ―…beyond all depth away / The heat lies silent at the brink of day‖ (4-5). The third section focuses on the central images: the two shepherds playing music:
Now the hand trails upon the viol-string That sobs, and the brown faces cease to sing, Sad with the whole of pleasure… (6-8).
Then the poem moves on to the naked woman at the right-centre of the painting.
Rosetti portrays her, as in the painting, as playing flute seated on the grass. The last section, which is more ambiguous compared to the previous four, refers to the idea of immortality. Whether this notion is inspired by the long background-filling trees, the lonely shepherd (or the sheep on the right end of the painting) is unclear. However, it is true that, like the painting, the poem seems like fading into perpetuity where the poet persona (and maybe the figures) touches ―lips with eternity‖ (14).
65 See Illustration II.xiv. 232
Scanning the painting from left to right, ―For a Venetian Pastoral‖ projects an accurate representation of the images in a mimetic tone though the contemplation on immortality and focus on speaking-from-within-the painting also make the poem an example of meditative ekphrasis66. At this point, the tone and pace of the poem draws attention because Rosetti‘s scanning is carried away in a peculiar way. Rosetti deliberately drags his reading:
Water, for anguish of the solstice:—nay, But dip the vessel slowly,—nay, but lean And hark how at its verge the wave sighs in Reluctant. Hush! beyond all depth away The heat lies silent at the brink of day… (1-5).
The exclamations like ―Hush,‖ ―hark,‖ and ―nay‖ create a pressure on the reading of the poem along with the shattered syntax. Added to this, the hyphens, occurring for four times in the poem, make the reading stumble. He deviates and drifts in terms of diction by his use of vocabulary that evokes silence and tardiness like ―slowly,‖
―lean[ing],‖ ―sighs,‖ ―reluctant,‖ ―heat,‖ and ―solstice.‖ The only verbs used in these lines also reflect the heat-worn atmosphere of the painting: ―dip[ping] the vessel slowly,‖ ―lean[ing],‖ ―wav[ing] sighs,‖ ―hush,‖ and ―the heat ly[ing] silent.‖
However, as the poem moves to the third and fourth sections, it loses much of its dizziness in the first and second sections that project the leaning woman and the summer background:
66 A similar idea was put forward by Hollander who thinks that Rosetti ―views the painting as it unfolds‖ although he does not refer to the vertical axes and the seperate sections of the poem (158). 233
Now the hand trails upon the viol-string That sobs, and the brown faces cease to sing, Sad with the whole of pleasure. Whither stray Her eyes now, from whose mouth the slim pipes creep And leave it pouting, while the shadow‘d grass Is cool against her naked side? … (6-11).
Following the foregrounded image of the naked flute player, the shepherds come next. Although the shepherds are ―sad with the whole of pleasure,‖ they are depicted in an energetic way. Turning the poem into a new tone, Rosetti begins with an exclamatory ―Now.‖ This part contains much of the dynamism the poem offers containing eight verbs of action such as ―leave,‖ ―trail,‖ and ―sing.‖ The same point is easily observed in the painting; viewers recognise the shepherd‘s hand on the move (hanging on the air) as he plays the lute: ―Now the hand trails upon the viol- string‖ (6). The end of the poem, however, contains elements from both paces; verbs that provided energy to the previous section are now used to slow the tempo:
―say[ing] nothing,‖ ―weep[ing],‖ ―nam[ing],‖ ―be[ing],‖ ―touching:‖
… Let be:— Say nothing now unto her lest she weep, Nor name this ever. Be it as it was,— Life touching lips with Immortality. (12-14).
The last three lines, then, represent the paradoxical resolution. As the poet lets all go
(or lets the moment fleet into immortality), the diction is also freed through the use of hyphens and verbs of action, which now evoke dizziness, insouciance, and silence.
234
Rosetti suggests a familiar concept in the poem. Immortality through art, also used by his favourite poet Keats, is the basic concern of ―For a Venetian Pastroral.‖
Unlike Keats, however, Rosetti is not worried. ―Ode on a Grecian Urn‖ was a poem that mourned for the frozen images in a dynamic way. Rosetti, as his tone suggests, is more relaxed and avoids the troubles of the rushing time. He lets the present flow as he lets the images enjoy the eternal moment on the painting unlike Keats‘s chasing lovers. So as the time passes by, the woman will continue to play the flute just as the shepherd will keep playing in a way comfortable as it was.
Rosetti, who foregrounds the exact details of his source like the title, painter, and the museum of the painting as the many of the poets of the second phase of ekphrasis, gives no references to colours except for ―brown faces ceas[ing] to sing‖ (7). The earlier version of the poem was more colourful; for example the ―shadowed grass‖ in the present version was ―the green shadowed grass‖ while ―beyond all depth away‖ was ―Blue, and deep away‖ (qtd. in Hollander 158-159). The exclusion of colours could be regarded as an act of verbal suppression and a stylistic deviation from what the painting suggests. Besides if one considers the women in the painting as invisible nymphs like Fehl, the importance given to the invisible in the poem turns the parergon against ergon67. Since none of the female images meet the looks of the rest of the figures, Rosetti works against the painting, thus turning the verbal to an opposite direction from the painting against the visual intension (and the central focus) and against what Lessing had once said: ―…there is nothing to compel the poet to compress his picture into a single woman‖ (23).
67 Philipp Fehl, an art-historian, believes that the female figures are actually invisible images because they are not recognised by the males around them. They are simply accompanying the shepherds in a moment of joy and music (154-156). 235
The reliability of the assumptions about the nymphs is open to discussion however there is an obvious point about the paragonal relationship between the painting and the poem. Just like the unseen colours, the sounds are also unheard. As opposed to the audio-perceptible diction of Homer and Virgil, Rosetti is indifferent to the music being played in the painting; he only provides ―faces ceas[ing] to sing,‖ creeping pipes, and sighs. All the verbs used adjacent to sense of hearing evoke motionlessness as in ―cease,‖ ―creep,‖ ―sigh,‖ ―say nothing,‖ and ―hush.‖ In other words, he interferes between the musically-rich world of the painter and the images and sustains the music into a verbal silence. Besides, the opening of the poem also recalls painter poems. As a painter himself, he intrudes the painting in a painterly manner when he says: ―Water, for anguish of the solstice:—nay, / But dip the vessel slowly,—nay, but lean / And hark…‖ (1-3). It is as if Rosetti is commenting on the pose of the figures and reshaping the image in an editorial way. From this point onwards, the interference with two ―nays‖ and two hyphens could be conceived as an act of verbal intervention.
Although he may be opposing the visual elements in the painting, Rosetti‘s style shows that he was well aware of the ekphrastic features of his age. It is clear that he was familiar with the ekphrastic tendency of visiting museums and commemorating paintings and painters as observed in the titles of his Sonnets for Pictures. The silenced music in the poem also shows us that he knew about the audio-ekphrastic relations on verbal grounds. Rosetti may not be as powerful as the Romantic poets or as the modern poets of the next generations but he shows the pictorial gallery spirit 236
of ekphrastic tradition by representing the verbal-visual close-up of the nineteenth century.
237
4.7. Browning: “I Gave Commands”
Robert Browning is remembered with his psychological portraits of abnormal figures, often handling relationships of couples, through dramatic monologue, a poetic device usually equated with his poetry68. Among these poems, ―My Last
Duchess,‖ which displays a ―private struggle‖ from the mouth of a Duke, has a special place (Tucker 177). Indeed, Browning and ―My Last Duchess69‖ (and his dramatic monologues in general) have been more popular than the painter and poet
D.G. Rosetti though Browning usually does not refer to particular paintings70.
Unlike Browning‘s other poems on paintings such as ―Andrea del Sarto‖ and ―Fra
Lippo Lippi,‖ which have been written four years before Elizabeth Barrett and
Browning eloped to Italy, ―My Last Duchess‖ was composed in Italy. Even though the poem remains to be notional, it is probable that Browning composed the poem after his visits to Italian galleries71. As far as the Duke is concerned, it is assumed that the possessive Duke in the poem is either Duke Alfonso II, fifth Duke of Ferrara, or Count of Gismond, Count of Tyrol in Innsbruck (Crowell 165; Allingham 16C;
Heffernan 141). However, the attitude of the Duke is more essential than his identity; the Duke is a man of ―…manipulation and supreme power...‖ (Tucker 178). There have been extensive studies and commentaries on how the monologue-bearer Duke
68 A dramatic monologue is
…organised around a single perspective and must therefore move in a single direction... [T]here can be no right conclusion where there is only the speaker‘s perspective, and no necessary beginning or end or limits... There can be only self-revelation. The style of address is much more complicated in the dramatic monologue than in soliloquy ... [which] follows the style of address of ordinary conversation ... [like] in the traditional lyric (Langbaum 149-150).
69 See Appendix XI for the full-text of the poem. 70 His other well-known paintings such as ―Fra Lippo Lippi‖ and ―Andrea del Sarto‖ are exceptions to this assumption. 71 Allingham believes that the painting that inspired Browning is possibly a portrait of Lucrezia de Medici by Angolo Bronzino (16C). The same idea was put forward by Louis S. Friedland in 1936. See Illustration II.xv. 238
has silenced and pressurised the freedom of the Duchess (Crowell 165-167; Harrold
42-43). Therefore, rather than dealing with the feminist aspects of the relationship between the Duke and the Duchess, it is necessary to focus on the relationship between the Duke, the portrait (as the representation of visual arts) and the poet.
The poem opens with a reference to a painting and ends with a reference to another work of plastic art, a bronze bust by ―Claus of Innsbruck.‖ The idea of male dominance is sensible in both works of art because while Fra Pandolf‘s painting displays a woman almost caged in a canvas, Inssbruck‘s bust presents Neptune
―taming a sea-horse‖ (55). Thus, both works reflect the Duke‘s disciplinarian character (Harold 43)72. By keeping the Duchess within a canvas and treating her like a private object more than a wife, the Duke entraps her as a visual slave, who is ever obedient73. Dissatisfied with the limitations of the canvas, the Duke also veils the painting of the Duchess in a way a museum staff veils watercolours or oil works, which hides the already silenced Duchess from the looks of others and brings a
―narcissistic quality‖ to the poem (Baker et al. 613)74. His tendency to possess is
72 Harrold supposes that Browning must have read Plato‘s Symposium before drawing the Duke in his mind. (43- 44). In Symposium, there is a striking dialogue between Socrates and Antisthenes about ‗taming women‘. Antisthenes asks Socrates why the philosopher did not educate his wife Xanthippe upon which Socrates answers with an illusion to taming of horses to have ‗best-tempered horses‘. Treating women as the objects that should be tamed and educated, it is not surprising to see that Browning‘s choice for mythological reference is Neptune (Harrold 44). 73 The same notion is also found in ―Andrea del Sarto,‖ where Lucrezia is suppressed by the poet persona in a painting:
While she looks – no one‘s: very dear, no less You smile? why , there‘s my picture ready made, There‘s what we painters call our harmony. (32-34).
Heffernan traces the same notion in Edgar Allen Poe‘s Oval Portrait, where the painter dominates the short story on grounds of absolute silence and likeness, Medusa myth, and Ovidian stories like that of Philomela (Heffernan 143). 74 A similar curtain theme was also observed in Sir Lily‘s painting (and Lovelace‘s poem) where the surrendered king was depicted in front of a drapery hanging over his shoulders. 239
observed in the use of pronouns as well. Including first person pronoun ―I,‖ possessive adjective ―my,‖ object pronoun ―me,‖ and reflexive pronoun ―myself,‖ there are twenty occurrences of first person pronouns.
The poem is composed of twenty-eight rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter but the diction of the poem outperforms its metric perfections. As indicated in the heavy punctuation (dashes, exclamation marks, quotation marks, question marks, and hyphens), the poem is like a dialogue:
…She thanked men - good! but thanked Somehow - I know not how - as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech - (which I have not) - to make your will Quite clear to such a one, and say, "Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss Or there exceed the mark"- and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse - E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, … Will 't please you rise? We'll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed At starting is my object. Nay, we'll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me. (31-43, 47-56).
240
Even though the poem is labelled as a dramatic monologue; it is as if the Duke is talking to someone. However, his conversation remains one-sided since he does not let the visitor speak just as he silences the Duchess. In Lubbock‘s words, the Duke rejects the inclusion of someone else and keeps the accompanying person ―veiled and disguised,‖ just as he keeps the painting (48)75. Ironically the only person readers can hear other than the Duke is the imagined painter Fra Pandolf:
…perhaps Fra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps Over my lady's wrist too much" or "Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat… (15-19).
Even here the painter‘s voice is ambiguous; the Duke refers to Fra Pandolf only to veil his words with ―perhaps.‖ Therefore, although Browning seems to save some space for the painter, he softens the effect of this alien voice since the Duke is a man who is used to ―g[ive] commands,‖ not to be surpassed by others76. A similar contextual deviation is also indicated by the Duke‘s attitude towards the Duchess‘s smiles to other man. He does not approve her habit of greeting other men because he envies the little smiles and gestures she makes to the outside world:
She thanked men - good! but thanked Somehow - I know not how - as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift... (31-34).
75 As it is understood towards the end, the person listening to the Duke is an emissary from a notable family of Ferrara to arrange a new marriage for the Duke. 76 The word ―last‖ in the title of the poem evokes a similar sense (Harrold 39).
241
The Duke may be arrogant, narcissistic, and immoral but he is a good talker. The parallelism based on the dynamism in the poem is created by the conversational diction, punctuations, and excessive use of verbs of actions. Baker et al. believe that
―[along with his interest in] theatrical, confessional, structural, and verbally espressive aspects... Browning‘s concerns with the ‗dramatic‘ and with ‗voices‘ make him an important precursor of ‗modernity‘‖ (611). No matter how the poem avoids voices other than the Duke‘s, Browning‘s ekphrasis recalls Homer‘s style in terms of phonology and syntax. The verbs like ―call,‖ ―ask,‖ ―say,‖ ―speak,‖ along with vocabulary related to sound and hearing like ―speech‖ (three times), add to the conversational energy of the poem. On the lexical level, these unheard sounds are contrasted with the vocabulary on seeing and looking: ―look‖ (four times), ―glance‖
(twice), ―picture,‖ and ―paint.‖ On one hand, the Duke sustains the sounds; on the other he invites the painting to be viewed:
That's my last duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will't please you sit and look at her? I said "Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, That depth and passion of its earnest glance… (1-8).
It is possible to talk about an obvious ―a rivalry between word and image in... ―‗My
Last Duchess‘‖ (Baker et al.612). Besides, through the verbal quality of the poem, the Duke judges and makes assertions on the Duchess and himself (Arnauld 104).
242
―My Last Duchess‖ is essential in terms of the development of ekphrasis because it shows one of the most cruel examples of the paragonal relationship where the visual is suppressed and silenced. The Duke‘s point of view may not reflect Browning‘s own attitude towards arts though the poem, as an individual entity, dominates the painting. Similar to Keats‘s dynamic diction, Browning‘s poetic energy creates a paradox between the stillness of the portrait. In this way, Browning, who presents an exclusive example of the rivalry between the visual and the verbal, has inspired many poets to compose poetry on paintings and their silence like Ashbery and
Muldoon.
243
4.8. The Legacy: the Tradition Continues
The second phase of ekphrasis bears similarities and differences at the same time but focusing on the differences between the first and second phases of ekphrasis reveals more about the ekphrastic conventions that had been in use from the Romantics until the twentieth century. One of the first points that attract attention is the tendency to ekphrasize in smaller contexts and space. As opposed to the examples of the first phase of ekphrasis like Homer and Virgil, ekphrasis is observed in short lyrics such as odes, elegies, and epigrams except for some of Wordsworth‘s long narrative poems. In other words, the status of ekphrasis has shifted from being a part of an epic or a larger narrative to being a unique poetic instance. Moving away from the supernatural world of epics and mythology77, the contextual concerns have also become worldly and individualistic as in ―Peele Castle‖ and ―My Last Duchess.‖
As observed in ―Ode on a Grecian Urn‖ and ―My Last Duchess,‖ the paragonal relationship reaches its climax during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Both on stylistic level and on contextual level, there is an obvious competition between poetry and visual arts. Poets sometimes manipulate the rivalry either by suppressing the poetic dynamism by using vocabulary that indicates stillness as in ―On the
Medusa‖ or by over-energising it by using verbs of action, frequent punctuation, and exclamatory remarks as in ―My Last Duchess.‖ The paragonal relationship is further observed in the connection between the gazed-female and the gazer-male. Poems like
―My Last Duchess‖ and ―On the Medusa‖ reflect how the gazer poet or the poetic persona (usually male) enjoys gazing at the impotently still objects which turn them
77 Blake and D.G. Rosetti‘s interest in the medieval tales, mythology, and Biblical allegories could be regarded as contextual exceptions here. 244
into potential possessions under the scrutiny of the dominating (male) eye.
Subsequently it could be concluded that there is a noticeable inclination to give the palms to the (gazing) verbal even though it is also necessary to keep in mind that the visual and verbal had been experiencing a closer relationship compared to the first phase of ekphrasis.
As it has been explained earlier, probably the most important development that influenced the ekphrastic progress is the opening of public museums. After their establishment in the early nineteenth century, the museums soon became places for contemplation and artistic activity for poets. Like Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth,
Browning, and Blake, many poets were regular visitors of museums and galleries.
This is the reason why ekphrasis became more actual than notional since poets knew the details about the works of plastic arts and felt the need to commemorate the artists as indicated in the titles of the poems (Heffernan 91-92). The same reason also affected the conceptions on arts. Once museums began to preserve the works of art
(that had been kept in the attics or basements previously) under accurate lighting and in glass-boxes, the value of these art works immediately rose to fame. Poems like
―Ode on a Grecian Urn‖ and ―On a Venetian Pastoral‖ reflect this conceptual shift that influenced the reception of visual arts and brought about a new kind of artistic consciousness. This is also when meditative ekphrasis began to enter the ekphrastic scene. As poets regarded museums as sights of contemplation, their poems began to merge the solely pictorial with the inspirational as found in Rosetti, Shelley, and
Wordsworth. In short, although there are only a few genuinely meditative poems, the purely imitative has been replaced with a culmination of the both. 245
The typical ekphrastic features like prosopopeia and enargeia are still dominant in the second phase of ekphrasis. Poets like Wordsworth, Shelley, and Browning feel the need to compose through a narrator or a poetic persona while they also remain loyal to pictorial qualities aiming to create the mind-picture of the target object for the readers. As the images were ―recollected in tranquility,‖ prosopopeia and enargeia were achieved through mind-pictures and memories. In short, while poets like Wordsworth composed relying on his mind-pictures, some other poets like
Shelley combined their memories with myths, tales, and history as in ―On the
Medusa.‖ As far as the images ―recollected in tranquility‖ are concerned, it is also useful to recall that the second phase of ekphrasis has also developed the idea of idiosyncrasy that had began in the early seventeenth century. The poet turned to his inner self and to the outer nature (and what it evokes in him) instead of following the traditional clichés of love, heroism, and faith of the previous centuries. Therefore, poetry became the expression of the individual poet rather than the voice of epic and narrative conventions. ―Peele Castle‖ and ―On the Medusa,‖ for example, illustrates how the poet provides space for their own voices as readers hear them contemplate.
Eventually the second phase of ekphrasis has combined the older tradition with a new breath of individuality, enargeia, and stylistic predisposition. Having experienced a closer encounter in this period, the verbal and the visual faced one another first in the museums then on the page.
However, flirting with the image, the word did not always come up with a welcoming diction; conversely it still displayed a struggle to suppress the sounds, colours, and motion the image offered. In short, as far as the paragonal encounter of 246
the verbal and the visual is concerned, this period could be thought as a period of getting acquainted before moving into a new stage in their relation.
CHAPTER IV
Modern Ekphrasis
La Notte, che tu vedi in si dolci atti Dormire, fu da un angelo scolpita In questo sasso: e perché dorme, ha vita: Destala, se no’l credi, e parleratti1.
First of all, the ekphrastic poetry of our time completes the transformation of ekphrasis from incidental adjunct to self-sufficient whole, from epic ornament to free-standing literary work… [Secondly] the twentieth-century ekphrasis springs from the museum, the shrine where all poets worship in a secular age (Heffernan 137-8).
Heffernan‟s description of the two basic characteristics of twentieth-century ekphrasis sounds very familiar. At one hand he focuses on the individual body of ekphrastic poetry that had freed itself from being part of larger narratives in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and, on the other, he deals with the development of museums as the initial “shrine” of ekphrastic poetry. Indeed, because the galleries had collected the majority of works of arts from private collections by the end of the twentieth century, modern ekphrasis naturally owes much of its material and context
1 Emphasis added. Michalengelo‟s ekphrastic epigram for his own sculpture entitled Night in Vasari. The epigram evokes the feeling of speaking works of art as in the third phase of ekphrasis. The translation below is Hollander‟s:
Night, which you see asleep in such a lovely Attitude was sculpted in this stone By an angel, and because she sleeps, has life: Wake her, if you don‟t believe it, and she‟ll speak. (45-46).
248
to institutionalised galleries. Moreover, beginning from the early twentieth century, there has been a shift in ekphrastic exercises in terms of mode and paragonal relationship. Modern ekphrasis, as reflected in the third phase of ekphrasis, contains the philosophical complexity of twentieth century while it also culminates the ekphrastic characteristic of the nineteenth-century poetic tendencies and diction. This chapter aims at explaining the ekphrastic tradition in its last (and also present) phase by referring to stylistic qualities like lexical parallelism, foregrounding, poetic structure, and [de]paragone2 as it has been carried out previously. After an introduction to the literary and philosophical developments of the twentieth century, sections studying the characteristics of representative examples of ekphrasis, such as
W.H. Auden, Derek Mahon, William Carlos Williams, and John Ashbery, will follow.
2 See the following section 5.1. for more on deparagonal relationship. 249
5.1. The Ekphrastic Big Bang
The title of this section is “The Ekphrastic Big Bang” for two reasons. First, the coinage “big bang” implies a new beginning by indicating commencement for a- thousand-year old literary device. Unlike the second phase of ekphrasis that had revolted against the Renaissance eloquence and Restoration pretentiousness, the beginning of modern ekphrasis is not a rupture but a continuation that suggests a new enlightenment. As it is going to be explained and exemplified in the following sections, modern ekphrasis builds over the late Victorian aestheticism and comprehends arts in its brand new philosophical background by shaping and re- shaping the tradition. Secondly, “big bang” successfully refers to the “boom” and pervasiveness of modern ekphrasis with its phonolexical quality (Heffernan 135). It is true that the number of ekphrastic works in this period exceeds the total number of ekphrastic poetry written in the first two phases and many of these poems force the limits of twentieth-century literary creativity and paragonal paradox3. Besides this is the only period in which several collections (or series of poems) have been published4 dedicated only to ekphrastic poetry such as William Carlos Williams‟s
Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems (1962), W.H. Auden‟s Shield of Achilles
(1955) and Robert Fagles‟s I, Vincent: Poems from the Pictures of Van Gogh
(1978)5.
3 Some of the noteworthy examples are W.H. Auden‟s “Museé des Beaux Arts,” Derek Mahon‟s “Hunt by Night,” John Ashbery‟s “Self Portarit in a Convex Mirror,” Paul Muldoon‟s “Anthony Green: Second Marriage,” Marianne Moore‟s “Charity Overcoming Envy,” Thom Gunn‟s “Positives,” James Merill‟s “The Charioteer of Delphi,” Rainer Maria Rilke‟s “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” W.B. Yeats‟s “Lapis Lazuli,” Adrienne Rich‟s “Mourning Picture,” and Robert Lowell‟s “For the Union Dead.” 4 Considering Giambattista Marino‟s 1620 collection Galleria, Heffernan thinks that the English speaking world was “very late to publish a collection on ekphrasis” (Heffernan 138). D.G. Rosetti‟s Sonnets for Pictures is an exception to this. See note 64 in Chapter III. 5 Some of the other volumes (of poetry and/or essays) that have been entirely dedicated to ekphrasis are Wallace Stevens‟s Man with the Blue Guitar (1937) and The Old Guitarist (on Picasso) (1939), Nancy Sullivan‟s Night Fishing at Antibes (1939), Buchwald and Roston‟s The Poet Dreaming in the Artists’s House (1984), Gisbert Kranz‟s Das Bildegedicht in Europa (1973); special issues of Word and Image published by the Tate Gallery in 250
Whether it is “fantastic nonsense” (Kermode 6) or the age of “reproduction”
(Heffernan 139), modern literature has come along way since the Victorian age.
Having experienced two great wars, numerous social upheavals, and political crises in the first half of the century, the twentieth-century art has been through a number of intellectual shifts, critical approaches, philosophical assumptions, and artistic deviations such as the rise of Structuralism, Psychoanalytical theorems, New Critical criticism, Post-modern fluctuation, lingua-central analytical approaches, New
Historical investigations, and deconstructive shattering. As for the ekphrastic tradition, although it bears similarities to the previous characteristics as it has been stated in the opening paragraph of this chapter, the twentieth-century ekphrasis has gone through several alterations and variations that are (more than) enough to suggest a new chronological period in addition to the first and the second phases of ekphrasis. In this new period, or the third phase of ekphrasis, ekphrastic tradition could not keep itself away from the intellectual and artistic panorama of the century resulting in a number of changes that brought a novel breath to the tradition.
Initiated by early Romantics and developed in the Victorian age, the close relationship between painting and poetry continued in the modern period only to enter a new direction. The nineteenth-century notion of art for art‟s sake had led poets to consider painting in a different way: “from painter‟s eyes,” an idea that became more prominent in the twentieth-century criticism as the need to study works
1986 (Abse and Adams, 2:1, 2:2, 2:3) including poems by Seamus Heaney and John Hollander, J.D. McClatchy‟s the Book of Essays on Ekphrasis (1988), and Beverly Long and Timothy Cag‟s A Bibliography of American Poems on Ekphrasis (1989). 251
of art from various angles turned out to be a necessity (Graham 476-477)6. The image, then, which had been “exploited” in every aspect in the Victorian age, became more essential and indispensable as the new century headed on and eventually the paragonal relationship between the word and the image entered a new course that would end for the good of the visual (Wagner 29).
The most notable change of the twentieth century took place in a much larger scale.
In fact the reception of poetry developed and changed so quickly that collections and anthologies feel the need to label and catalogue almost each decade under a different name and classification because “… there is no longer „poetry‟ but „poetries,‟ not only in terms of what people want to read but also in terms of what they want to write” (Kennedy 213). At the turn of the century, Modernist and Imagist poetry had given the signs of a great change by separating feeling from thinking through the notion of dissociation of sensibility thus leading poets of the age to a more concrete, precise, and compact diction and style occupied with new imagery “both familiar and distinct” (Kermode 167; Méndez-Ramirez 16). In time, other factors intervened and the twentieth-century poetry, as well as ekphrastic poetry, gradually became authentic, formally liberal, multiple-voiced, structurally problematic, local and ethnic, politically charged, culturally involved, intertextual, experimental, contextually complex, fragmented, playfully chaotic, and highly philosophical.
Kennedy sums up twentieth-century poetry by stating that it is a syntactical assortment of “elements taken from earlier styles and periods, classical and modern”
6 These Pre-Raphaelite and Parnassian ideas are observed in Cubist considerations (Cézanne and Picasso) and post-war (World War II) cinema and painting both of which regarded the clear distinction between time and space in works of art (Graham 476).
252
(81, 254). He argues that poetry of the age (especially after the 1960s) stands on the use of several techniques and concepts borrowed from plastic arts, philosophy and linguistics like bricolage of “multiple quotations,” parody, pastiche, intertextuality, ex-centricity (regionalism), dialogue with realism, and scepticism (social, political, intellectual) (86)7. Similar comments have been made by Hutcheon, who claims that modern art is “inescapably political” (4), and by Morrison and Motion, who argue that all modern works of art and narratives require a kind of “transition,” that would set them free (11). In short, the poet of the twentieth century steadily became more inclined with the idea that signs are arbitrary and arts were not as divine as they were once thought to be and so they tried to avoid the nineteenth-century hero-artist myth
Auden describes:
The nineteenth century created the myth of the Artist as Hero, the man who sacrifices his health and happiness to his art and in compensation claims exemption from all social responsibilities and norms of behaviour (“Calm Even” 128).
The ekphrastic practices of the age were in line with these new “poetries.”Like modern poetry, modern ekphrasis, too, is thematically and structurally complex and demanding. In order to understand the contradictory state of the new phase of ekphrasis, the theoretical ideas of Mitchell should be visited. Mitchell is a good starting point for two reasons. First, feeding on the linguistic and iconographic inheritance of Saussure, Chomsky, Panofsky, and Gombrich, he provides an accurate
7 For Kennedy these qualities make today‟s English poetry “master (English) narratives” (86). These master narratives have been suffering the thread of commodification, to make art consumable by capitalist culture (ibid. 216). There is a very well-designed list of the characteristics of twentieth century poetry in Kennedy‟s influential book. See Appendix XIII for Kennedy‟s lists of characteristics of traditional poetry, poetry after the 1980s, and twentieth-century art.
253
genealogy of paragonal relationship (Iconology 8-10). Secondly, he is one of the key theoreticians to have understood the new ekphrastic relations and presumably the only critic to provide the most complete and exact theory of ekphrasis with
(post)modern awareness. Hence it is necessary to recall some of the basic terminology Mitchell has introduced to appreciate the third phase of ekphrasis8.
Mitchell‟s first move is to assume that there is “no essential difference between poetry and painting” in terms of the objects they represent (Iconology 49). He believes that both arts represent the same appearances, events, figures, people, or buildings only using different media. In this respect, both arts act like sign systems; at least they should be regarded so. The verbal art feeds on the arbitrary signs of language just as the visual art, arbitrary in itself9, which relies on a similar sign system that also works like a linguistic code system (“Showing” 170-171). However, drawing from Lessing, he accepts the conventional idea that poetry, belonging to the
“realm of ideas and feelings,” is an art of time while painting is an art of space that represents status and “arrested action” (Iconology 47-48). It is because of this aesthetic “gap” that the paragonal relationship needs “to be overcome” (ibid. 47-48;
Gary Shapiro 15):
…[the] debate between poetry and painting is never just a contest between two kinds of signs, but a struggle between body and soul, world and mind, nature and culture (ibid. 49).
8 A preliminary theoretical introduction on Mitchell‟s work has been presented in Chapter I as well. 9 Mitchell states that painting addresses the sense of vision but the idea of vision is primarily invisible and no different than an image in the mind (“Showing” 166). 254
In this rivalry, both poetry and painting act under iconographic masks; while one uses letters and words, the other uses lines and images. Until now, Mitchell has not exceeded critics of ekphrasis of earlier times but the paragonal balance of his theorems changes when he states that the image has made a thorough leap in the twentieth century. Just as Foucault, who believes that image “is not a simple sign but a fundamental principle” (Order of Things 56), Mitchell argues for the dominance of the image in modern ages. He calls this notion “pictorial turn” (Iconology 173;
Picture 59,167). Pictorial turn refers to the process that has made image a
“commonplace… existing phenomenon” (Iconology 173). Analogous with
Foucault‟s panopticon and pipe examples, image has replaced word as the dominant prevailing medium of language, expression and communication10. Therefore, the image, which has been suppressed, raped, silenced, and pacified throughout the tradition, has gained a more fundamental position and powerful grounds due to visual-based media like television, cinema, graphic arts, and computer-based communication11. With regards to this notion, the alpha-state in the sisterhood has changed hands in a way testifying Langer‟s comment: “…there are no happy marriages in art – only successful rape” (86). Mitchell goes on to explain that the results of this pictorial shift that has been effectual in linguistics, culture, and sociology. For him, having lost much of its resources that had been regarded as an
“enduring as well as ancient poetic mode” controlled by its arbitrary signs for
10 Panopticon image refers to a certain kind of prison structure that reflects the all-seeing power of the image (also the political systems of the twentieth century). See Discipline and Punish for further details. Pipe example has derived from a surrealist painting by René Magritte, which illustrates a pipe accompanied by the tag “ceci n‟est une pipe” [this is not a pipe] (See Illustration III.i). The contradiction between the word (tag) and the image (pipe) leads the observer to wonder about which of the statements is true and thus challenges the observer‟s preconditioned knowledge. Gary Shapiro believes that the observer usually allies with the image believing that the paradoxical indication of the tag makes it highly questionable (14-15). In this sense, the signifying systems images use are more reliable compared to the utterly arbitrary sign offered by written language. 11 In fact, some of the key images, or hypericons, such as Plato‟s cave, Locke‟s dark room, and Wittgenstein‟s hieroglyphs, have always been with us and subconsciously “we keep referring to them” (Mitchell Iconology 6). 255
thousand years (Heffernan 137), the word has developed a defence mechanism under the dominance of the image. Referred to as iconophobia12, this fear of the image has caused the verbal to recess to its arbitrariness and keep away from the visual territory dealing only with the graph and the phonological.
Mitchell‟s arguments have been very influential especially in the last two decades of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century. It is true that the image that has progressively come closer to the word in the first two phases of ekphrasis is not the timid, suppressed medium of the past anymore. However, it would be misleading to assume that the paragonal relationship has totally turned upside down only to end in the victory of the visual. It is safer to call the “duel” a draw as far as the twentieth- century context is considered because the image has never come to be as powerful as the word once was and it would be unfair to finalize the ancient paragonal rivalry with the total success of the visual. Instead it could be argued that the modern phase of ekphrasis displays a visio-verbal or verba-visual co-operation on equal grounds.
So the paragonal relationship pictorial turn offers is not an antagonism; rather it is a de-paragonalised collaborative phenomenon in which there are no actual winners as it is going to be exemplified in Auden and Williams. In other words, the paragone has become deparagone, which refers to equalisation. However it is crucial to remember that the term ekphrasis, in its core, refers to a verbal representation of a visual representation: an explanation that seemingly contradicts deparagone. The development of the tradition has shown that the focus was primarily on the first phrase of this assumption (verbal representation) but the twentieth-century
12 Aka. Ekphrastic fear. See also iconophilia in Mitchell. For further details on iconophilia and iconophobia, see Mitchell Iconology 3ff. 256
deparagone, encouraging the conversion of the fixed image, has taught that the second part (visual representation) is also fundamental in ekphrastic exercises if not greater or stronger13.
The necessary co-operation the deparagonal relationship suggests is observed in the continued museum tradition. Inherited from the nineteenth-century, the habit of visiting museums for inspiration is maintained. So while Browning composed from the outside, keeping the visual away in private galleries and encompassed canvases, modern ekphrastic practitioners like Auden, Williams, and Ashbery try to get involved in the structure, meaning, and emotional suggestions of the paintings as much as possible in the museum. In fact, as the only central spaces that can offer works of art in catalogued and well-preserved environments, museums have become the heart of ekphrastic poetry:
The ekphrastic poetry of our time, then, represents individual works of art within the context of the museum… Synecdochically, the museum signifies all the institutions that select, circulate, reproduce, display, and explain works of visual art (Heffernan 139).
The interplay in the museums has become so “intra-textual” that the poet in the museum is like a performer performing without an actual audience (Petrucci
“Poetry” 8-10)14. The relationship between poetry and painting has been carried away on more collaborative grounds as well. Combining the two arts many poets
13 The changing roles in certain examples of poetry and prose (especially in the latter half of the twentieth century) should be regarded as a result of the post-modernist approaches, which offer playfulness, pastiche, and intertextuality, undermine the idea of representation, and suggest verisimilitude (Heffernan 4; Petrucci “Poetry” 2). 14 Petrucci calls such kind of museum poetry “performance poetry” (“Poetry” 10). 257
have co-worked with painters15. Waldman, who has taken part in some of these workshops, states that “…you surprise each other… A painter comes and paints or draws something on a blank sheet and she composes a few lines and it is like a ritual”
(132-133).
Consequently modern ekphrasis is a combination of the modern and post-modern poetries and involves a culmination of styles, tones, and subjects. As it grew more deparagonal and stylistically divergent, modern ekphrasis has inescapably felt the need to co-work with modern practices of the century such as “discursive mode,”
“apparent fragmentation,” frequent invasions of distracting voices, and
“incoherence” especially in the latter half of the century (Kennedy 14). With a more prosaic diction, the third phase of ekphrasis feeds on the earlier characteristics of the tradition such as the nineteenth-century tendency for museums while it also makes use of the new poetic conventions of the century as it going to be exemplified in the following paragraphs.
15 Calling this encounter a “new division,” Waldman states that painters like Joe Brainard, Elizabeth Murray, Red Grooms, Susan Hall, and George Schneeman have been producing works of art with the collaboration of poets (131).
258
5.2. Auden: “Museé des Deux Arts”
Blake‟s watercolour Ancient of Days16 was composed in 1794 by using relief etching, an acid-based colouring technique invented by Blake himself (“Etching”). As to how the original copy of Ancient of Days came down to ornament W.H. Auden‟s New
York apartment wall is not known but it is true that Auden had a great interest in paintings and images (Auden “Calm Even” 127). Just like the Romantic poets of the previous century, Auden was a museum lover though, having experienced the two great wars, the chaotic European atmosphere had prevented him from visiting more museums against his will (Carpenter 4). Eventually his interest in painting has won him the title „the writer of‟ “the most widely known… [and] the most influential… ekphrastic poem…:” “Museé des Beaux Arts” (Hollander 249).
It is well-known that “Museé des Beaux Arts17” is an ekphrastic poem accompanying
Peter Brueghel the Elder‟s famous painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, as indicated by the clear reference to Icarus and the painting (See Illustration III.iii): “In
Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away / Quite leisurely from the disaster…” (14-15). Indeed the painting is a poet-hunter having inspired other renowned poems like William Carlos Williams‟s “Landscape with the Fall of
Icarus18” and George Santayana‟s “Icarus.” Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is also a significant exception because it is the only mythological painting of Brueghel the
Elder, or Peasant Brueghel19, who is acknowledged with his religious themes
16 See Illustration III.ii. 17 Referred to as “Museé” henceforth. See Appendix XII for the poem. 18 Poets like John Berryman, Norbert Krapf and Joseph Langland also have poems composed on the painting with the same name. 19 Brueghel is nicknamed “Peasant Brueghel” or “Brueghel the Peasant” because of his habit of dressing up like a peasant to involve in country activities such as weddings (reflected in his Peasant Wedding) and carnivals (reflected in his Peasants’s Dance and Children Games) (Hecht 19-23). 259
depicted in Flemish backgrounds (Stechow 50; Mayor 425). It is known that Auden met the painting in his visit to Brussels in 1938 (Carpenter 99). Considering the title of the poem, it is very probable that the version he saw is the original copy of the painting that had been discovered and bought by Royal Museum of Fine Arts in
Brussels in 191220. The poem, as is the painting, is basically about the human condition in life and the indifference of human beings to one another. As Icarus falls from the sky, neither the ploughman nor the shepherd cares:
…the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. (17-21).
Recent studies have put forward the assumption that both Auden and Brueghel had been familiar with the ignorance, suffering, and socially distressed structure of their ages. Interestingly enough the thread were the German in both cases. Brueghel had suffered from invasions of Hapsburg Empire (Mayor 424-425; “Auden‟s „Museé des
Beaux Arts”)21. Similarly Auden had felt the tense atmosphere of the German thread before the World War II in Europe. Another point that might be helpful in analysing the poem is that Brueghel, who painted a unique painting on proverbs called the
20 The original oil-on-canvas painting is at Museés-Royaux des Beaux Arts in Brussels. It is darker and almost twice as large as the second version. The other Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is an oil-on wood work at Van Buuren Museum also in Brussels. It is probable that this version is a quick copy of the original by Brueghel the Younger. In this version the artist had preferred to add Deadalus on the air (See Illustrations III.iv. and III.v.) (Kinney 529). However, recently, researchers believe that both paintings are copies of a lost original by the Brueghels (“The Works of Arts”). 21 Brueghel states that his homeland suffered “under the foot of foreign oppression” (qtd. in “Auden‟s „Museé des Beaux Arts”). He usually saves space for the heavy taxes, military sieges, and invasions of the Hapsburg Empire. The Census at Bethlehem reveals that the census-taker and tax collecting officers are Hapsburg Germans as reflected in the cote of arms above the door of the house, which centres the painting (See the squared area in Illustration III.ix). 260
Netherlandish Proverbs22, was presumably familiar with the Flemish proverb: “En de boer ploegde verder...” (“And the farmer continued to plough...”) referring to the ignorance of men towards the poor and the weak under foreign thread and/or social unrest (Hunt). A similar proverb is also found in German and it is also possible to have inspired Brueghel: “No plough comes to a standstill because a man dies”
(Heffernan 220). An exact reference is made to this proverb in Blake‟s “Marriage of
Heaven and Hell” and Auden‟s acquaintance with the theme may have been resulted from his interest in Blake, as indicated in the opening paragraph of this section (ibid.
220)23.
However, before moving on to the ekphrastic qualities the poem features, there is a fundamental point that should be clarified since it will be very influential throughout the analysis of the poem and may change the common assumptions about “Museé.”
It is often thought that the first stanza of the poem focuses on a universal truth while the second stanza, opening with a reference to Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, focuses on Brueghel‟s work. The reliability of this widely accepted idea is highly questionable. In fact, as it going to be explained, “Museé” is not simply a meditative ekphrastic poem that solely deals with universal generalisations24 by taking
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus as its starting point and only source of inspiration.
To begin with, the capitalized “The Old Masters” in the second line refers not to the
22 See Illustration III.vi. The painting illustrates about a hundred of Netherlandish proverbs of Brueghel‟s time. 23 Blake‟s poem reads:
In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. (“Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Proverbs of Hell” 1-4).
24 The poem‟s thematic background has been discussed and altered to such an extent that some of the critics even question the notion that the poem is about a “universal truth” (Heffernan 147). 261
past generations, experience of the elderly, or the ancients but to the painters from sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Actually, the term may have been used by Auden to refer to specific painters like Michalengelo and Van Gogh as in some of his critical writings (Auden “Calm Even”128, 137). More essential than that the first fifteen lines in the poem refer to a specific painting again by Brueghel, and not simply to
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus25. I argue that the painting behind the pictorial background of the first stanza of the poem is Brueghel the Elder‟s the Census at
Bethlehem (1566)26. The painting, which was being displayed in the same hall with
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (in late 1938) before the German invasion, provides all the images in the first stanza, especially after the third line:
About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; how well, they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. (1-13)27.
25 Some critics believe that the first stanza contains references to two (or more) paintings by Brueghel: The Census at Bethlehem [aka. The Numbering at Bethlehem] and The Slaughter of the Innocents (Riffaterre “Textuality” 8; Long and Cage 287; Hollander 251). Although it is true that The Slaughter of the Innocents may have played a role in the creation of the chaotic background of the poem, it is unlikely for Auden to have seen the painting between 1938 and 1939, when the painting was at Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna, not in Brussels. Hecht, on the other hand, assumes that Auden might have seen both paintings in a book (100). This argument is also questionable because of the rarity of well-printed art publication during the 1930s. Heffernan argues that “the three paintings” theory is an overstatement (146). The most accurate commentary about the source of inspiration of “Museé” belongs to Arthur F. Kinney, who suggests that the first section of the poem had been composed on The Census at Bethlehem with references to Bible. Although Kinney‟s short but accurate investigation deals with the painting and Biblical references, his study of the poem contains missing and/or irrelevant details (529-531). 26 See Illustration III.vii. 27 Emphasis added. 262
Comparing the details provided in the poem with those on the painting, not a single point is left out28 and the poem forms an almost exact parallelism with the painting.
As the painting shows, there are people eating, “walking dully along,” and opening a window. There are also children who are “skating on a pond at the edge of the wood” while, here and there, dogs are wandering around. Towards the middle there is a horse that has turned its back behind a tree, probably “scratch[ing] its innocent behind on a tree.” As for the people waiting for the “miraculous birth,” another point should be clarified. Brueghel the Elder‟s basic concerns are religious themes though his down-to-earth style never makes religious dogmas surpass his works. Rejecting the dictations of the church, his religious figures are usually away from the idealised conceptions about Christ or Mary (Hecht 102). It should be noticed that although the name of the painting is the Census at Bethlehem, the scenery is typically Flemish, portraying Brueghel‟s homeland. There is a country census going on in which peasants have gathered in front of the census-taker‟s house to pay taxes and enrol in the census list (“Auden‟s „Museé des Beaux Arts‟”). However, as its name suggests, the Census at Bethlehem is primarily a religious painting displaying Mary and Joseph entering the town29. Towards the middle-bottom of the painting, Mary is riding a mule dragged by Joseph ahead through the busy habitants rushing helter-skelter, children playing around, and census enrolment crowd rushing up and down.
Contrasted with the dynamism of the painting Mary and Joseph are passing through the town with their heads down. Just as he depicts the biblical story of Joseph and
Mary entering Bethelem30 in a Flemish setting, it is typical of Brueghel to portray
28 See Illustration III.viii. 29 See Illustrations III.ix. and III.x. 30 It is beneficial to remember that Brueghel was loyal to the anectode in that Mary and Joseph entered to Bethlehem in order “to be counted for taxation” as it is in the Bible (Kinney 529): 263
religious figures within earthly against the dictum of the church. Besides it is interesting to note that just like Auden, it is probable that Brueghel was also a
Protestant convert (Stechow 50-51; Mayor 424)31. Therefore his reformist view in his depictions is comprehensible.
…this picture‟s [Landscape with the Fall of Icarus] composition is deeply affected by the psychological weight placed on the lower right corner, which means that examination of the poem‟s form cannot be detached from the story of what is represented; that is something that must be brought from outside. Not only must one know the title (and hence the story) to understand the picture, also the work‟s meaning is inextricably intertwined with the work‟s formal properties of the painting (Davies 63).
With regards to the hypothesis that “Museé” focuses on more than one painting, common criticism like Davies above cannot be verified. Therefore, it is safer to study the poem by referring to both paintings since only a study of the two paintings can provide parallelism and explanations for the missing and misjudged details. Keeping this in mind, it is going to be explained that Auden‟s poem is not merely a meditative ekphrasis commenting and contemplating on man‟s ignorance towards others and the painful results of indifference but a poem that moves between imitative and meditative modes in order to illustrate human condition by depicting two particular works of Brueghel.
And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Ceaser Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyre‟ni-us was governor of Syria). And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. And Joseph also went up for Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David) to be taxed with Mary his expoused wife, being great with child (Luke II: 1-5).
31 Towards the end of his life Auden returned to Roman Catholicism (Carpenter 86, 112). 264
The title of the poem provides a good start for analysis. Unlike typically ekphrastic poems like “Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” “On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery,”or “Elegiac Stanzas, Suggested by a Picture of Peele
Castle, in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont” which carry revealing details
(painter, title of the painting, location) about objet d’art in their titles, Auden has chosen a more generic title while he could have entitled the poem with an open reference as he did in “The Shield of Achilles.32” Although he could have named the poem as “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus,” as Williams did, he preferred the name of the museum probably because he composed on two paintings that hung in the same gallery showroom in Brussels. There is also another reason that might have been influential on the title. Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is a painting that focuses on the ploughman in the centre not on the two little feet splashing in the water on the lower-right side of the work. Indeed, as Heffernan argues, it would be very hard to recognise the mythological reference of the painting should the title simply be something else like “Landscape” or “The Ploughman” (148)33. Therefore,
Auden may have recognised this point and have decided to include an exact reference to the painting, “In Brueghel‟s Icarus” (14), in order to avoid the ambiguity
Brueghel‟s painting had offered. As for the Census at Bethlehem, it could be argued that Auden presumably did not feel the need to indicate the title of the painting for the reference to the painting was obvious enough and eventually preferred a more common title like “Museé des Beaux Arts,” which would be more inclusive and adequate to designate the painting(s).
32 “The Shield of Achilles,” first published in 1953, has also given its name to Auden‟s 1955 collection The Shield of Achilles. 33 Heffernan states that, in such this case, only the copy at Van Buuren Museum would be revealing with its flying Deadalus figure (148). 265
The poem has two stanzas and it manipulates metrical qualities of conventional
English lyrics with various lengths of lines and unequal metrical distribution. Hence it is hard to talk about metrical parallelism; the only rhyming couplets are found in the second stanza where “…turns away /…the ploughman may” (14-15), “…the green / …that must have seen” (18-19), “…the forsaken cry / …out of the sky” (16,
20), and “…the sun shone / …calmly on” (15, 21) rhyme. Thematically, as it has been mentioned earlier, the poem focuses on the apathy among people towards the events that are taking place around (even right in front of) them whether the incident is over a matter of little or great importance. This is also observed in the paintings.
Both of the events in the paintings are events of utmost importance that cannot be turned a blind eye to: “a boy falling out of the sky” (20) and the coming of Mary and
Joseph that would eventually lead to “the miraculous birth” (7). So the magnitude of these events and the degree of attention paid by the figures contrasts and this is present in the poem as well. In order to form a parallelism between the paintings and the poem, Auden created the same effect by his use of vocabulary in a similar paradoxical way. The sense of pain and anguish created by the lexical items like
“disaster,” “dreadful,” “suffering,” “torturer,” and “forsaken cry” contrasts with the sense of unresponsiveness created through adverbs like “calmly,” “dully,” and
“reverently.” Such kind of lexical deviation is likewise present in the tone, which is conversational and carefree as if the narrator is telling a casual story about the ordinary lives of men indicated by colloquial usages like “Anyhow” and “How.”
Consequently, in the paintings as in the poem, none of the figures are interested with the “miraculous” events going on. In the first stanza and in the Census at Bethlehem neither the children nor the animals are aware of the arrival of Mary and Joseph: 266
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. (4-12).
The same idea is also found in the latter half of the poem. As in the Flemish proverb
“And the farmer continued to plough...,” the ploughman shows no reactions.
Correspondingly the ship that Icarus falls near by “ha[s] somewhere to get to and sail[s] calmly on.” Considering the Census at Bethlehem, it is clearly depicted that none of the figures recognise Mary and Joseph, not even the four people right beside the holy couple34. The theme of indifference is more bereft in the Landscape with the
Fall of Icarus. The ploughman in the centre, the fisherman in the lower-right corner, the shepherd and his dog in the middle are all indifferent to “the splash, the forsaken cry” (16)35. Even the sailors seem like they are deaf to the splash in the water just near the ship which is against the code of seamen36. It is interesting to note that none of the figures are looking at the direction of Icarus‟s feet, even the fisherman looks too busy to see Icarus right in front of him; the shepherd and his dog, too, have turned their backs to the event, while the ploughman keeps ploughing with his head
34 See Illustration III.x. 35 See Illustration III.xi. 36 Leaving behind a (drowning) man in the sea is a violation of ethic rules of seamanship (Riffaterre “Textuality” 8). See Illustration III.xii. 267
down37. So the fall is “not an important failure” and the sole consequence Auden comes up is the “life-goes-on” theme:
They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life… …the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. (9-14, 17-21).
An analogous stylistic parallelism is created by the paintings in a peculiar way.
Brueghel had cleverly chosen his figures to centralise the paintings; the horizontal and/or vertical focus of the paintings is never on the starring characters like Icarus or
Mary but on irrelevant and casual figures. In the Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, it is the shepherd. The indifferent shepherd, who (with his dog) looks at a totally different direction other than Icarus, occupies the exact horizontal centre of the painting38. Brueghel‟s central figure is more metaphorical in the Census at
Bethlehem. Since life flows in its own course in the painting, Brueghel makes use of a typically medieval symbol of life: the wheel of fortune39 (“Auden‟s „Museé des
Beaux Arts‟”). The wheel of fortune, with the twelve arms centralised around a circle40, was used to represent the zodiac which in return represented human life
(Huson 107-109). Just like the shepherd, the wheel is in the middle; but this time it is
37 See Illustration III.xiii. 38 The shepherd being a figure of 3 cm is in the centre with reference to the horizontal axis of the painting which is 112 cm long: Xa: 54,5 cm, Xb: 54,5 cm; Y:8,8 cm: Ya: 24,7 cm, Yb: 32, 5 cm. See Illustration III.xiv. 39 Aka. “the wheel of life:” Gr.zoe (“animal, life”) + Gr. diskos (“wheel”): zodiac. 40 None of the other wheels in the painting has twelve arms; others either have thirteen, eleven, or ten. 268
in the almost exact centre of the painting41. Therefore, though metaphorically, the wheel in the middle represents the idea that life runs in its own course anyhow no matter how people are ignorant to great changes.
Both paintings reflect their thematic considerations. Just as the figures, the painting illustrates Icarus and the holy couple at unimportant spots of the paintings. They are never centralised; rather they are lost in the worldly worries of surrounding images.
In the poem, too, they are neglected on verbal level:
From Brueghel‟s painting Auden picks out and emphasises the „centrifugal‟ aspects – the flight from a common centre to a disparate periphery where nothing coheres… Auden‟s poem, like the painting that inspired it, has no focal centre around which the less significant events are organised; its most important event occurs in its skirts, „by the way‟ as it were (Garrett 222-3)42.
The stylistic parallelism on the theme of ignorance is well-thought in the poem.
Neither Mary nor Joseph is mentioned; the sole reference considering their identity is made to Christ, “the miraculous birth,” and even in that, the name remains unspecified (6). As for Icarus, whose name is mentioned only once, Auden does not use any pronouns; there isn‟t a “he,” “him,” or “his” except for “a boy falling out of the sky,” which indicates the insignificance of the figure and/or the event43.
41 The wheel (5,9 cm x 4,3 cm) is in the centre with reference to the horizontal and vertical axes of the painting: 116 cm x 164,5 cm / (X: 5,9 cm) Xa: 79,2 cm, Xb: 79,2 cm; (Y:4,3 cm) Ya:55,6 cm, Yb: 56, 9 cm. See Illustration III.xv. 42 Garrett refers only to the Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. 43 The only object pronoun in the poem, “him,” is used for the ploughman (17). 269
The grammatical energy of the poem is appealingly foregrounded. There are twenty- one verbs of action like “take place,” “turn away,” “scratch,” “run,” and “fall,” most of which indicate sheer action. Some of these verbs are gerunds (three in a single line) providing further dynamism: “While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along” (4)44. It is interesting that some of the verbs of action have been softened by the use of adverbs. The majority of these (nine) adverbs are used to inactivate the motion the verbs evoke as in “walking dully along,”
“reverently, passionately waiting,” and “sailed calmly on.” These three adverbs of time play an essential role in the poem‟s fame as a literary work about a universal phenomenon; “never” (twice) and always creates the sense that the argument of the poem is a result of experience as in:
About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; … there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course (1, 6-10)45.
Adjectives also add to the semantic parallelism. There are eleven adjectives including colours like “green” and “white:” “…on the white legs disappearing into the green…” (18). As opposed to the motion in the paintings, none of these adjectives address to sense of hearing. Except for the two nouns “cry” and “splash,” the poem, too, is indifferent to the audible qualities the two paintings might offer.
44 Emphasis added. 45 Emphasis added. 270
Except for the soundless atmosphere in the poem, which might have resulted from the subject matter of the works (ignorance), the poem provides the paintings with a dynamic diction and verbal energy with gerunds and verbs of action. As in the case of verbs, the colours have been avoided at times as it was observed in Dante.
However, Auden does not hesitate to make use of such adjectives. Moreover,
“Museé” is not a typically suppressive ekphrastic poem putting lexico-verbal pressure on the paintings. As the contextually central figures in both paintings are already sadly ignored, Auden does not further trouble them with verbal dominance; instead the diction is considerably relaxed and disclaiming.
To conclude, it could be stated that Auden‟s poem reflects the twentieth-century poetic tendencies with his straight-forward and light-hearted tone. As seen on, the verbal does not consider the visual as a rival but as a companion – it encompasses the visual and keeps a certain stylistic parallelism with what the image has to offer on grapho-logical, semantic, and syntactical grounds. Written in the 1930s, the poem illustrates the new level of ekphrastic relations with its emphasis on the deparagonal shift integrating poetry and painting. So the verbal is never the dominant sister anymore as indicated in Auden‟s words “poetry makes nothing happen” (qtd. in
Kennedy 236).
271
5.3. William C. Williams: “Man Cannot Think Without Images46”
Needless to say, ekphrasis was also influential across the Atlantic. Especially after the 1920s, ekphrasis was regarded as a primary literary device and this idea gradually developed through the century to produce noteworthy ekphrastic poems like Walt
Whitman‟s “Death‟s Valley,” Donald Hall‟s “Scream,” Vicki Hearne‟s “Gauguin‟s
White Horse,” John Hollander‟s “Effet de Niege,” and W.D. Snodgrass‟s “Matisse:
The Red Studio.” Assuredly American literary tradition has come up with the only international journals that specialize on ekphrasis and ekphrastic studies, Ekphrasis and Beauty/Truth, just as William Carlos Williams, who is the only poet in this study to publish a collection specifically dedicated to ekphrastic poetry in the twentieth century: Pictures from Brueghel47.
Williams is renown with his interest in painting. In fact he himself enjoyed painting on Sundays at the parks of University of Pennsylvania (Szczepanek 4). In his life time, he had composed about two dozens of ekphrastic poems and made friends with the Cubist painters and theorists (ibid. 5-6). His first ekphrastic piece, “The
Dance,48” was composed for Brueghel the Elder‟s The Kermess (Peasant Dance) in
1942. The poem was followed by his ekphrastic passages in Paterson: Book Five49 and in 1962 Williams published his Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems, which
46 The statement is known to be Thomas Acquinas‟s (in his Summe Theologica, Ia-Q85-a1, Ia-Q84-a7) although it has also been attributed to St. Augustine (See Hughes) (qtd in Chammings 2; Janet and Sb‟ailles 95). 47 Although Williams, who has a peculiar diction own his own, may not provide a general idea on ekphrastic tendencies in the North America, the ekphrastic qualities of his poems reveal satisfactory clues about the reception of ekphrasis, deparagonal relationship, and the new directions the tradition had gone through. This is the reason why I have chosen Williams as the representative ekphrastic poet in the continent instead of Whitman, or a more recent poet like Hollander. Besides Williams is the major figure that literary critics associate with key words like “ekphrasis” and “America” (Szczepanek 4; Heffernan 155). 48 “The Dance” precedes Pictures from Brueghel collection. Actually the poem was first published in 1944 (in The Wedge) and included in the collection (Selected Poems) much later, in 1985. 49 Written in 1958, published in 1960 in Hudson Review, the ekphrastic passage was composed on Brueghel‟s Adoration of the Magi. 272
clearly shows that, among many other painters, Brueghel was his “special favourite”
(Verdonk “Painting” 233). The collection contains twelve ekphrastic poems, all on different paintings on Brueghel like “Peasant Wedding” (on The Wedding Banquet),
“The Parable of the Blind” (on The Parable of the Blind), “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” (on The Landscape with the Fall of Icarus), “The Hunter in the Snow” (on
The Hunters in the Snow)50, “The Adoration of the Kings” (on The Adoration of the
Kings), “The Corn Harvest” (on The Harvesters), and “The Dance” (on The
Kermess)51.
Considering these poems, “The Dance” stands out with its notably playful diction and structure. Typical of Williams, the poem offers a non-stop syntax, a relentless fluidity, and scanning moves that resemble Jonson and Rosetti. It is a poem that presents, what Krieger calls, “semiotic desire for the natural sign,” the ekphrastic impulse to express the image, thus revealing Williams‟s imagist tendencies (11)52.
“The Dance53” is an ekphrastic poem on Brueghel‟s The Kermess54 that represents a country carnival with its dances, music, merriment, love making, eating, and drinking (See Illustration III.xvi.). Stylistically and structurally parallel to the jolly and audio-visually dynamic atmosphere of the painting, “The Dance” displays a
50 John Berryman‟s “Winter Landscape,” written about thirty years eralier, also ekphrasizes on the same painting just as Walter de la Mare‟s “Brueghel‟s Winter” and Joseph Langland‟s “Hunters in the Snow: Brueghel.” 51 The parallelism between the titles of the poems and the paintings reflect the museum-oriented ekphrasis of the time. 52 By “semiotic desire,” Krieger refers to the western idea to fix and freeze the image (11-12). However he also believes that, although poetry is able to achieve “verbal pictorialism,” the search for a natural sign or image is in vain for it can never find and/or be natural (Krieger 12, 67). 53 See Appendix XIV for the text of the poem. 54 Aka. The Kermesse or Peasant Dance. Although the word “kermesse” is familiar in Turkish, it may not mean much to a native English speaker. The word derives from “kerk” (i.e. “church”) and “mis” (“mass”) and it primarily indicates a celebration in the Flemish country commemorating the birth of the protecting saint of the village. The date of kermesses (or kercmisse and kermises in Dutch vernaculars) changed in every village for each settlement was identified with a different religious figure. In time, these creed celebrations turned out to be mundane funfairs and carnivals (Verdonk “Painting” 242).
273
unique rhythm, enargeia, and precise diction “recreating” the painting through verbal repetitions and parallelisms (Sayre 135).
Williams‟s style is closer to imitative ekphrasis unlike Auden‟s poem55. The poem depicts the painting in every aspect. In terms of content, the poem is like a short synopsis of the painting reminding us the short informative tags under the paintings in museums:
…the dancers go round, they go round and around, the squeal and the blare and the tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles tipping their bellies (round as the thick- sided glasses whose wash they impound) their hips and their bellies off balance to turn them… (2-8).
From the central figures like dancers and pipers to pictorials details like “glasses,” he scans the painting in almost every aspect. In fact, Williams straightforward style is rather typical. Since he believes that the twentieth-century language suffers from
“…blurred, not decorative, non-linear syntax, unconventional” objects and dictions,
William prefers to concentrate on the unfussiness and simplicity of the target object
(paintings) by way of a purified and precise poetic language (Szczepanek 4). In many of his ekphrastic poems, he focuses on the image and the figures that attract readers‟ attention at first sight:
55 Heffernan considers the poem as a solely descriptive piece (153). 274
According to Brueghel when Icarus fell it was spring a farmer was ploughing his field the whole pageantry
of the year was awake tingling near
the edge of the sea concerned with itself (“Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” 1-12)56.
The graphological laytout of these poems is also worth mentioning. It is typical of
Williams to present the image in the most precise way possible. There are hardly any sentences but phrases that seem to be put in a random order vertically. This uneconomical use of the page creates the sense that the poem is read from top to bottom rather than from left to right as if the reader is scanning a poster or a billboard. Having adopted the key concepts of the Imagist movement and carrying the sounds of Romantic idea of the image, Williams‟s primary focus is on the central images rather than on content or contemplation. The presentation of the central figures is observed clearer as “The Corn Harvest” opens in an exclamatory remark on the basic concern of the painting, summer:
Summer ! the painting is organized about a young reaper enjoying his noonday rest completely (1-6)57.
56 See Illustration III.iii. 57 See Illustration III.xvii. 275
Ekphrasis has never been more direct. It is Williams‟s characteristic to begin with the first impression he gets from the painting58. From this point, his poetry verifies
Heffernan‟s idea that modern ekphrasis is primarily museum ekphrasis. Similar to
“The Dance,” “The Corn Harvest,” too, recalls museum tags under each work of art.
One of the best examples of such museum-tag poems is “The Hunter in the Snow:”
The over-all picture is winter icy mountains in the background the return
from the hunt it is toward evening from the left sturdy hunters lead in
their pack the inn-sign hanging from a broken hinge is a stag a crucifix
between his antlers the cold inn yard is deserted but for a huge bonfire
that flares wind-driven tended by women who cluster about it to the right beyond
the hill is a pattern of skaters Brueghel the painter concerned with it all has chosen
58 In Williams‟s prose writings, too, one can sense the same direct diction. The straightforward quality in his essay “Painting in the American Grain,” a descriptive essay on a gallery on early American painting in Washington (1954), is worth quoting:
As you enter the gallery – there are a total of 109 paintings of all sizes – the first thing that hits your eye is the immediacy of the scene, I should say the color!... A beloved infant had died. If only they could bring it back to life again!... A head, a head of a young woman in its title designated as “Blue Eyes,” caught my eye at once because of the simplicity and convincing dignity of the profile... A portrait of a woman past middle life attracted me by the hollow-cheeked majesty of its pose... The style of all these paintings is direct. Purposeful... (29-32).
276
a winter-struck bush for his foreground to complete the picture. (1-18)59.
By relating “the over-all picture,” Williams seems to have written this poem particularly for art lovers who suffer from the loss of sight. Using such a pictorially powerful and effortlessly straightforward style, Williams is possibly the most representative poet testifying the museum-centred twentieth-century ekphrasis with a peculiarly unswerving and prosaic style60.
Williams also plays with stylistic structures of his poetry, which is at least as striking as his unusually image-centred minimalistic diction. “The Dance” has “a circular poetic structure to rival the structure of both dance and painting” (Sayre 138). It corresponds with the cyclic dance and energy the painting suggests through internal rhyme and carefully designed stylistic features. The cyclic move, foregrounded in the syntax and lexis, is first found in the opening and closing of the poem:
In Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess, the dancers go round, they go round and … rollicking measures, prance as they dance in Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess. (1-2, 11-12).
As the initial line is syntactically and grammatically repeated at the end, the end becomes the beginning again and this syntactical anaphora re-draws the reader into
59 See Illustration III.xviii. 60 Heffernan calls Williams an “amateur museum visitor… a story teller” because of his simplistic expressions and his naïve observing eye dedicated to receive the pure image (155). 277
the poem once again and completes the geometrical move the painting suggests61.
The same syntactical move is observed in the whole poem. Although the poem is not designed to form a metrical coherence, it is a “waltz-like dance” with a rhythm and music of its own (Verdonk “Painting” 238): “…the metrical line-boundary tells me to pause, while the unfinished syntax pulls me into the next line” (ibid. 238). Indeed run-on-lines leave readers breathless but they are also energetic just as the painting itself. Typically Williams concentrates on the central images dancing on the right, not on the details of the painting because he is more interested with the repetitive musicality of the painting as the poem openly projects:
the dancers go round, they go round and around, the squeal and the blare and the tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles tipping their bellies… (2-5).
The musicality of the painting is also projected as repetitions and syntactically bound line structure. All twelve lines are connected with enjambment so there is no pause between the lines and the poem is read as if it is a single sentence (though there are only two sentences in the poem). The same stylistic point continues on the lexical level. The cyclic dance in the poem is reflected in the use of “(a)round” (five times) and gerund structures like “tipping,” “kicking and rolling,” and “swinging.” The syndeton based on the co-ordinating conjunction “and” (five times) makes the poem ebullient:
61 Verdonk regards this repetition as an act to draw the frame of the painting on verbal grounds. He states that this is a typically Gestalt point of view to consider figure-ground organization (in the 1910s) (“Painting” 240). 278
…they go round and around, the squeal and the blare and the tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles tipping their bellies… (2-5)62.
A similar repeated pattern is the article “the” (eight times) that invites readers into the poem and into the dance; and the dance of the poet and the painter becomes one
(Verdonk “Painting” 240). Readers are encouraged to dance with the dancers through frequent references to third person plural pronouns: “their” (four times), “they”
(twice), and “them” (once). More than any lexical detail, music is the key quality in both works. The music and sounds in the painting are reflected in the poem in such as way that recalls Homeric ekphrasis and sound effects. Only three lines in the poem
(1, 2, and 12) do not contain a direct reference to sounds. The remaining nine lines indicate that music is at the heart of the poem:
…the squeal and the blare and the tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles tipping their bellies (round as the thick- sided glasses whose wash they impound) their hips and their bellies off balance to turn them. Kicking and rolling about the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those shanks must be sound to bear up under such rollicking measures, prance as they dance… (3-11).
Musicality is structurally reflected, too. There is a constant alliteration on “b” and
“d:”
62 Emphasis added. 279
…they go round and around, the squeal and the blare and the tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles tipping their bellies… (2-5)63.
Assonance on “i” and “i:” is clearer and its frequent repetition creates an effect of bagpipe music in the painting:
the squeal and the blare and the tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles tipping their bellies (round as the thick- sided glasses whose wash they impound) their hips and their bellies off balance to turn them. Kicking and rolling about the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts… (3-10)64.
Providing motion to the poem, the musical quality represents the sounds in the painting. Readers hear the bagpipes playing while they also hear the tapping feet, prancing dancers, and the background noises.
Apart from musicality, Williams‟s graphological choices also add dynamism to the poem. In addition to irregular usage of punctuation, especially of full-stops and commas, the lack of capitalisation provides the poem an energetic pace. When read aloud, the words run swiftly and almost leave the reader breathless and tired. As opposed to his other ekphrastic examples presented above, Williams‟s “The Dance” looks more compact on the page in terms of syntax as well; in that sense “The
Dance” is not a vertical but a horizontal poem. This is probably because Williams
63 Emphasis added. 64 Emphasis added. 280
aims to create a circular effect (from left to right) rather than a vertical effect (from top to bottom). Longer lines, supported with enjambment, lead “The Dance” to be read in such a way that invites readers to take part in the spherical move with the dancers in the painting share.
“The Dance” is parallel to Brueghel‟s painting in almost every level. As in many modern ekphrastic pieces, it would be hard to talk about rivalry between the poem and the painting. Indeed the poem opens and ends by calling the painting a “great picture” and by commemorating the painter and title of the painting twice in twelve lines. Therefore Williams represents Aquinas‟s notion “man cannot think without images” by taking it one step further, to “man cannot express himself without living images.” Parallel to the thematic and formal qualities of the painting, “The Dance” is like the exact correspondence of Peasant Dance and a representative example of the deparagonal relationship of the third phase of ekphrasis.
281
5.4. Derek Mahon: “The Hunt by Sight”
Like Williams, Derek Mahon has a special interest in visual arts. Although he does not have a volume dedicated solely on ekphrasis, many of his collections contain at least on ekphrastic poem (Hugh vi-vii). His “Girls on the Bridge” (on Edward
Much‟s Girls on a Bridge) and “Courtyard in Delft” (on Pieter de Hooch‟s “The
Courtyard of a House in Delft”) are among his well-known ekphrastic poems.
However none of his poems on visual arts has received literary appreciation as much as “The Hunt by Night” (Patke). Published in 1982, “The Hunt by Night65” is the title poem of Derek Mahon‟s tenth poetry collection The Hunt by Night. The poem is composed after Mahon‟s visit to Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and his encounter with Paolo Uccello‟s a Hunt in the Forest, or the Hunt by Night (See Illustration
III.xix.).
As a typical modern ekphrastic poem, “The Hunt” illustrates the painting on many levels. But this time, the poet does not only depict and word-paint the target object but also contemplates on it. Philosophising on the feeling Uccello‟s painting evokes,
“The Hunt” is more meditative than imitative. A Hunt in the Forest, which represents a Renaissance hunting party, is known with its perspective techniques (Borsi and
Borsi 2-3). As explained in Vasari and Alberti, Uccello feeds on the Renaissance methods that lead to geometrically well-designed paintings (Haberer 2). Haberer‟s structural analysis could be helpful while studying the paralellism between the design of the painting and the poem66. Haberer makes use of a similar perspective analysis with a vertical structure indicated with letters and numbers: each corner is designated
65 Referred to as “The Hunt” henceforth. See Appendix XV for the full-text poem. 66 Haberer‟s analysis seems to be the only in-depth analysis of the poem since it has been found out that very little ciritical commentary has been made on the poem throughout the research. 282
with letters A, B, and C while the axes are numbered 1, 2, and 3. Similar to Marin‟s model67, he scans the poem with reference to the meeting points of each axis as: A2 /
B3 / C4 / C4 / B3 /A2 (ibid. 3-5). According to him, the painting has an exact point of convergence (or vanishing point) supported with symmetrical lines of convergence (ibid. 5). The figures or the hunt in general, meet towards the middle and head to the vanishing point in the painting68. Every single figure, from hunters to hounds, move to the vanishing point and into the forest. From this point of view, the painting is “…a powerful picture” with its dramatic quality, and vitality based on the strict mathematical rationality of its perspective (ibid. 3). A parallel structure is also observed in colours69. The bottom of the painting displays the light green surface of the forest (level 1) while the second level (level 2) displays the hunters and the hunting company in bright colours like red, white, and brown. The last level (level 3) contrasts with the moonlit levels (1 and 2) and it is quite dark, almost pitch dark, blocking the sight from seeing the deep forest70. The lighting in the poem is very unconventional because the moonlight falls on the figures in such a way that they are almost depicted as if they had been under spotlights. Contradicting with the dark forest, the first two levels of the painting are strangely lit and visible71.
“The Hunt” relates the background story of the painting. It could be read as a metaphor of the history of man focusing on the concept of hunting from “neolithic” times to the present. Mahon begins the poem by stating that hunting was an ancient human exercise:
67 See Figure III in Chapter I. 68 See Illustration III.xx. 69 See Illustration III.xxi. 70 Mahon saw the painting in its darker state, before the painting underwent a thorough cleaning in 1988 and became much brighter (Haberer 2-3). As it going to be explained, this darkness is reflected in the poem as well. 71 Haberer states that the crescent moon in the painting symbolises Diana, the goddess of hunt and moon (2). 283
Swift flights of bison in a cave Where man the maker killed to live; But neolithic bush became The midnight woods Of nursery walls, The ancient fears mutated To play… (3-9).
Gradually, the bison hunting man, who “killed to live,” turned out to be a hunter in
“the midnight woods” (4, 6). Then, in time, these hunting parties became to ornament
“nursery walls” in the form of paintings. The story of hunting, then, is like the story of mankind on the earth. Mankind has evolved from “killing to live” to hunting “for fun… /And not for food” (4, 35-36). Therefore, going between describing the painting and contemplating on the state of man, the poem also an inspirational piece that describes the painting in the mimetic mode at the same time.
Parallelism is at heart of the poem. There are various semiotic levels like verbal, iconic, and syntactical levels as well as some significant repetitive and corresponding forms that have been spatially and icono-graphically applied. First of all, it should be stated that “The Hunt” shares the parallel formal structures of the painting. It consists of six stanzas with six lines in each and the relation of these thirty-six lines recall the even distribution of images and colours on the canvas. As each group of figures
(horses on the left and right, hounds in the middle, trees in the background and so on)72 the lines have been organised in an orderly way. Each stanza begins and ends with a diametrical line while the rest of the lines gradually enlarge and diminish reminding us a sense of breathing. The metrical length of the lines seems like
72 See Illustration III.xxii. 284
vertically standing rectangular shapes on the page which resemble the linear distributions of figures in the painting. In addition to that the poem on the page resembles the overall panorama of the painting when it is turned sideways as in
Herbert‟s “Easter Wings.” At this point, Haberer divides the poem into three sections indicated by numerous incomplete sentences. He states that after the first part, which is made of a single sentence, comes the second part, with three syntactical patterns.
The last section is the longest. For Haberer these sections, “leaping left and right,” coincide with the general view of the painting. Besides he argues that there is a central point in the poem (“…a point / Masked by obscurities of paint” (28)) similar to the vanishing sight-centre of the painting; “…the two centres, that of the poem and that of the picture, do not coincide” (Haberer 10-12). Moving on from this point, he argues that the poem and the painting fail to address to each other due to the fact that
“in the painting the failure tends to be disguised under the cover of the exhibited representation, whereas in the poem that same failure is more openly displayed”
(ibid. 15-16). He concludes that Horace‟s ut pictura poesis is verified because, “…by means of semiotic codes that are radically different,” the picture-like poem fails to capture the object it seeks after while the picture-like poem “...stops at the limit which marks the Real as impossible” (ibid. 16). Although Haberer‟s thorough analysis reveals key features about the stylistic parallelism between the poem and the painting, I find some of the points overstated. First of all, it should be remembered that there are only two sentences in the poem no matter how fragmented they may be. Besides the middle of the poem doe not seem to focus on the centre of the painting though it creates a sense of centeredness by referring to the upper and lower ends of the painting as in “The mild herbaceous air / Is lemon-blue” and then “the 285
glade aglow … / diuretic spots, pungent prey” (17-18, 19-21). Mahon has himself stated that by “diuretic spots… I simply mean pissing spots” of animals here and there on the ground (qtd. in Haberer 11).
The non-stop dynamism of the poem is reflected on every level. There are only two full-stops (one in the middle and the other in the end) in the whole poem. It is hard to talk about syntactically well-designed sentences; instead the poem is composed of patterns that look (and sound) like bits and pieces of the impression of the painting indicated by the excessive use of commas. Besides the poem begins with a syntactical deviation by opening in the middle of a sentence which creates the feeling that there is an unarticulated beginning of the sentence like “There are…:”
“Flickering shades / Stick figures, lithe game” (1-2). Due to enjambment, lines flow one after another. The phonological parallelism is achieved with assonance, consonance, and alliteration almost in every line as in the alliterating “s” and “p,”
“…shades / Stick figures…” (1-2), “Diuretic depots, pungent prey” (21); assonating
“i,” “o[:],” and the diphthong “ei” “Flickering shades / Stick figures, lithe game” (1-
2), “…horses to rocking-horses / Tamed and framed to courtly uses / Crazed no more by foetid” (9-11); and consonances like “-ck-” and “-gl-” Flickering shades / Stick figures, lithe game” (1-2), “The glade aglow” (19). These phonological qualities match with the shape (as if someone is breathing) and the sound of the poem when it is read aloud.
The poem reflects the thematic concerns of the painting. Thinking about the depicted hunting party, Mahon comes to realise that hunting has always been a common 286
exercise of man from prehistoric times (“man the maker”) to modern times as “the ancient fears mutated” and hunt became an activity “for fun.” The change and opposition between the past and present is adumbrated in verbs like “mutate” and
“become.” The poem invites readers to feel what human beings have become and to see “…in what dark cave begun” has become a recreation. The verbal signifiers in the poem are more revealing than the indication of change. The key characteristic of the poem is the syntactically foregrounded motion. Collaborating with the energy of the painting, “The Hunt” projects the dynamism through overly used adjectival phrases. The twenty-two phrases like “flickering shades,” “swift flight,” “pleasant mysteries,” “long pursued,” “pungent prey,” and “great adventure” prevent the poem from being syntactically conventional. Instead, these short patterns create the sense that the poem is an actually a compilation of notes on the painting presented in a disorderly way. However, these images, one by one, complete the overall image of the painting while providing a fluid pace for the poem. The hunting, running, bouncing, and galloping images (like horses, hounds, hunters) are also reflected in the use of verbs of action; considering that there are only a total of thirty-six lines and two sentences in the poem, seventeen verbs of action (such as “go,” “kill,”
“live,” and “put”) and seven gerunds (such as “leaping,” “rocking,” and “hunting”) give life to the frozen images. The choice of adjectives is analogous with the verbs of action in reflecting mobility: “lithe” and “swift.” Mahon follows the Homeric mode of representing sounds in words. As this is a Renaissance hunting game carried away in the company of many dogs, horses, and hunters, the poem echoes the noisy hunting atmosphere with words like “howl,” “echoes,” “horn,” and “cries.” “Fixing 287
his eyes upon… [the] balance” of the painting, Mahon re-expresses the dynamism
Uccello had suggested about six hundred years ago (Patke).
Mingling the linguistic elements with iconic representation, the poem follows the hunt in the poem by “sight” on metaphorical, contextual, and structural levels73.
Mahon reflects the materiality of the picture in the symmetrical distribution of lines.
Although the poem and the painting belong to radically different semiotic codes,
Haberer comments on the parallelisms by stating that:
… the only points in which they can truly be dais to correspond are to be found with the insertion of the linguistics in the iconic (the title of the painting), or with the added iconic value of the printed linguistic texts (e.g. the formal symmetry of the stanzas and of their sequence) (14).
As the poem represents the painting structurally, stylistically, and thematically, the paragonal relationship of the previous phases has turned out to be deparagonal. In other words, as a representative modern ekphrastic poem, “The Hunt” melts and meets the image and the word in the same pot by carefully projecting the “hunt” on verbal grounds.
73 Haberer believes that there are two hunts going on. One is the hunt in the painting that has changed in time (and the obscure origins of Neolithic man) while the other is the lives of readers as human beings, which refers to the condition of modern man (13). Adding to what Haberer has claimed, another hunt is carried away by the poet himself, hunting on the painting by sight and reflecting and word-painting it. 288
5.5. John Ashbery and the Mirror Effect
Williams Carlos Williams believes that all paintings are self-portraits:
What the artist will paint is his creation… It is his own face in terms of another face. The artist is always and forever painting only one thing: a self-portrait (qtd. in Dijkstra 198-99)74.
A very similar idea on self-portraiture is also found in Marin:
“Painting one‟s own image in the mirror is the only method that allows a painter to see and to make himself at the same time, to look at his image and to inscribe it on the rectangular or circular piece of canvas. At that point, the painting is the mirror and the mirror is the painting. Here we have a case of perfect reversibility, an ongoing movement back and forth between the gaze and hand, following what is an almost immediate trajectory [original italics] (To Destroy 130).
Parmigianino‟s Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror is a good example of such self painting but, composed on this particular painting, the best example of such
“creation” in ekphrastic tradition is probably John Ashbery‟s famous poem “Self-
Portraiy in a Convex Mirror75.” Heffernan describes the poem as “…the most resounding ekphrastic poem ever written and certainly one of the longest” (170-1).
Indeed, no ekphrastic poem is as long as “Self-Portrait,” which is nearly six-hundred- lines-long in six verse paragraphs. As in the cases of Williams and Mahon, the poem has given its name to Ashbery‟s 1975 collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. It is also important to note that the collection the poem appears in is the only Pulitzer
Prize for Poetry winner in modern period of ekphrasis76.
74 Original emphasis. 75 See Appendix XVI for the full-text verison of the poem. 76 Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror was an immadiate hit. Other than Pulitzer, the book won National Book Award and The National Book Critic Circle Award in the same year. 289
As it has been stated earlier, the poem is a long contemplation on Francesco
Parmigianino‟s77 High-Renaissance style Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, a painting made in the typical self-portraiture manner (See Illustration III.xxiii.).
Commenting on this convention, Marin states that
Certain painters… use mirrors to mobilize depicted reflections capable of introducing secondary points of view into the scene. These reflections play a crucial role, for they essentially allow the viewer‟s eye, which is situated at the point of view, to see the back side of things… this specular arrangement [convex mirrors] has a specific technical and theoretical importance. Namely, the distortions it causes alter the central axiom of linear perspective, the basic principle of the representational and enunciative apparatus (To Destroy 127).
While the enlarged and distorted image of the right hand appears at the bottom, the drawing left hand is left out. It should be noted that in the sixteenth-century, mirrors were being used newly in portrait painting exercises and the first mirrors were all convex mirrors (Wetering et. al. 211). The convex mirror distorts the image by enlarging the central image and stretching the edges to sideways. Probably painted
“to have fun,” Parmigianino‟s self-portrait was loyal to the convex image in the mirror as the painter painted himself in a photographic way at a barber‟s (Marin To
Destroy 131). In the poem, Ashbery relates the story by quoting from Vasari:
“Francesco one day set himself To take his own portrait, looking at himself from that purpose In a convex mirror, such as is used by barbers . . . He accordingly caused a ball of wood to be made By a turner, and having divided it in half and
77 Aka. Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, (11 January 1503 - 24 August 1540). 290
Brought it to the size of the mirror, he set himself With great art to copy all that he saw in the glass,” (9-15).
The self-portraiture was a common exercise in painting. Painters sometimes painted themselves for fame and sometimes to advertise themselves to attract patrons; in some cases painters had to paint themselves when they could not find models
(Freedberg 146)78. In ekphrastic poetry, however, interest in self-portraits is a new phenomenon (Heffernan 182). Ashbery‟s poem is one of the rare instances in which the verbal-poet is attracted by the visual-painter. This close up is the climax of deparagonal relationship in which the poet welcomes the painter with reverence and admiration.
“The Self-Portrait,” then, is one of the most representative ekphrastic poems of
Ashbery where the two media interact in a new mode79. The poem represents the spirit of the last ekphrastic phase in a number of ways. In that sense, it is like a mosaic of modern ekphrastic tradition drawing from all the sources of (ekphrastic) poetry of the twentieth century. However because the poem is too long for stylistic considerations, the following paragraphs will try to focus on the essential deparagonal and ekphrastic qualities in order to illustrate how “Self-Portrait” represents and summarises the modern ekphrastic tendencies and then on some of the stylistic features that need attention with references to particular sections of
Ashbery‟s lengthy poem.
78 Dürer‟s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Van Dyck‟s Arnolfini Marriage (in which the painter is spotted from a convex mirror on the wall; Van Dyck had peculiarly signed the painting in the middle, where a tiny scripture on the wall reads “Johannes de eyck fuit hic,” “Van Dyck was here”), Memling‟s Diptych with Virgin and Child and the Donor Martin van Nieuwenhove, and Quentin Massys‟s The Money Changer and His Wife (Freedberg 146). 79 “The Painter” and “And Ut Pictura Poesis is Her Name” are among Ashbery‟s other renown ekphrastic poems. 291
Entitled with the same name of the target painting, “Self-Portait” is a poem that meditates between descriptive and inspirational ekphrastic instances80. Ashbery concentrates on the thematic subjects similar to Auden‟s poem in a contemplative tone while he also word-paints Parmigianino‟s painting. From the beginning the poem concentrates on the captivity of the soul and how the poet empathises with the image in the canvas (Bloom 20)81. Readers sense a kind of emptiness in the portrait, which, as opposed to its minimalistic appearance, reveals more than it seems to suggest. Ashbery regards this emptiness as a hole in the soul captive in a circular canvas and the viewers are peepers gazing through a hole. However as it is going to be explained, the gazer relation is quite different from the paragonal relationship between the gazer and the gazed. Rather than disturbing and dominating it, Ashbery tries to help the image move out of its shell and to understand the motives behind the image and the painter. To this end, considering the simplicity of the painting that only suggests a large head, a distorted image of a hand, and a vague background with a curved window, the poem is paradoxically long.
Regarding the poem in terms of ekphrastic tradition, it is a rich assortment of modern ekphrasis and poetic diction. Parallel to the distorted image in the convex mirror, the language is also decentred and “discriminated” (Sweet 1-2). The postmodern reflections are indicated in many ways. The vocabulary of the poem is highly rich yet full of deviations:
80 On the meditative quality of the poem, Bloom suggests that the poem is a meditation more than a lyric poem and he likens it to Keats‟s “Grecian Urn” and to Wallace Stevens‟s version of Keats‟s poem, “Ode, The Poems of Our Climate” (20). 81 Bloom thinks that Ashbery uses kenosis while presenting the captivity of the soul. Kenosis is “an isolating defence in which poetic power presents itself as being all but emptied out” and it helps Ashbery to “empty the action” for the image only to find a hand and an ambiguous hollow (24-25). 292
Moving outward along the capes and peninsulas Of your nervures and so to the archipelagoes And to the bathed, aired secrecy of the open sea. This is its negative side. Its positive side is Making you notice life and the stresses That only seemed to go away, but now, As this new mode questions, are seen to be Hastening out of style. (303-309)82.
Drawing from a number of fields like geography and zoology, Ashbery displays the complexity of postmodern diction. Different from the past conventions, this is a
“new mode… hastening out of style” (308-309). Edelman notes that this kind of vocabulary is a “vocabulary of disguise” and is typical in postmodern poetry (95-96).
The poem is analogous to modern painting in that they both feed on the discontinuous, deformed, and contradicting “lines” and in turn achieve coherence out of the chaos of multiplicity (“Ashbery, Parmigianino”).
“Self-Portrait” is an appealing poem in that it reads and presents the painting from an art critic‟s eyes. He talks about the painting as a painting at first, trying to explain how it was painted and in what conditions the painter began to paint himself:
As Parmigianino did it, the right hand Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer And swerving easily away, as though to protect What it advertises. (1-4).
82 Emphasis added. 293
The poem opens as if it is going to analyse the painting from an art historical point of view. At this point it is necessary to remember that Ashbery‟s interest in painting was a little more professional than Auden‟s or Williams‟s. Ashbery was the art critic in the New York Magazine from 1978 onwards and he wrote about art in many magazines, journals, and newspapers. Then “Ashbery is surely the premier combination of art critic and poet in our time. He has probably written more about art
– especially twentieth-century art – than any other American poet ever has”
(Heffernan 169). This is also observed in his quotations from art critics like Vasari and Freedberg. Ashbery quotes and gives citation references of his sources as if he was writing an essay:
Vasari says, "Francesco one day set himself To take his own portrait, looking at himself from that purpose In a convex mirror, such as is used by barbers . . . … To accost others, "rather angel than man" (Vasari). Perhaps an angel looks like everything We have forgotten, I mean forgotten Things that don't seem familiar when We meet them again, lost beyond telling, Which were ours once. This would be the point Of invading the privacy of this man who "Dabbled in alchemy, but whose wish Here was not to examine the subtleties of art In a detached, scientific spirit: he wished through them To impart the sense of novelty and amazement to the spectator" (Freedberg). Later portraits such as the Uffizi "Gentleman," the Borghese "Young Prelate" and The Naples "Antea" issue from Mannerist Tensions, but here, as Freedberg points out… (9-11, 236-250).
294
By letting other voices intervene, the poem reveals both its intertextual inclination and its generous attempt to give voice to the painting in a way more than a single poetic persona could do. So as the long poem embraces a single portrait, Ashbery attempts to provide the painting with multiple sounds from various sources. This attempt recalls Shelley‟s scripture on the pedestal in “Ozymandias,” where the already silent image was supplied with speech. But “Ozymandias” contrasts with
“Self-Portrait” in that the so-called given voice for the king is ironically used to indicate how speechless the statue has become unlike the lively atmosphere Ashbery creates for Parmigianino.
A similar point is found in the beginning of the poem. In one of his critical writings,
Ashbery states that “I think we‟re constantly in the middle of a conversation where we never finish our thought or our sentences and that‟s the way we communicate”
(qtd. in Spiegelman 629; qtd in Heffernan 222). The prosopopeial poem also begins in the middle of a talk, resembling Browning‟s poem. But rather than the talky Duke whose monologue blocks other voices, Ashbery leaves space for other figures to come up and perform. However the poem is made more vigorous with instant shifts and exchanges as seen in the references made to Vasari and Freedberg. Besides, in the poem, as in many Ashbery poems, “the speaker‟s attention seems to slide from one thing into another in such a seemingly unplanned way that it would be hard to say what the poem is about, if anything. We hear a lot of familiar phrases…” (Baker
28). Such verbal leaps result in an excessive use of punctuations:
Yet the “poetic,” straw-colored space Of the long corridor that leads back to the painting, 295
Its darkening opposite – is this Some figment of “art,” not to be imagined As real, let alone special? Hasn't it too its lair In the present we are always escaping from And falling back into, as the waterwheel of days Pursues its uneventful, even serene course? (421-428).
As the tones changes frequently while Ashbery contemplates on the painting, he feels the need to use question marks, quotation marks, hyphens and dashes here and there.
These “linguistic manoeuvres” add much to the non-progressive contemplation of the poet (Spiegelman 155)83. The frequent punctuations also result in a complex syntax.
Some of the sentences last for tens of lines and makes the poem hard to follow as in the following nine lines packed up in a single sentence:
…Since it is a metaphor Made to include us, we are a part of it and Can live in it as in fact we have done, Only leaving our minds bare for questioning We now see will not take place at random But in an orderly way that means to menace Nobody – the normal way things are done, Like the concentric growing up of days Around a life: correctly, if you think about it. (331-339)84.
The single sentence above, for instance, is composed in nine lines. There are ten interconnected clauses between the opening dependent clause “Since it is a metaphor” and the main clause “…if you think about it.” Following one another with an enriched use of punctuation, then, Ashbery provides motion for the painting at least on verbal level. Commenting on this quality of “Self-Portrait”, which he calls
83 Spiegelman believes that because Ashbery‟s main concern is to question objects ontologically, “… [his] poetry moves but it seldom progresses” (155). 84 Emphasis added. 296
“the most important and most characteristic poem” of Ashbery, Spiegelman states that the poet combines two genres: the image-centred Romantic nature lyric85 and ekphrastic meditation (168). Considering the poem‟s linguistically intricate structure and Spiegelman‟s combining formula, one may add that the poem also reveals characteristics of twentieth-century poetics.
As far as the verbal-visual encounter is concerned, the poem reflects the new understanding of paintings. The poet does not attempt to patronise the image; instead he welcomes and embraces it as another symbolic medium. Therefore as Ashbery
“merges time and space,” he also merges the poem and the painting and uses the verbal medium to speak for the visual (Spiegelman 160). Soon after the poem opens,
Ashbery makes a more striking move concerning the deparagonal relationship:
That is the tune but there are no words. The words are only speculation (From the Latin speculum, mirror) … We have surprised him At work, but no, he has surprised us As he works. (48-50, 265-267).
He openly declares that words, like images, are arbitrary symbols and “only speculation.” The etymological reference to the root of the word “speculation” is also noteworthy. By searching the derivation, he finds out that the “word” has something
85 Spiegelman considers Ashbery as a basically “descriptive poet and maybe a landscape poet:” “Asbery‟s poems often seem like verbal equivalent of a kaleidoscope that contains different parts of speech instead of rapidly whirling coloured particles” (137). He thinks that the description of the painting is “the glue” that helps to keep the poem together (ibid. 137). In that sense he likens Ashbery to Stevens and Emerson, who like Ashbery, suggest “things” through depiction (Speiegelman 140-141). See Spiegelman 141-144 for his arguments on Romantic imagery and description. 297
to do with “mirror(s),” or more precisely with “sight.” Following the physical close- up initiated by Blake and the museum encounters of the verbal and the visual,
Ashbery‟s attempt to look down into the relation reveals him that they come from the same source: image in the “mirror.” It is as if Ashbery is testifying the sisterhood of the two arts by looking up in their genealogy. Towards the middle of the poem, this idea is developed to appreciate the image-maker painter as well. He regards his gaze as an intrusion, a “surprise” for the painter. However, immediately after that, he comes to realise that it is the image that surprises the gazer. Praising Parmigianino‟s skills, he openly gives the palms to the visual for the words “…seek and cannot find the meaning of the music / We see only postures of the dream” (51-52). Thus “the inverted image on the mirror” begins to intervene the world of the verbal (Marin To
Destroy 159).
“Self-Portrait” represents the modern phase of ekphrasis with its multiple voices, irregular syntax, concentration on the museum object and interesting tone that encourages the deparagonal relationship between word and image. Kaplan summarises the importance of the poem with regards to the twentieth-century ekphrastic practices with the following explanations:
As shown in more contemporary discussions of the mode, ekphrastic poems may share how the artwork makes the speaker feel or what it reminds the speaker of; imagine and/or compare the poetic composition process to the painterly one; question the painting or painter; praise the painter and/or his artwork; or consider the literal or figurative relationship between the viewer and the painting. It is a mistake not to view these now common gestures as part of the ekphrastic mode… Ashbery's long poem, based on and sharing the same title as Parmigianino's painting Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, serves as a helpful aide in re-defining the mode of ekphrasis… [it is] an important 298
example of the contemporary ekphrastic mode because it exhibits so many distinctive ekphrastic opportunities… “Self-Portrait” here in depth, as it represents a shift away from a traditional interpretation of ekphrasis and also exemplifies an almost boundless variety of ways to respond to an artwork. Ashbery's poem is also unique as it foregrounds artistic decision-making, inspiring the reader in turn to consider and explore technique. 'Self-Portrait' describes and models a wide variety of ekphrastic responses, both implicit and explicit.
Kaplan‟s in-dept appreciation is hard to be added-on but it is necessary to re- emphasise that “Self-Portrait” represents the peak of ekphrastic relationship between the verbal and the visual that has come a long way from being a rivalry and a symbolic contest on linguistic grounds.
299
5.6. The New Ekphrastic Voice
Twentieth century has been a time of significant shifts for ekphrasis. Beginning from the art for art‟s sake notion that resulted in the reception of paintings as unique and precious products in the early twentieth century, poets developed a new sense and understanding in their consideration of the works of visual arts. The museum that had begun to impress verbal exercises now became the place that gave way to verbal appreciation. As in the exemplified cases of Auden, Williams, Mahon, and Ashbery, poets regarded museums as inspiring spaces that could drive them to contemplation, meditation, and eventually composition. More to the point, especially in the latter half of the century, poets visited museums with the sole intention of seeking inspiration and writing poetry. Reminding us Ashbery‟s habit of going to museums to write poetry, Waldman talks about a certain John Ashbery Method in which
Ashbery invites writers to “create a title and walk and come back to write” (140-
141). The end-product is a responsive piece of work that collaborates with the image.
As the poet meets the visual, he “…responds in a parallel fashion; then the writing becomes a kind of artwork, in and of itself. It is as though the painter and the poet can speak through a contained field…” (ibid. 137). Finally, after the 1980s, museum visits were carried away in a more organised way in which “individual small groups come together for new styles” in the attractive atmosphere of museums (Petrucci
“Poetry Workshops” 50).
What Mitchell has described as the pictorail turn, then, occurred in larger scales because of the twentieth-century idea that both images and words are merely arbitrary iconographic symbols and both aim to produce enargeia. Meeting in the 300
same end, the verbal and the visual began to be considered and used together in creating mind pictures which resulted in the notion that the two media need to collaborate. Hawkins believes that the new mode of ekphrasis and poet‟s encounter with the image in the museum occur on friendlier atmosphere; as the poet meets the visual object, he tries to “make it familiar… [and the] abstraction interferes with the knowing that seeks to identify… [in a] dynamic moment of lyric” (17). So the twentieth-century poet does not try to suppress the image but he tries to “identify” his verbal product through the visual target.
Eco believes that image “…possesses an irresitable force. It produces an effect of reality, even when it is false” (qtd. in Wagner 45). Moving on from Eco‟s comment and recalling the more consumable quality and psychodynamics behind the power of images, Wagner points out that, in every way, an image “…it will look more attractive to the reader than a text (31). Therefore, mastering its space and spatiality, the image has come to take part in time or temporality as poets frequently turned to images to compose. However, this move is a co-operative and responsive leap rather than an intrusion. The poem does not simply overpower by describing the painting; instead it expresses what the painting evokes and/or represents while it also
“translates the pictorial into the readable” (Wagner 31). Eventually, the paragonal, which divided the word and the image between the “eye” and the “ear” once (da
Vinci Treatise 12), is now the deparagonal that allows the two mutual media meet, cooperate, and inspire one another.
301
In terms of style, modern ekphrasis follows the twentieth-century outline of poetry.
Therefore if modern poetry is based on “extreme discontinuity” (Bloom 20), so is modern ekphrasis. Ashbery‟s diction is a good example of syntactical manipulation where the sentences are broken into clauses and the meaning is blurred with modern poetic modes. Similarly Mahon‟s poem shows that the ekphrastic impression could also be expressed in phrases which can only imply the image. The diction may vary from an extremely complex language as Mahon‟s and Ashbery‟s to more simplistic linguistic choices like Williams‟s, through which he focuses on the image and the represented action in the painting. Because it is hard to talk about a rivalry between the two arts, the lexical choice of poets also shows variations. While some modern poets, like Mahon, prefer to describe the motion through adjectival structures, some others display a more dynamic language based on verbs like Ashbery.
Excluding Williams and other imagist poets that follow Pound‟s imagist search for the pure image, the majority of twentieth-century ekphrastic poetry is closer to meditative ekphrasis. This is probably because poets seek for inspiration in the museums to express themselves by using a different medium as the source of inspiration. As in Auden, Ashbery, and Mahon, poets usually come up with semi- philosophical meditations based on the periods they lived in like the modern human condition and psychology, captivity, loneliness, and pain. But whatever their motives and subject matters may have been, the poets of the last phase of ekphrasis are more conscious of what they are experiencing and composing: the word welcoming the image.
CONCLUSION
Aiming to find out about the general characteristics of the ekphrastic tradition in
English with reference to stylistic correlations between painting and poetry, this study has covered the history and development of the term “ekphrasis” as a literary device from the antiquity to the present. Focusing on the representative examples of ekphrastic poetry from Ben Jonson to John Ashbery, the survey and analyses has shown that ekphrasis has experienced dramatic shifts throughout its long history.
This chapter attempts to summarise the fundamental findings and conclusions drawn from the study and stylistic analyses throughout the dissertation such as lexical examination, semiotic and semantic deviation, parallelism, and foregrounding. It is also going to re-introduce the unprecedented terminology, and conceptual assumptions and hypotheses. In order to recapitulate and pinpoint the foremost ideas and observations, first the theoretical contributions the study offers to are going to be covered followed by the major features of each ekphrastic phase in a chronological order.
303
6.1. Something New for Something Old
The task undertaken in this study is itself a new academic challenge because only a few studies have considered ekphrasis from a stylistic perspective such as Verdonk and Bosveld though these works are of much smaller scales. In order to bear this challenge, the study has begun speculating on the definition(s) made for the term ekphrasis. After having presented a number of definitions all of which focus on different aspects of this literary device, it is concluded that a more inclusive yet specific definition is needed. Heffernan’s definition, “…the verbal representation of visual representation,” is the closest candidate to meet these qualifications (Museum
3). However it has been argued that this definition also needs modification for it leaves out the aesthetic qualities of the target work of art and the poem itself.
Eventually it has been put forward that ekphrasis should be defined as the artistic (or aesthetic) verbal representation (re-creation, or re-expression) of visual works of art.
A similar point has been put forward on the etymological level. The lexical history of the word “ekphrasis” has brought about two Latinised words out of the Greek ekphrazein: ekphrasis and ekphrastic. In other words, the Greek verb ekphrazein, which means “to speak out, to describe, to tell,” has come down to English only in noun (ekphrasis) and adjective (ekphrastic) forms. Since the word ekphrasis has dropped its original quality as verb, it has eventually become dependent on English verbs and phrases like “write,” “compose,” “produce ekphrastic poetry,” and “create ekphrasis.” Offering the verb ekphrasize and making use of the neologism elsewhere throughout, this study aims to revitalise the root ekphrazein. It has been argued that it 304
is possible to use the verb ekphrasize as an intransitive verb as in “Williams ekphrasized whenever he saw a painting” (meaning that Williams was easily carried away by paintings and was eager to write ekphrastic poetry whenever he saw a painting), while the transitive form of the verb (preferably with the combinatory preposition “on”) would also be rather useful in order to differentiate the object of the verb (a painting, a statue, a building and so on) and to clarify the meaning and antecedents in a sentence with several pronouns as in “Williams ekphrasized on
Brueghel’s paintings.”
The primary focus of this study was on the paragonal relationship. Introduced by da
Vinci, the paragone refers to the rivalry between painting and poetry on symbolic level. Especially until the nineteenth century, the paragone has been the key concept designating the nature of the relationship between the sister arts. It has been believed that painting was an art of space while poetry was an art of time. The temporal and spatial qualities attributed to sister arts have been maintained on semiotic grounds as well. As observed in Lessing in the eighteenth century and Krieger in the twentieth century, it is thought that painting makes use of natural signs. By natural signs, they refer to the images and/or figures in the outside nature. On the other hand, poetry relies on arbitrary signs (language, writing and so on), which denote no exact relation to the addressed object. According to the da Vincian paragon, this is the reason why poetry requires decoding (that is reading and/or writing). This contradiction is reflected through the terms ergon and parergon. While ergon refers to the images within the canvas (which also suggests that the images are bound to remain in a limited space as silenced figures), parergon, as the frame surrounding the canvas, 305
suggests limitation and intrusion to the peaceful and protected atmosphere of the image, or the ergon. Acting as a supplement first, parergon gradually dominates the territory of ergon and traps it. As it could be deduced from Derrida’s theorem, then, ergon is usually used for paintings while parergon refers to the dominating verbal within the limits of the paragonal relationship ekphrasis presents. Trying to give voice to the painting at first, parergon often claims the semiotic dominance with its arbitrary signs. Finally, it surpasses the effect the image creates, intrudes the enargeia, and replaces painting as the major centre of focus. The paragonal rivalry between the two media is observed in the majority of ekphrastic poems until the twentieth century. Keats’s “Grecian Urn” shows that no matter how long-lasting the image on the urn is, it is bound to remain silent and motionless. Aware of the impotent state of the image, Keats mocks the silence of the image through words; he seems to give them voice by way of verbal manoeuvres but all the sounds he provides for the image are “unheard.” Shelley, too, follows the same tactic. The image he ekphrasizes on is already dead in two ways: first it is captivated within the limits of the canvas and second the Medusa figure in the painting has already been slain by Perseus. So the parergonal poem becomes a verbal celebration of the twice- silenced painting and an in-vain attempt to give life to the painting even though the poet seems to provide motion for the figure with adverbs and verbs of action.
Analogous cases are observed in Browning, where the art-lover Duke is the verbal- incarnate trying to supress the image of the Duchess through punctuation, non-stop syntax, and verbal dynamism, and in Wordsworth, who suggests another painting to
Sir George Beaumont and word-paints over the already painted image of the Peele
Castle. 306
The ergon-parergon conflict continues until the twentieth century. As it has been explained in detail, the twentieth-century has become an age when the contrast between verbal and visual comes to an end. Defined by Mitchell as the pictorial turn, this new period gives the palms to the visual. As Mitchell has argued, the present day is an image-centred time and is predominantly dependent on the visual medium.
However, although there is a certain visual leap in the twentieth century, it is an overstatement to attribute the shift totally to the visual arts as far as the development of ekphrastic tradition is concerned. As it has been discussed earlier, the modern age
(the period between the twentieth century and the present) brings up a tie between the two media; in other words, although the rise of the visual is undeniably clear, it has never become as powerful as the verbal was in the past. Therefore, the new coinage deparagonal has been adopted to indicate the modern relationship between painting and poetry throughout. Deparagonal refers to the equalisation process in the paragonal relationship; neither poetry nor painting is dominant in the deparagonal space. The rivalry, therefore, is not an obstacle before the enargeia the verbal offers because now the representation is not principally a verbal representation, but simply an enargeial representation. Figuratively speaking, the two media are the fatigue armies of a thousand-year-battle and none has powers to rise and react against the other. Observed in Mahon’s poem, the verbal does not attempt to overpower the painting; on the contrary it celebrates each layer of the painting with a broken syntax representing the scattered images in the forest. So just like the images that are scattered around in the painting, the poem, too, offers an irregular poetic structure and diction. Similarly, Auden’s poem contemplates on two paintings and evokes 307
parallel feelings the paintings offer rather than trying to surpass and pacify the image through verbs of action, sounds or adverbs.
Related to the paragonal and deparagonal relationships, another neologism was introduced. Because ekphrasis is a term that is used to indicate a vigorous relationship between painting and poetry and because, paradoxically, a great deal of theoretical ideas have been put forward to indicate silence and frozen images, there is need to bring forward another term to deal with this contradictory state. Dead ekphrasis, which refers to the silent state the work of art experiences. As it has been explained earlier, dead ekphrasis cannot be applied to paintings and poems in isolation because a painting or a poem is already inactive until it is received by its audience through gazing and/or reading. Within the limits of ekphrastic concerns, both the target objet d’art (painting) and the poem share the same demanding state.
Dead ekphrasis occurs when the poem attempts to silence the visual effect of the painting as in the cases of Browning and Wordsworth, and it leads to the immediate suppression of the visual on verbal grounds.
This is also the case in majority of painter poems, which refer to the lyrics that instruct the painter to paint in a specific manner. Adopted under different names such as advice-to-the painter poems in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, these poems are the utmost representations of paragonal power of the verbal. Best exemplified by Marvell’s instruction poems, a series of poems philosophising on how a painting should be constructed in terms of style and context, painter poems provides clues about the reception of painting by poets. 308
Although similar attempts to categorise ekphrastic poetry have been made, only few of them are applicable and plausible as far as ekphrastic characteristics are concerned. As it has been discussed in length, dividing ekphrasis into numerous types is not always useful. However, parallel to Hollander’s actual-notional classification, a dualistic categorisation provides more concrete results considering the poetics of ekphrasis while it also saves the analysis from being over-stated and over-detailed. This study has presented two distinctive types of ekphrasis: meditative ekphrasis and mimetic ekphrasis. Meditative ekphrasis (or inspirational ekphrasis) refers to ekphrastic poems which present the poet in contemplation. These poems usually focus on the visual effect paintings evoke and lead to discussion of universal ideas and philosophising as in Auden’s “Museé” and Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait.”
Mimetic ekphrasis (or imitative ekphrasis), on the other hand, concentrates on the physical qualities paintings offer; they celebrate the images by word-painting them.
As in Williams’s ekphrastic poems on the paintings of Brueghel, the poet celebrates the image and the sheer visual effect the image creates in him. However, there are two essential points to keep in mind while considering this classification. First of all, this categorisation is basically contextual. Both mimetic and meditative ekphrasis focus on the content, rather than the stylistic and/or structural elements the poem offers. Secondly, as it has been emphasised earlier, this categorization is never strict.
Excluding some genuinely mimetic and meditative poems like Williams’s “The
Dance” and Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait,” respectively, it is hard to draw a boundary between the two; a poem may both be meditative and imitative at the same time like
Auden’s “Museé;” or it may be meditative in particular sections while the rest of the poem may be imitative as in Wordsworth’s “Peele Castle” and Shelley’s “On the 309
Medusa.” The central point that should be remembered is that these categories are only functional to designate the contextual focus of the poem and how it shifts, if ever, from the image to contemplation or vice-versa.
This study was a survey of the ekphrastic tradition from its beginnings. Since many surveys suggest a chronological periods, the dissertation has also offered a sequential order in order to follow the changes the ekphrastic tradition has gone through. The chapters in this study have been arranged in accordance with the general characteristics of each ekphrastic age that have been observed during the process of analysis. These analyses have shown that it is possible to divide the history of ekphrasis in English into three periods. These periods have been named phases in order to avoid confusions with the literary periods or ages such as the Romantic age or the Restoration period. The following sections will focus on the guidelines of each of the three ekphrastic phases and summarise the characteristics of the poetic tendencies with reference to the analysed poems.
310
6.2. The First Ekphrastic Phase
Chapter II has presented the development of the first ekphrastic phase from the early examples like Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and Dante to the Romantic age along with the presentation of the early examples of ekphrasis in England exemplified in the works of Chaucer and Shakespeare. The survey has shown that one of the major characteristics of this phase is the progymnasmatic use of ekphrasis as a functional device in larger narratives. Unlike the modern examples which are composed for the sake of ekphrastic experience of the poet, ekphrasis is a supplementary device in epics like the Iliad and the Aeneid and in long narrative works like Metamorphoses and “the Rape of Lucrece.” In these works, the ancient function of ekphrasis, enargeia, is applied and the ekphrastic passages usually aimed to create a mind- picture before the listener’s eyes. The enargeia is sometimes created within the process of production. In the Iliad, for instance, readers witness Hephaestus crafting the shield while Arachne is depicted weaving her tapestry. Consequently, depicting particular objects in detail, mimetic ekphrasis is more dominant than meditative ekphrasis in the works of the first phase of ekphrasis though there are also inspirational passages as in the contemplative poetic persona in the Divine Comedy.
Because these examples relate mythological and allegorical stories of epic characters, ekphrastic passages are usually notional. Composed on imaginative works of art, it is hard to correlate the poem with the target work of art. Besides, the majority of these works have been composed not on paintings but on works of craftsmanship like armours, shields, tapestries, and cups since the art of painting was to develop in the
Renaissance. For instance, while Homer depicts the Shield of Achilles, Shakespeare 311
describes the tapestry that hangs on Lucrece’s wall. Connected to its epic qualities, many of ekphrastic passages, as the rest of the narrative it takes part in, focus on the heroic deeds of epic or mythological figures like Achilles, Arachne, Lucrece, or
Aeneid. Parallel to this point, the ekphrastic descriptions are usually ornamented with elaborate figures of speech and literary devices like epic similes and deux machina as in the Iliad and Metamorphoses.
The prosopopeial feature of these works is also worth mentioning. As in Dante,
Virgil, and Chaucer, the majority of ekphrastic instances are barely singular; they contain a poetic persona other than the poet himself which evokes the sense of a narrator depicting an object for readers and turn readers to listeners. The prosopopeial quality developed by epic poets is also reflected in the apology style in the Renaissance as in Sydney’s “Defence of Poesie.”
In terms of the paragonal relationship, the first phase of ekphrasis usually takes sides with the verbal. The rivalry between the sister arts is often observed as the captivation of the visual sign on the semiotic grounds of the verbal. As in Homer,
Shakespeare, and Jonson, the word captures the image through various techniques.
While the poet seems to celebrate the target object, he usually surpasses the visual effect of the painting as in the examples of Homer, Jonson and Lovelace. Homer’s phonoloexically strong diction replaces the powerfully represented visual object in the Iliad. Correspondingly Jonson’s “The Mind,” which is parallel to the pictorial layout of the engraving, is an example that clearly shows how the poem turns out to manipulate the visual through its pacifying noun-based lexis. Painter poems of this 312
phase are also worth mentioning about considering the paragonal dominance of the word over the image. The frequent imperatives, clear-cut instructions, and verbally constructed forceful style of painter poems like Marvell’s “Last Instructions to a
Painter” and Herrick’s “To His Nephew: To be Prosperous in His Art of Painting:” indicate the poetic tendency to control and dictate the powers of the painter.
A similar case is observed in the relationship between word-image and gazer-gazed correlations. As the paragonal relationship suggests the target objet d’art is usually associated with the silenced and pacified female while the verbal is attributed a vulgar and ravishing male role. In terms of context, this metaphor was very common in works of the first phase of ekphrasis. As in the examples of Lucrece and Arachne, the female represents the suppressed image of the target object. However, the crucial example that has led modern critics to consider verbal-visual relationship within a male-female context is the story of Philomela, who was raped and tortured in the most offensive way possible. Philomela’s saddening tale has brought about the theme of rape to ekphrastic studies. Just as Minerva tears up Arachne’s tapestry in
Metamorphoses, poet’s manipulation of the visual sign to create a verbal construct has been regarded as a figurative act of rape. Subsequently the gaze of poet (male) is thought to be an intrusion to the world of the silently hanging painting (female).
Adopted by many modern theoreticians like Mitchell, Heffernan, and Hollander, this view is applied to ekphrastic examples which would produce a double contextual and symbolic effect like the stories of Arachne and Philomela in Metamorphoses in the first phase of ekphrasis and the silenced female figures in Browning’s dramatic monologues in the second phase of ekphrasis. 313
Within longer narratives, ekphrastic passages of the first ekphrastic phase are usually highly energetic. Homer’s depiction of the making of the shield is a good example how a poet may manipulate the visual through lexical suppression (sounds, adjecvtives, and adverbs) and dynamic “verby” diction. Similarly Virgil’s conversational style also shows that the first phase of ekphrastic poetry is aware that it invigorates the mute image by giving voice to it and thus by surpassing its visual effect. Although Jonson’s and Lovelace’s poems follow the structural qualities of the target objects, they also change (as Lovelace interpretes the painting accordinhg to his own political tendency) and re-shape (as Jonson depicts the images with a nouny style) the visual through lexical and syntactical alterations.
While setting the ground rules for ekphrastic exercises, the first ekphrastic phase introduces the primary discussion that will be influential on the following phases.
Moreover some of the characteristics of this phase like prosopopeial style, paragonal struggle, and enargeia are have been adopted in the subsequent phases. In short, the first phase of ekphrasis, as the initial period of a thousand-year-old literary convention, initiates ekphrastic exercises that have come down to the present in many levels.
314
6.2. The Second Ekphrastic Phase
The second ekphrastic phase begins with the Romantic period and reaches the end of the nineteenth century. As Chapter III has presented, there are two important developments considering the shift ekphrasis experienced after the first phase of ekphrasis. The first one of these changes is the ice-breaking re-encounter of the word and image personified in William Blake. Blake has been regarded as a symbol at this point. Following the medieval illuminated books, Blake draws and writes at the same time. Exemplified in his “Songs of Innocence and of Experience,” the image and the word share the same physical space. The significant consequence of this encounter is that it indicates a new kind of relationship between the visual and the verbal. The image or the art of painting in particular, experienced a dramatic shift in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Especially towards the end of the nineteenth century, due to the flourishing art for art’s sake notion, painting began to be considered as a liberal art that required aesthetic creativity and artistic craftsmanship.
In return, ekphrastic poetry began to consider painting in a friendly manner. This is projected in Wordsworth’s emphasis on the image “recollected in tranquility.”
Indeed, the Romantic poets, as well as the Victorian poets who followed them (and even the Imagist movement in the early twentieth century), showed great interest in the visual qualities of the outside nature. This interest in the pure image gave way to a highly pictorial as well as a stylistically straightforward diction that would enable the poet to word-paint the pure natural image. The emphasis on the image and the re- union of the sister-arts symbolised in Blake’s interest in painting, produced representative ekphrastic poems like Shelley’s “On the Medusa” and Keats’s
“Grecian Urn,” both of which concentrate on the image the works of art offer. 315
Similarly Wordsworth’s “Peele Castle” also meditates on the physical qualities Sir
George Beaumont’s painting represents.
Apart from the rise of the image as a favourable medium, a historical development played a crucial role in the development of ekphrasis. The opening of public museums such as the National Gallery and the British Museum in the nineteenth century originated a new kind of consciousness in arts. As it has explained at length in Chapter III, while they collected the works of art from private collections and art collectors, museums also changed the idea that art works were bound to decay and re-shaped it to initiate the notion that art works were actually imperishable. This was an essential shift because the visual works of art such as painting and sculpture, which were associated with space, now became to be considered in terms of time.
Therefore, poetry, which was known to be the temporal art that could stand the test of time, was not alone in its paragonal throne. Eventually the paradox between the spatial and the temporal was reflected in many ekphrastic works. One of the most representative examples of the new paragonal face is Keats’s “Grecian Urn.” As the stylistic analysis has shown, the poet of the time is stuck between giving voice to works of art and silencing them; while Keats praises the urn he also mourns for its persistent silence and immobility as observed in the contradictory usage of verbs of action and the foregrounded adverbs that evoke immobility.
The establishment of public museums influenced the development of ekphrasis in some other ways. As the museums were open to public viewing, poets began to visit the museums to see paintings and soon this became a common artistic activity. As a 316
result they found the chance to examine works of art in detail and began to compose poetry specifically dedicated to particular works of art. The titles of ekphrastic poems of the age reflected this development as in Shelley’s “On the Medusa of Leonardo da
Vinci in the Florentine Gallery” and Wordsworth’s “Elegiac Stanzas, Suggested by a
Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont.” Besides, unlike the ekphrastic passages that functioned as pictorial parts of larger narratives, poets began to ekphrasize in smaller scales; the majority of ekphrastic poems in the second phase of ekphrasis became short lyrics and elegies focusing on a single work of visual art.
Thematically ekphrasis turned out to be less heroic and more mundane; poet of the time preferred to contemplate on a single image (the head in “On the Medusa”) rather than a larger and didactic narrative (the myth of Perseus for example). As the natural image gained importance, enargeia of the first ekphrastic phase was maintained. In addition to the image-centred ekphrastic quality, the aesthetic concerns of poets (and of painters) were also significant during the course of ekphrastic development. The newly flourished nineteenth-century idea that art should be criticised within the limits of art produced an art-conscious community. Therefore poets, who had been accused for suppressing the visual in the previous phase, regarded plastic arts with more insight and respect. Shelley, for instance, admired the accomplishment of Renaissance painters just as Browning did. In fact it is interesting to note that the first (Blake) and the last (D.G.Rosetti) poets that have been studied in
Chapter III were both poets and painters.
317
All in all, the second ekphrastic phase mingles the characteristics of the previous phase with a new understanding. No matter how the paragonal relationship still favours the verbal, as represented in the curtain over the portrait of Browning’s
Duchess and Wordsworth’s painterly attempt to word-paint an alternative picture, the emphasis on the image and the establishment of museums changed the balance of the paragone and brought painting and poetry closer. Stylistically, the poems that have been studied in this period are less powerful in terms of verbal qualities like
Shelley’s “On the Medusa;” they are more “nouny” since majority of these poems focus on the images rather than motion. However, there are still poems that present the paragonal relationship with the excessive use of verbs of action like Keats’s
“Grecian Urn” but the paradoxical structure of the poem and its hesitation to favour the visual puts it somewhere between paragonal and deparagonal. Besides, as the titles of the ekphrastic pieces of this phase suggest, ekphrastic poet is more conscious of what he is doing: ekphrasizing on a work of art, which offers a different communicative medium and a semiotic sign system as powerful as poet’s word.
318
6.3. The Third Ekphrastic Phase
Ekphrastic poetry of the third ekphrastic phase is predominantly under the influence of twentieth century poetics. Beginning from the early twentieth century, which also marks the beginning of the last phase of ekphrasis that we experience in the present, poetry has experienced various shifts and alterations due to numerous socio-cultural, historical, economic, and intellectual developments. The outcome was a variety of
“poetries” based on modern and post-modern poetic concepts like intertextuality, free verse, parody, pastiche, multi-vocal diction, and reproduction. Ekphrastic poetry of the last phase correspondingly reflects these features. Ekphrasis is carried away in a cleverer and conscious way and this is not simply on lexical or semantic level but on sub-structural and sub-contextual grounds with the use of metonymy, complex metaphors, in-line references, and intertextuality. Mahon’s “The Hunt,” for instance, reflects the de-centred voice of the twentieth-century poet with broken syntax; there are hardly any grammatically well-structured sentences. Actually readers can only follow where a sentence begins or ends through punctuation – the individual phrases and clauses here and there do not contribute much to the structural coherence.
Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait” illustrates the intertextual structure of modern ekphrastic poetry by giving exact citations from critics and art historians like Vasari and
Freedberg in the poem. With its parenthetical references and quotations, “Self-
Portrait,” reflects the transtextual and collaborative nature of modern ekphrasis.
Correspondingly, it is possible to claim that almost all ekphrastic poetry of the time is occasional: poets compose poetry after visiting museums. It is as if poets deliberately visit museums to write ekphrastic poetry. The modern ekphrastic poet, 319
then, is a professional gazer unlike the poets of the previous ekphrastic pieces who incidentally come across and are inspired by works of art. So the museum-effect continues in the twentieth century; indeed, as it has been explained in Chapter IV, modern ekphrasis is predominantly museum-based since the majority of works of art have been collected by the museums throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In other words, poets need to visit museums to ekphrasize since museum is the only space that could bring painting and poetry together. Hence, as it is indicated in Mitchell’s pictorial turn assumption, the visual balances the verbal. As the modern ekphrasis offers a tie between the sister arts, poetry and painting collaborates in a sisterly manner rather than rivalling with each other. Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait” is one of those representative poems that rely on the visuo-verbal cooperation while
Williams’s Brueghel poems illustrate how poets of the modern phase were heavily dependent on the works of visual arts to ekphrasize.
Combining an old literary tradition with modern poetic modes, the third ekphrastic phase is a period of equalisation between the visual and the verbal. Neither painting nor poetry is dominant; instead they co-work to add to the ekphrastic tradition in
English by making use of a number of techniques and stylistic tactics. More complex and less paragonal, then, the last phase of ekphrasis presents an amalgamation of two works of art on verbal grounds.
320
6.5. Conclusion
By applying fundamental stylistic concepts like trans-textual parallelism, lexical and semantic repetition, phonological and syntactical deviation, and grammatical and
(visuo-) structural foregrounding, this study has covered the ekphrastic tradition in
English from the antiquity to the present. As it has been observed in the analyses, the tradition has experienced three major periods, each of which contain essential revealing characteristics of their own. Apart from presenting a detailed survey about the key concepts and the most representative examples of the convention along with the significant philosophical discussions concerning the development of ekphrasis as a literary device, the study has also introduced assumptions and terminology concerning the definition (such as the verb ekphrasize, dead ekphrasis and deparagonal relationship), classification (meditative ekphrasis, imitative ekphrasis and the ekphrastic phases), and literary value of ekphrasis. Subsequently, it has been concluded that ekphrasis, which is a thousand-year-old literary tradition that has experienced various intellectual and artistic shifts, is one of the key concepts of world literature and more analyses should be applied on the tradition to explore different levels of ekphrasis. Because ekphrasis is an established literary device with its roots in the antiquity and because a complete stylistic analysis of the tradition as a whole is almost impossible to accomplish in a single study, more stylistic analyses could be applied to particular poems and paintings. Besides although this study has tried to cover the historical and literary development of the tradition, there is still need to discover the origins of ekphrasis. Similarly, no matter how an entire chapter of this study focuses on the twentieth-century ekphrasis, a thorough study covering 321
especially the late twentieth and early twenty-first century would reveal the new directions ekphrasis has been experiencing in the last three decades.
However, apart from literary analyses, more critical and theoretical analyses should be applied on this ever-expanding literary device because it is true that essential critical appreciations like Lessing’s and Mitchell’s may not always be applicable to the changing face of ekphrasis in time. Throughout the course of this dissertation, it has been discovered that only a few in-depth theoretical works have been published in the long history of ekphrasis and the majority of these works (such as Heffernan’s,
Hollander’s, Mitchell’s, Krieger’s and Becker’s) have been published in the latter half of the twentieth century. These works have added much to the critical commentaries on the nature of ekphrasis of the previous centuries (such as Lessing’s,
Ruskin’s, and da Vinci’s) but more studies exploring the intricate relationship between the verbal and the visual should be carried out. There are two basic reasons behind this need. First of all, ekphrasis is a prolific literary tradition with more ekphrastic poems getting published everyday and with its complex relationship between the gazers and the gazed, the poet and the painter, the eye and the object, seeing and being seen, suppression and dominance, and finally two different signifying systems. Secondly, and more importantly, ekphrastic studies require a perspective culminating art history, philosophy (especially ontology and aesthetics), psychology, and literature because ekphrasis, as a literary phenomenon which mediates between (at least) two different arts (or artworks), already evokes correlations between these fields of study with its mind-stirring complexity and intellectual (and eventually aesthetic) activity.
APPENDICES
Appendix I
Some of the other popular definitions of ekphrasis are listed below. Krieger calls ekphrasis ―a general principle of poetics asserted by every poem in the assertion of its integrity‖ (Ekphrasis 284), which is parallel to Graham‘s statement that ekphrasis is ―essentially a rhetorical device in which an object formed in one art becomes the matter for another‖ (467). Smith compares prosaic and poetic ekphrasis and ends up with the idea that ekphrasis only functions as a narrative device (26). His definition of the term is, thus, ―narrative within a narrative… a work of art graphically representing figures from mythology, history or everyday life to provide an implicit, didactic, commentary upon narrative‖ (Smith 10-11). Blackhawk, following
Heffernan, regards ekphrasis as ―verbal description of a visual representation, often of an imagined object such as the shield of Achilles in the Iliad‖ (1) while Wagner treats the term as a poetical and rhetorical device (even as a literary genre) (11) and,
M.C Howatson, very similarly, states that it is a ―type of rhetorical exercise taking the form of a description of a work of art‖ (203). Leo Spitzer, in his influential essay,
―The ‗Ode to a Grecian Urn‘ or Content VS Metagrammar,‖ defines ekphrasis plainly as ―the poetic description of a pictorial or sculptural work of art‖ (207).
Before his 1991 essay, ―Shelley, Medusa and the Perils of Ekphrasis,‖ Scott had formerly regarded ekphrasis as ―appropriation of the visual other to master and to 323
transform it (―The Rhetoric‖ 302). This description almost matches with Eidt‘s words: ―verbal discourses that directly verbalize one or more visual images, often discussed in terms of a power struggle between author and painter‖ (9). Finally, Jean
Hagstrum, who is one of the initiators of the interest in the subject, states that ekphrasis ―…refer[s] to that special quality of giving voice to the otherwise mute art object‖ (18).
324
Appendix II
Some of the other Greek and Latin sources that apply or refer to ekphrasis are
Aeschylus‘s Seven against Thebes, Catullus‘s Works (Chapter 64), Propertius
Writings (Book 2.31), Statius‘s Silvae and Thebaid, Petronius‘s Satyricon, Silius
Italicus‘s Bellum Punicum, Valerius Flaccus‘s Argonautica, Heliodorus‘s An
Ethiopian Story, Lucian‘s dialogues, Philostratus the Younger‘s Imagines,
Philostratus the Elder‘s Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Quintus‘s (of Smyrna)
Posthomerica, Dionysius‘s (of Halicarnassus) Rhetoric, Nonnus‘s Dionysiaca, the writings of Longinus, Statius, Pliny the Elder, Sannazoro, Scaliger, Castelvetro,
Vossius, Quintilian, Lucian, Martial, Apuleius, Claudian, Bellori, Michalengelo, da
Vinci, and Dio Chrysostomus‘s Olympian Oration (where he compares Homer to sculptor Phidias) (Becker 2). See Moffitt (47 ff.), Becker (2 ff.), Krieger (Ecphrasis
7-9) and Heffernan (1-5) for a more detailed Greek and Latin bibliography.
325
Appendix III
There is an immense body of ekphrastic instances or works in English literature and it is quite hard (and maybe futile) to list all of them. Below are two lists compiled throughout the research process of this study; one of the notable poets and writers who have either made use of ekphrasis here and there in their works or referred to ekphrasis critically and the other of essential individual works that are either directly or partially ekphrastic. Some of the items listed are not originally English but have been translated into English. The poems, epics, plays and fictional works that have been referred to or that will be referred to and analysed are not included in the lists.
The lists are in alphabetical order in order to avoid wordiness and confusion that might result from listing two chronologically distinct works by the same author.
Among the other major poets and writers who have used or mentioned ekphrasis in their works are: A.E. Housman, Aimée Hall, Anthony Hecht, Carol Ann Duffy,
Eavan Boland, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Honore de Balzac, Jim Bogan, Jo
Shapcott, Jorie Graham, Joseph Brodsky, Joseph Spence, Marianne Moore, Miller
Williams, Paul Klee, Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Hardy, and Vicki Hearne.
Some of the well-known examples of ekphrastic poetry and prose are: Adrienne
Rich‘s ―Aunt Jennifer‘s Tigers;‖ Alain Robbe-Grillet‘s Dans la Layrinthe (The
Labyrinth’s Dance); Alexander Pope‘s ―Epistle: To a Lady,‖ in which the poet urges the painter to draw the lady beautifully; Allen Ginsberg‘s ―Cezanne‘s Ports,‖ Alicia
Ostriker‘s ―Caravaggio: the Painting of Force and Violence;‖ Ben Jonson‘s Timber,
―The Mind of the Frontispiece to a Book,‖on the frontispiece of Sir Walter Raleigh‘s 326
History of the World, and ―The Picture of Her Body;‖ Charles Algernon Swinburne‘s
―Sonnet for a Picture;‖ Czeslaw Milosz‘s ―Realism;‖ David Ferry‘s six poems on photos by Thomas Eakins; David Wright‘s ―Before You Read the Plaque about
Turner‘s ‗Slave Ship‘;‖ Derek Mahon‘s ―Girls on the Bridge;‖ Donald Finkel‘s ―The
Great Wave: Hokusai;‖ Edgar Allen Poe‘s ―Bells;‖ Edward Young‘s ―On
Michelangelo‘s Famous Piece of the Crucifixion;‖ Edwin Markham‘s ―The Man with the Hoe;‖ Elizabeth Bishop‘s ―Poem;‖ Elizabeth Jenning‘s ―San Paolo Fuori le
Mura, Rome;‖ Ezra Pound‘s ―The Picture,‖ which is on a painting on Venus in the
National Gallery; Felicia Heman‘s ―On a Picture of Christ bearing the Cross;‖ Frank
O‘Hara‘s ―Why I am Not a Painter‖ and ―On Seeing Larry Rivers‘ ‗Washington
Crossing the Delaware‘ at the Museum of Modern Art;‖ Fyodor Dostoyevsky‘s The
Idiot; Gwendolyn Brooks‘s ―The Chicago Picasso;‖ Hart Crane‘s ―Proem: to
Brooklyn Bridge;‖ Henry Hart Milman‘s ―The Apollo Belvedere;‖ Hermann
Melville‘s Moby Dick, ―The Portent,‖ his short poem on John Brown, ―The Great
Pyramid,‖ ―The Coming Storm,‖ ―The Parthenon,‖ ―Formerly a Slave: An Idealized
Poertrait, by E. Vedder, in the Spring Exhibition of the National Gallery, 1865;‖
Jacopo Sadoleto‘s ―The Poem of Jacobus Sadoletus on the Statue of Laocoön;‖ Jane
Flanders‘s ―Cloud Painter;‖ John Ashbery‘s ―The Painter;‖ John Byrom‘s ―Verses
Written under a Print, Representing the Salutation of the Blessed Virgin;‖ John
Dryden‘s ―Song for St. Cecilia Day;‖ John Dyer‘s ―Epistle to a Famous Painter;‖
John Stone‘s ―Three for the Mona Lisa,‖ ―American Gothic,‖ and ―Early Sunday
Morning;‖ Lawrence Ferlinghetti‘s ―Don‘t Let that Horse‖ and ―The Wounded
Wilderness of Morris Graves‖ from his When I Look at Pictures, a collection of ekphrastic poems par excellence on art works from Goya to Motherwell; Lionel 327
Johnson‘s ―By the Statue of King Charles at Charing Cross;‖ Lisel Mueller‘s ―Monet
Refuses the Operation‖ and ―Paul Delvaux, The Village of Mermaids;‖ Marivaux‘s
Le Télémaque (Telemachus); Mary Leader‘s ―Girl at Sewing Machine;‖ May
Swenson‘s ―The Tall Figures of Giacometti;‖ Myrna Stone‘s The Arts of Loss, which directly refers to the lives and paintings of Boticelli, van Gogh, and Degas; Nancy
Sullivan‘s ―Number 1 by Jackson Pollack;‖ Nathaniel Hawthorne‘s The House of the
Seven Gables and The Marble Faun; Oscar Wilde‘s persona, Vivian, in ―The Decay of Lying;‖ Patricia Hooper‘s ―Monet‘s Garden;‖ Paul Engle‘s ―Venus and the Lute
Player;‖ Phillis Wheatley‘s ―To S.M., aYoung African Painter, on Seeing his
Works;‖ Randall Jarrell‘s ―The Bronze David of Donatello;‖ Rainer Maria Rilke‘s
―San Marco‖ and ―Portrait of My Father as a Young Man;‖ Richard Howard‘s
―Nadar,‖ a poem on Adrien Tournachon‘s portrait of Nadar; Richard Lovelace‘s long-neglected epigram from his Lucasta, ―Upon the Curtain of Lucasta‘s Picture, It
Was Thus Wrought;‖ Robert Duncan‘s ―Poem Beginning with a Line by Pindar,‖ which is about a Goya painting of Cupid and Psyche; Robert Hayden‘s ―Monet‘s
Water Lillies‖ and ―Night Blooming Cereus;‖ Robert Southey‘s ―On a Landscape of
Gaspar Poussin;‖ Stanley Kunits‘s ―The Crystal Cage,‖ a poem on the works of
Joseph Cornell; Stephen Dobyn‘s ―The Street;‖ Sylvia Plath‘s ―Colossus;‖ Thomas
Tickell‘s ―On a Lady‘s Picture;‖ U. A. Fanthorpe‘s ―Not My Best Side;‖ W.B.
Yeats‘s ―Lapis Lazuli,‖ which is on a Chinese carving, ―The Municipal Gallery
Revisited;‖ W.D. Snodgrass‘s ―Matisse: ‗The Red Studio‘;‖ Wallace Stevens‘s
―Sunday Morning,‖ and ―Angel Surrounded by Paysans;‖ Walt Whitman‘s ―movie- shot‖ poems like ―A Farm Picture,‖ ―A Paumanok Picture,‖ and ―A Prairie Sunset‖
(Hollander The Gazer’s 27); Washington Allston‘s ―On Rodin‘s ‗L‘illusion, Soeur 328
d‘Icare‘;‖ William Carlos Williams‘s ―The Wedding Dance in the Open Air,‖ ―The
Parable of the Blind,‖ ―Peasant Wedding,‖ and ―The Great Figure;‖ William
Shakespeare‘s Timon of Athens; William Wordsworth‘s ―Tintern Abbey,‖
―Ecclesiastical Sonnets,‖ ―To Lucca Giorgano,‖ a sonnet on a painting of Cynthia and Endymion, ―The Gleaner‖ (originally entitled ―The Country Girl‖), and ―Inside of King‘s College Chapel, Cambridge;‖ Wislawa Szymborska‘s ―Two Monkeys by
Brueghel;‖ X. J. Kennedy‘s ―Nude Descending a Staircase.‖ For a more detailed bibliography see Becker (3 ff.) and Wagner (8 ff.) (especially on the ekphrastic sources in German).
329
Appendix IV
Regarding the multileveled language as a system of codes, Leech and Short discuss that Stylistics requires its own terminology (119). Defamiliarization, dramatic effect deviation, deixis, cohesion, tropes (usually attributed to Greimas‘s master tropes: synecdoche, metaphor, irony and metonomy) (Chandler 137), speech acts (deriving from Grice‘s four maxims of speech: quality, quantity, relation, manner) (Leech and
Short 295), register (which ―is the term commonly used for language of a non- dialectical type‖ i.e. politic, familiar, legal, religious and so on) (ibid. 80), focalization, and parataxis are among the terms Stylistics derives from Formalism and Linguistics. Moreover terms like cohesion (referring to the stylistic coherence and unity of the text) (Short 36), domain, deviation, tenor, style variation (dialectical, archaic, local, social) (ibid. 84-85), graphology (the writing system referring to punctuation, syntactical order), graphonology (phonetic substance and its relation to the written signs), phonemic and graphemic (the meaningful sound patterns and suffixes) (Carter and Simpson 25), mind style (referring to the moral, social, or emotive point of view), and register have been used and developed by stylisticians.
In addition to the major stylistic terms like parallelism, repetitive patterns, foregrounding, and deviation, the following terms are also used in Stylistics. The majority of the terms given here are technical terms concerning figures of speech or rhetorical devices (endocentric [contextual] or exocentric [structural]). The list below is in alphabetical order:
330
Anadiplosis and anaphora (pre-repetitive patterns), antanaclasis (double meanings), antimetabole (repetitive opposites), antistrophe and chiasmus (cross-repetitive patterns), epanalepsis (repeating the same semantic patterns), cohesive patterns
(meaning and reference connections), deictic patterns (metaphors and language plays), epistrophe (post-repetitive patterns), homoiteleuton(syllable repetition), metonomy, mnemonic patterns (musicality), polyptoton (multi-syllable repetition), polysyndeton (conjuction repetition), synechdoche, and symploce (conditional repetition). For more on stylistic terms see Özünlü (30 ff., 150 ff.), Leech and Short
(94 ff.), and Haynes (242 ff.)
331
Appendix V
Below is the full-text version of Ben Jonson‘s ―The Mind of the Frontispiece to a
Book‖ as it appears on the page in his Complete Poetry, edited by Parfitt:
From death and dark oblivion (near the same) The mistress of man‘s life, grave History, Raising the world to good and evil fame, Doth vindicate it to eternity. Wise Providence would so : that nor the good Might be defrauded, nor the great secured, But both might know their ways were understood, When vice alike in time with virtue dured : Which makes that, lighted by the beamy hand Of Truth, that searcheth the most hidden springs, And guided by Experience, whose straight wand Doth mete, whose line doth sound the depth of things ; She cheerfully supporteth what she rears, Assisted by no strengths but are her own, Some note of which each varied pillar bears, By which, as proper titles, she is known Time's witness, herald of Antiquity, The light of Truth, and life of Memory.
332
Appendix VI
Below is the full-text of Richard Lovelace‘s ―To My Worthy Friend Mr. Peter Lilly: on that Excellent Picture of His Majesty, and the Duke of York, Drawne by him at
Hampton-Court‖ as it appears on the page in his the Poems of Richard Lovelace, edited by Child:
See! what a clouded Majesty, and eyes Whose glory through their mist doth brighter rise! See! what an humble bravery doth shine, And griefe triumphant breaking through each line, How it commands the face! so sweet a scorne Never did Happy Misery adorne! So sacred a contempt, that others show To this, (oth' height of all the wheele) below, That mightiest Monarchs by this shaded booke May coppy out their proudest, richest looke.
Whilst the true Eaglet this quick luster spies, And by his Sun's enlightens his owne eyes; He cures his cares, his burthen feeles, then streight Joyes that so lightly he can beare such weight; Whilst either eithers passion doth borrow, And both doe grieve the same victorious sorrow.
These, my best Lilly, with so bold a spirit And soft a grace, as if thou didst inherit For that time all their greatnesse, and didst draw With those brave eyes your Royal Sitters saw.
Not as of old, when a rough hand did speake A strong Aspect, and a faire face, a weake; When only a black beard cried Villaine, and By Hieroglyphicks we could understand; When Chrystall typified in a white spot, And the bright Ruby was but one red blot; Thou dost the things Orientally the same Not only paintst its colour, but its Flame: Thou sorrow canst designe without a teare, And with the Man his very Hope or Feare; So that th' amazed world shall henceforth finde None but my Lilly ever drew a Minde.
333
Appendix VII
Below is the full-text of William Wordsworth‘s ―Elegiac Stanzas, Suggested by a
Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont:‖
I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile! Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee: I saw thee every day; and all the while Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.
So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! So like, so very like, was day to day! Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there; It trembled, but it never passed away.
How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep; No mood, which season takes away, or brings: I could have fancied that the mighty Deep Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.
Ah! then, if mine had been the Painter's hand, To express what then I saw; and add the gleam, The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the Poet's dream;
I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile Amid a world how different from this! Beside a sea that could not cease to smile; On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.
Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven; – Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine The very sweetest had to thee been given.
A Picture had it been of lasting ease, Elysian quiet, without toil or strife; No motion but the moving tide, a breeze, Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.
Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, Such Picture would I at that time have made: And seen the soul of truth in every part, A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed.
334
So once it would have been, –'tis so no more; I have submitted to a new control: A power is gone, which nothing can restore; A deep distress hath humanised my Soul.
Not for a moment could I now behold A smiling sea, and be what I have been: The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old; This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.
Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend, If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore, This work of thine I blame not, but commend; This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.
O 'tis a passionate Work! – yet wise and well, Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!
And this huge Castle, standing here sublime, I love to see the look with which it braves, Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time, The lightning, the fierce wind, the trampling waves.
Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind! Such happiness, wherever it be known, Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind.
But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, And frequent sights of what is to be borne! Such sights, or worse, as are before me here – Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.
335
Appendix VIII
Below is the full-text of John Keats‘s ―Ode on a Grecian Urn:‖
Thou still unravished bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, Forever piping songs forever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! Forever warm and still to be enjoyed, Forever panting, and forever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands dressed? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 336
O Attic shape! Fair attidude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
337
Appendix IX
Below is the full-text of P.B. Shelley‘s ―On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci in the
Florentine Gallery.‖ The brackets indicate the unfinished editing of the poet. The last stanza the authenticity of which is not certain has also been added to end of the poem:
I It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky, Upon the cloudy mountain peak supine; Below, far lands are seen tremblingly; Its horror and its beauty are divine. Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie Loveliness like a shadow, from which shrine, Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath, The agonies of anguish and of death.
II Yet it is less the horror than the grace Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone; Whereon the lineaments of that dead face Are graven, till the characters be grown Into itself, and thought no more can trace; 'Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain, Which humanize and harmonize the strain.
III And from its head as from one body grow, As [?] grass out of a watery rock, Hairs which are vipers, and they curl and flow And their long tangles in each other lock, And with unending involutions shew Their mailed radiance, as it were to mock The torture and the death within, and saw The solid air with many a ragged jaw.
IV And from a stone beside, a poisonous eft Peeps idly into those Gorgonian eyes; Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise 338
Out of the cave this hideous light had cleft, And he comes hastening like a moth that hies After a taper; and the midnight sky Flares, a light more dread than obscurity.
V 'Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror; For from the serpents gleams a brazen glare Kindled by that inextricable error, Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air Become a [?] and ever-shifting mirror Of all the beauty and the terror there- A woman's countenance, with serpent locks, Gazing in death on heaven from those wet rocks.
VI? It is a woman‘s countenance divine With everlasting beauty breathing there Which from a stormy mountain‘s peak, supine Gazes into the [mid?] night‘s trembling air. It is a trunkless head, and on its feature Death has met life, but there is life in death, The blood is frozen – but unconquered Nature Seems struggling to be the last – without a breath The fragment of an uncreated creature.
339
Appendix X
Below is the full-text of D.G. Rosetti‘s ――For a Venetian Pastoral by Giorgone in the
Louvre:‖
Water, for anguish of the solstice:—nay, But dip the vessel slowly,—nay, but lean And hark how at its verge the wave sighs in Reluctant. Hush! beyond all depth away The heat lies silent at the brink of day: Now the hand trails upon the viol-string That sobs, and the brown faces cease to sing, Sad with the whole of pleasure. Whither stray Her eyes now, from whose mouth the slim pipes creep And leave it pouting, while the shadow‘d grass Is cool against her naked side? Let be:— Say nothing now unto her lest she weep, Nor name this ever. Be it as it was,— Life touching lips with Immortality.
340
Appendix XI
Below is the full-text of Robert Browning‘s ―My Last Duchess (Ferrara):‖
That's my last duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will't please you sit and look at her? I said "Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, That depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps Fra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps Over my lady's wrist too much" or "Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat:" such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart - how shall I say? - too soon made glad, Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, 't was all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace -all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush,at least. She thanked men - good! but thanked Somehow - I know not how - as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech - (which I have not) - to make your will Quite clear to such a one, and say, "Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss Or there exceed the mark"- and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse - E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose 341
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed At starting is my object. Nay, we'll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me.
342
Appendix XII
Below is the full-text of W.H. Auden‘s ―Museé des Beaux Arts:‖
About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; how well, they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
343
Appendix XIII
Kennedy lists the characteristics of traditional understanding of poetry as follows:
1) Poetry is subversive and oppositional, 2) Poetry is diachronic as well as synchronic, 3) Self and authentic utterance is essential, 4) ―Poetry involves a particular relationship with language where the moral, the technical, the musical, the erotic, the sexual and the philosophical may all interfuse,‖ 5) Poetry is sensual, 6) Poetry is a sacred space, 7) There is ―resistance of meaning‖ in poetry. (247-248).
As for the general features of the poetry after the 1980s, he states that,
1) Poetry started in 1980 2) Poetry should be relevant to people‘s lives 3) Poetry is an open space 4) Poetry is democratic, it was elitist before 5) Poetry concerns a wider culture 6) Poetry is political and on the left 7) Poetry is serious but not boring 8) Poetry requires innovation (248-249).
Kennedy has observed the following qualities concerning the characteristics of twentieth-century art and aestheticism:
1) Arts are international 2) Art is good and more art is better 3) Art equals synthesis 4) Truth has been replaces by sincerity 5) Variety and quantity is essential in arts 6) Plurality equals virtue 7) There is an audience for every art. 344
8) The lines between arts and entertainment and leisure are becoming blurred 9) Art dictates the suppression of difficulty and difference 10) Art should be accessible (248-9).
345
Appendix XIV
Below is the full-text of William Carlos Williams‘s ―The Dance:‖
In Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess, the dancers go round, they go round and around, the squeal and the blare and the tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles tipping their bellies (round as the thick- sided glasses whose wash they impound) their hips and their bellies off balance to turn them. Kicking and rolling about the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those shanks must be sound to bear up under such rollicking measures, prance as they dance in Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess.
346
Appendix XV
Below is the full-text of Derek Mahon‘s ―The Hunt by Night:‖
Flickering shades, Stick figures, lithe game, Swift flights of bison in a cave Where man the maker killed to live; But neolithic bush became The midnight woods
Of nursery walls, The ancient fears mutated To play, horses to rocking-horses Tamed and framed to courtly uses, Crazed no more by foetid Bestial howls
But rampant to The pageantry they share And echoes of the hunting horn At once peremptory and forlorn. The mild herbaceous air Is lemon-blue,
The glade aglow With pleasant mysteries, Diuretic depots, pungent prey; And midnight hints at break of day Where, among sombre trees, The slim dogs go
Wild with suspense Leaping to left and right, Their cries receding to a point Masked by obscurities of paint-- As if our hunt by night, So very tense,
So long pursued, In what dark cave begun And not yet done, were not the great Adventure we suppose but some elaborate Spectacle put on for fun And not for food.
347
Appendix XVI
Below is the full-text of John Ashbery‘s ―Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror:‖
As Parmigianino did it, the right hand Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer And swerving easily away, as though to protect What it advertises. A few leaded panes, old beams, Fur, pleated muslin, a coral ring run together In a movement supporting the face, which swims Toward and away like the hand Except that it is in repose. It is what is Sequestered. Vasari says, "Francesco one day set himself To take his own portrait, looking at himself from that purpose In a convex mirror, such as is used by barbers . . . He accordingly caused a ball of wood to be made By a turner, and having divided it in half and Brought it to the size of the mirror, he set himself With great art to copy all that he saw in the glass," Chiefly his reflection, of which the portrait Is the reflection, of which the portrait Is the reflection once removed. The glass chose to reflect only what he saw Which was enough for his purpose: his image Glazed, embalmed, projected at a 180-degree angle. The time of day or the density of the light Adhering to the face keeps it Lively and intact in a recurring wave Of arrival. The soul establishes itself. But how far can it swim out through the eyes And still return safely to its nest? The surface Of the mirror being convex, the distance increases Significantly; that is, enough to make the point That the soul is a captive, treated humanely, kept In suspension, unable to advance much farther Than your look as it intercepts the picture. Pope Clement and his court were "stupefied" By it, according to Vasari, and promised a commission That never materialized. The soul has to stay where it is, Even though restless, hearing raindrops at the pane, The sighing of autumn leaves thrashed by the wind, Longing to be free, outside, but it must stay Posing in this place. It must move As little as possible. This is what the portrait says. But there is in that gaze a combination Of tenderness, amusement and regret, so powerful 348
In its restraint that one cannot look for long. The secret is too plain. The pity of it smarts, Makes hot tears spurt: that the soul is not a soul, Has no secret, is small, and it fits Its hollow perfectly: its room, our moment of attention. That is the tune but there are no words. The words are only speculation (From the Latin speculum, mirror) They seek and cannot find the meaning of the music. We see only postures of the dream, Riders of the motion that swings the face Into view under evening skies, with no False disarray as proof of authenticity. But it is life englobed. One would like to stick one's hand Out of the globe, but its dimension, What carries it, will not allow it. No doubt it is this, not the reflex To hide something, which makes the hand loom large As it retreats slightly. There is no way To build it flat like a section of wall: It must join the segment of a circle, Roving back to the body of which it seems So unlikely a part, to fence in and shore up the face On which the effort of this condition reads Like a pinpoint of a smile, a spark Or star one is not sure of having seen As darkness resumes. A perverse light whose Imperative of subtlety dooms in advance its Conceit to light up: unimportant but meant. Francesco, your hand is big enough To wreck the sphere, and too big, One would think, to weave delicate meshes That only argue its further detention. (Big, but not coarse, merely on another scale, Like a dozing whale on the sea bottom In relation to the tiny, self-important ship On the surface.) But your eyes proclaim That everything is surface. The surface is what's there And nothing can exist except what's there. There are no recesses in the room, only alcoves, And the window doesn't matter much, or that Sliver of window or mirror on the right, even As a gauge of the weather, which in French is Le temps, the word for time, and which Follows a course wherein changes are merely Features of the whole. The whole is stable within Instability, a globe like ours, resting 349
On a pedestal of vacuum, a ping-pong ball Secure on its jet of water. And just as there are no words for the surface, that is, No words to say what it really is, that it is not Superficial but a visible core, then there is No way out of the problem of pathos vs. experience. You will stay on, restive, serene in Your gesture which is neither embrace nor warning But which holds something of both in pure Affirmation that doesn't affirm anything.
The balloon pops, the attention Turns dully away. Clouds In the puddle stir up into sawtoothed fragments. I think of the friends Who came to see me, of what yesterday Was like. A peculiar slant Of memory that intrudes on the dreaming model In the silence of the studio as he considers Lifting the pencil to the self-portrait. How many people came and stayed a certain time, Uttered light or dark speech that became part of you Like light behind windblown fog and sand, Filtered and influenced by it, until no part Remains that is surely you. Those voices in the dusk Have told you all and still the tale goes on In the form of memories deposited in irregular Clumps of crystals. Whose curved hand controls, Francesco, the turning seasons and the thoughts That peel off and fly away at breathless speeds Like the last stubborn leaves ripped From wet branches? I see in this only the chaos Of your round mirror which organizes everything Around the polestar of your eyes which are empty, Know nothing, dream but reveal nothing. I feel the carousel starting slowly And going faster and faster: desk, papers, books, Photographs of friends, the window and the trees Merging in one neutral band that surrounds Me on all sides, everywhere I look. And I cannot explain the action of leveling, Why it should all boil down to one Uniform substance, a magma of interiors. My guide in these matters is your self, Firm, oblique, accepting everything with the same Wraith of a smile, and as time speeds up so that it is soon Much later, I can know only the straight way out, The distance between us. Long ago 350
The strewn evidence meant something, The small accidents and pleasures Of the day as it moved gracelessly on, A housewife doing chores. Impossible now To restore those properties in the silver blur that is The record of what you accomplished by sitting down "With great art to copy all that you saw in the glass" So as to perfect and rule out the extraneous Forever. In the circle of your intentions certain spars Remain that perpetuate the enchantment of self with self: Eyebeams, muslin, coral. It doesn't matter Because these are things as they are today Before one's shadow ever grew Out of the field into thoughts of tomorrow.
Tomorrow is easy, but today is uncharted, Desolate, reluctant as any landscape To yield what are laws of perspective After all only to the painter's deep Mistrust, a weak instrument though Necessary. Of course some things Are possible, it knows, but it doesn't know Which ones. Some day we will try To do as many things as are possible And perhaps we shall succeed at a handful Of them, but this will not have anything To do with what is promised today, our Landscape sweeping out from us to disappear On the horizon. Today enough of a cover burnishes To keep the supposition of promises together In one piece of surface, letting one ramble Back home from them so that these Even stronger possibilities can remain Whole without being tested. Actually The skin of the bubble-chamber's as tough as Reptile eggs; everything gets "programmed" there In due course: more keeps getting included Without adding to the sum, and just as one Gets accustomed to a noise that Kept one awake but now no longer does, So the room contains this flow like an hourglass Without varying in climate or quality (Except perhaps to brighten bleakly and almost Invisibly, in a focus sharpening toward death--more Of this later). What should be the vacuum of a dream Becomes continually replete as the source of dreams Is being tapped so that this one dream May wax, flourish like a cabbage rose, 351
Defying sumptuary laws, leaving us To awake and try to begin living in what Has now become a slum. Sydney Freedberg in his Parmigianino says of it: "Realism in this portrait No longer produces and objective truth, but a bizarria . . . However its distortion does not create A feeling of disharmony . . . The forms retain A strong measure of ideal beauty," because Fed by our dreams, so inconsequential until one day We notice the hole they left. Now their importance If not their meaning is plain. They were to nourish A dream which includes them all, as they are Finally reversed in the accumulating mirror. They seemed strange because we couldn't actually see them. And we realize this only at a point where they lapse Like a wave breaking on a rock, giving up Its shape in a gesture which expresses that shape. The forms retain a strong measure of ideal beauty As they forage in secret on our idea of distortion. Why be unhappy with this arrangement, since Dreams prolong us as they are absorbed? Something like living occurs, a movement Out of the dream into its codification.
As I start to forget it It presents its stereotype again But it is an unfamiliar stereotype, the face Riding at anchor, issued from hazards, soon To accost others, "rather angel than man" (Vasari). Perhaps an angel looks like everything We have forgotten, I mean forgotten Things that don't seem familiar when We meet them again, lost beyond telling, Which were ours once. This would be the point Of invading the privacy of this man who "Dabbled in alchemy, but whose wish Here was not to examine the subtleties of art In a detached, scientific spirit: he wished through them To impart the sense of novelty and amazement to the spectator" (Freedberg). Later portraits such as the Uffizi "Gentleman," the Borghese "Young Prelate" and The Naples "Antea" issue from Mannerist Tensions, but here, as Freedberg points out, The surprise, the tension are in the concept Rather than its realization. The consonance of the High Renaissance Is present, though distorted by the mirror. What is novel is the extreme care in rendering 352
The velleities of the rounded reflecting surface (It is the first mirror portrait), So that you could be fooled for a moment Before you realize the reflection Isn't yours. You feel then like one of those Hoffmann characters who have been deprived Of a reflection, except that the whole of me Is seen to be supplanted by the strict Otherness of the painter in his Other room. We have surprised him At work, but no, he has surprised us As he works. The picture is almost finished, The surprise almost over, as when one looks out, Startled by a snowfall which even now is Ending in specks and sparkles of snow. It happened while you were inside, asleep, And there is no reason why you should have Been awake for it, except that the day Is ending and it will be hard for you To get to sleep tonight, at least until late.
The shadow of the city injects its own Urgency: Rome where Francesco Was at work during the Sack: his inventions Amazed the soldiers who burst in on him; They decided to spare his life, but he left soon after; Vienna where the painting is today, where I saw it with Pierre in the summer of 1959; New York Where I am now, which is a logarithm Of other cities. Our landscape Is alive with filiations, shuttlings; Business is carried on by look, gesture, Hearsay. It is another life to the city, The backing of the looking glass of the Unidentified but precisely sketched studio. It wants To siphon off the life of the studio, deflate Its mapped space to enactments, island it. That operation has been temporarily stalled But something new is on the way, a new preciosity In the wind. Can you stand it, Francesco? Are you strong enough for it? This wind brings what it knows not, is Self--propelled, blind, has no notion Of itself. It is inertia that once Acknowledged saps all activity, secret or public: Whispers of the word that can't be understood But can be felt, a chill, a blight Moving outward along the capes and peninsulas 353
Of your nervures and so to the archipelagoes And to the bathed, aired secrecy of the open sea. This is its negative side. Its positive side is Making you notice life and the stresses That only seemed to go away, but now, As this new mode questions, are seen to be Hastening out of style. If they are to become classics They must decide which side they are on. Their reticence has undermined The urban scenery, made its ambiguities Look willful and tired, the games of an old man. What we need now is this unlikely Challenger pounding on the gates of an amazed Castle. Your argument, Francesco, Had begun to grow stale as no answer Or answers were forthcoming. If it dissolves now Into dust, that only means its time had come Some time ago, but look now, and listen: It may be that another life is stocked there In recesses no one knew of; that it, Not we, are the change; that we are in fact it If we could get back to it, relive some of the way It looked, turn our faces to the globe as it sets And still be coming out all right: Nerves normal, breath normal. Since it is a metaphor Made to include us, we are a part of it and Can live in it as in fact we have done, Only leaving our minds bare for questioning We now see will not take place at random But in an orderly way that means to menace Nobody--the normal way things are done, Like the concentric growing up of days Around a life: correctly, if you think about it.
A breeze like the turning of a page Brings back your face: the moment Takes such a big bite out of the haze Of pleasant intuition it comes after. The locking into place is "death itself," As Berg said of a phrase in Mahler's Ninth; Or, to quote Imogen in Cymbeline, "There cannot Be a pinch in death more sharp than this," for, Though only exercise or tactic, it carries The momentum of a conviction that had been building. Mere forgetfulness cannot remove it Nor wishing bring it back, as long as it remains The white precipitate of its dream In the climate of sighs flung across our world, 354
A cloth over a birdcage. But it is certain that What is beautiful seems so only in relation to a specific Life, experienced or not, channeled into some form Steeped in the nostalgia of a collective past. The light sinks today with an enthusiasm I have known elsewhere, and known why It seemed meaningful, that others felt this way Years ago. I go on consulting This mirror that is no longer mine For as much brisk vacancy as is to be My portion this time. And the vase is always full Because there is only just so much room And it accommodates everything. The sample One sees is not to be taken as Merely that, but as everything as it May be imagined outside time--not as a gesture But as all, in the refined, assimilable state. But what is this universe the porch of As it veers in and out, back and forth, Refusing to surround us and still the only Thing we can see? Love once Tipped the scales but now is shadowed, invisible, Though mysteriously present, around somewhere. But we know it cannot be sandwiched Between two adjacent moments, that its windings Lead nowhere except to further tributaries And that these empty themselves into a vague Sense of something that can never be known Even though it seems likely that each of us Knows what it is and is capable of Communicating it to the other. But the look Some wear as a sign makes one want to Push forward ignoring the apparent NaÏveté of the attempt, not caring That no one is listening, since the light Has been lit once and for all in their eyes And is present, unimpaired, a permanent anomaly, Awake and silent. On the surface of it There seems no special reason why that light Should be focused by love, or why The city falling with its beautiful suburbs Into space always less clear, less defined, Should read as the support of its progress, The easel upon which the drama unfolded To its own satisfaction and to the end Of our dreaming, as we had never imagined It would end, in worn daylight with the painted Promise showing through as a gage, a bond. 355
This nondescript, never-to-be defined daytime is The secret of where it takes place And we can no longer return to the various Conflicting statements gathered, lapses of memory Of the principal witnesses. All we know Is that we are a little early, that Today has that special, lapidary Todayness that the sunlight reproduces Faithfully in casting twig-shadows on blithe Sidewalks. No previous day would have been like this. I used to think they were all alike, That the present always looked the same to everybody But this confusion drains away as one Is always cresting into one's present. Yet the "poetic," straw-colored space Of the long corridor that leads back to the painting, Its darkening opposite--is this Some figment of "art," not to be imagined As real, let alone special? Hasn't it too its lair In the present we are always escaping from And falling back into, as the waterwheel of days Pursues its uneventful, even serene course? I think it is trying to say it is today And we must get out of it even as the public Is pushing through the museum now so as to Be out by closing time. You can't live there. The gray glaze of the past attacks all know-how: Secrets of wash and finish that took a lifetime To learn and are reduced to the status of Black-and-white illustrations in a book where colorplates Are rare. That is, all time Reduces to no special time. No one Alludes to the change; to do so might Involve calling attention to oneself Which would augment the dread of not getting out Before having seen the whole collection (Except for the sculptures in the basement: They are where they belong). Our time gets to be veiled, compromised By the portrait's will to endure. It hints at Our own, which we were hoping to keep hidden. We don't need paintings or Doggerel written by mature poets when The explosion is so precise, so fine. Is there any point even in acknowledging The existence of all that? Does it Exist? Certainly the leisure to Indulge stately pastimes doesn't, 356
Any more. Today has no margins, the event arrives Flush with its edges, is of the same substance, Indistinguishable. "Play" is something else; It exists, in a society specifically Organized as a demonstration of itself. There is no other way, and those assholes Who would confuse everything with their mirror games Which seem to multiply stakes and possibilities, or At least confuse issues by means of an investing Aura that would corrode the architecture Of the whole in a haze of suppressed mockery, Are beside the point. They are out of the game, Which doesn't exist until they are out of it. It seems like a very hostile universe But as the principle of each individual thing is Hostile to, exists at the expense of all the others As philosophers have often pointed out, at least This thing, the mute, undivided present, Has the justification of logic, which In this instance isn't a bad thing Or wouldn't be, if the way of telling Didn't somehow intrude, twisting the end result Into a caricature of itself. This always Happens, as in the game where A whispered phrase passed around the room Ends up as something completely different. It is the principle that makes works of art so unlike What the artist intended. Often he finds He has omitted the thing he started out to say In the first place. Seduced by flowers, Explicit pleasures, he blames himself (though Secretly satisfied with the result), imagining He had a say in the matter and exercised An option of which he was hardly conscious, Unaware that necessity circumvents such resolutions. So as to create something new For itself, that there is no other way, That the history of creation proceeds according to Stringent laws, and that things Do get done in this way, but never the things We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately To see come into being. Parmigianino Must have realized this as he worked at his Life-obstructing task. One is forced to read The perfectly plausible accomplishment of a purpose Into the smooth, perhaps even bland (but so Enigmatic) finish. Is there anything To be serious about beyond this otherness 357
That gets included in the most ordinary Forms of daily activity, changing everything Slightly and profoundly, and tearing the matter Of creation, any creation, not just artistic creation Out of our hands, to install it on some monstrous, near Peak, too close to ignore, too far For one to intervene? This otherness, this "Not-being-us" is all there is to look at In the mirror, though no one can say How it came to be this way. A ship Flying unknown colors has entered the harbor. You are allowing extraneous matters To break up your day, cloud the focus Of the crystal ball. Its scene drifts away Like vapor scattered on the wind. The fertile Thought-associations that until now came So easily, appear no more, or rarely. Their Colorings are less intense, washed out By autumn rains and winds, spoiled, muddied, Given back to you because they are worthless. Yet we are such creatures of habit that their Implications are still around en permanence, confusing Issues. To be serious only about sex Is perhaps one way, but the sands are hissing As they approach the beginning of the big slide Into what happened. This past Is now here: the painter's Reflected face, in which we linger, receiving Dreams and inspirations on an unassigned Frequency, but the hues have turned metallic, The curves and edges are not so rich. Each person Has one big theory to explain the universe But it doesn't tell the whole story And in the end it is what is outside him That matters, to him and especially to us Who have been given no help whatever In decoding our own man-size quotient and must rely On second-hand knowledge. Yet I know That no one else's taste is going to be Any help, and might as well be ignored. Once it seemed so perfect--gloss on the fine Freckled skin, lips moistened as though about to part Releasing speech, and the familiar look Of clothes and furniture that one forgets. This could have been our paradise: exotic Refuge within an exhausted world, but that wasn't In the cards, because it couldn't have been The point. Aping naturalness may be the first step 358
Toward achieving an inner calm But it is the first step only, and often Remains a frozen gesture of welcome etched On the air materializing behind it, A convention. And we have really No time for these, except to use them For kindling. The sooner they are burnt up The better for the roles we have to play. Therefore I beseech you, withdraw that hand, Offer it no longer as shield or greeting, The shield of a greeting, Francesco: There is room for one bullet in the chamber: Our looking through the wrong end Of the telescope as you fall back at a speed Faster than that of light to flatten ultimately Among the features of the room, an invitation Never mailed, the "it was all a dream" Syndrome, though the "all" tells tersely Enough how it wasn't. Its existence Was real, though troubled, and the ache Of this waking dream can never drown out The diagram still sketched on the wind, Chosen, meant for me and materialized In the disguising radiance of my room. We have seen the city; it is the gibbous Mirrored eye of an insect. All things happen On its balcony and are resumed within, But the action is the cold, syrupy flow Of a pageant. One feels too confined, Sifting the April sunlight for clues, In the mere stillness of the ease of its Parameter. The hand holds no chalk And each part of the whole falls off And cannot know it knew, except Here and there, in cold pockets Of remembrance, whispers out of time.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Illustrations for Chapter II
Illustration I.i.
Sir George Beaumont’s Piel Castle in a Storm (1805) in Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum. Oil on canvas; 34x49 cm. 360
Illustration I.ii.
Anonymous from Gentleman’s Magazine, London (1749). Image reproduced from www.oldworldauctions.com (Auction number 086). Engraving on paper; 11x11 cm. 361
Illustration I.iii.
John Flaxman’s The Shield of Achilles (1821) (presented to His Majesty George IV) in Royal Collection, London. Gold and silver gilt: 93 cm.
362
Illustration I.iv.
Renold Elstrack’s engraving on the frontispiece of Sir Walter Raleigh’s History of the World (1614). (Corbett and Lightbown Illustration 19). 363
Illustration I.v.
The rotation “The Mind” follows while ekphrasizing on Elstrack’s engraving. 364
Illustration I.vi.
Sir Peter Lely’s Charles I 1600-49 and James Duke of York 1633-1701 (1647) in the Private Collection of the Duke of Northumberland at Syon House. Oil on canvas; 70x60 cm. 365
Illustration I.vii.
The vertical axis and the two sections of Sir Peter Lely’s Charles I 1600-49 and James Duke of York 1633-1701 (1647). 366
Illustration I.viii.
The axes of gaze and the hand gestures of Sir Peter Lely’s Charles I 1600-49 and James Duke of York 1633-1701 (1647). 367
Illustration I.ix.
Nicholas Poussin’s Echo and Narcissus (1628) in the Louvre Museum. Oil on canvas; 74x100 cm.
368
Illustrations for Chapter III
Illustration II.i.
Title page from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789). 369
Illustration II.ii.
The page of the poem entitled “The Tiger” from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789). 370
Illustration II.iii.
William Blake’s memorial stone in Bunhill Fields, London. 371
Illustration II.iv.
William Etty’s Nude in a Landscape (1820) in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles). Oil on paper mounted on masonite; 44.92 x 53.66 cm. 372
Illustration II.v.
John Vanderlyn’s Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos (1812) in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (Los Angeles). Oil on canvas; 175 x 224 cm. 373
Illustration II.vi.
J.A.D. Ingres’s The Grand Odalisque (1814) in the Louvre Museum. Oil on canvas; 91 x 162 cm. 374
Illustration II.vii.
Marmaduke Craddock’s A Peacock, Hens, Fowl and other Birds in a Wooded River Landscape (early eighteenth century) in the South Kensington Gallery (London). Oil on canvas; 79 x 107 cm. 375
Illustration II.viii.
Henry Alken’s Shooting Partridge over Dogs (1825) in the Bridgeman Art Library (London). Oil on canvas; 35 x 50 cm. 376
Illustration II.ix.
William M. Harnett’s After the Hunt (1883) in the Mildred Anna Williams Collection (New York). Oil on canvas; 185 cm x 93 cm. 377
Illustration II.x.
John Keats’s untitled engraving (1819-1820?). Ink on paper (Motion Plate 12)
378
Illustration II.xi.
Anon. Flemish Painter’s Medusa (1600 ca.) in the Uffizi Gallery (Florence). Oil on wood; 49 cm x 74 cm.
379
Illustration II.xii.
Caravaggio’s The Head of Medusa (1597) in the Uffizi Gallery (Florence). Oil on canvas mounted on wood; 60 cm x 55 cm.
380
Illustration II.xiii.
Titian’s Le Cocert Champêtre (The Pastoral Concert) (1508-1509 ca.) in the Louvre Museum. Oil on canvas; 110 cm x 138 cm.
381
Illustration II.xiv.
The vertical axes and the five sections of Titian’s Le Cocert Champêtre (The Pastoral Concert) (1508-1509 ca.). in the Louvre Museum. Oil on canvas; 110 cm x 138 cm.
382
Illustration II.xv.
Angolo Bronzino’s Lucrezia de Cosimo de Medici (1560-1565 ca). Private Collection (Medici Gallery, Florence); Oil on canvas; 49 cm x 93 cm.
383
Illustrations for Chapter III
Illustration III.i.
René Magriette’s La Trahison des Images (The Treachery of Images) (1928-1929). Los Angeles County Museum of Arts (California); Oil on canvas; 63,5 cm x 93,9 cm.
384
Illustration III.ii.
William Blake’s Ancient of Days (1794). The British Museum; Relief etching watercolour on paper; 23,3 cm x 16,8 cm.
385
Illustration III.iii.
Peter Brueghel the Elder’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1558 ca.). Museé des Beaux Arts (Brussels); Oil on canvas; 73,5 cm x 112 cm.
386
Illustration III.iv.
Peter Brueghel the Younger (?)’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1595 ca.). Museé de Van Buuren (Brussels); Oil on wood; 63 cm x 90 cm.
387
Illustration III.v.
Detail from Peter Brueghel the Younger (?)’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1595 ca.). Museé de Van Buuren (Brussels); Oil on wood; 63 cm x 90 cm.
388
Illustration III.vi.
Peter Brueghel the Elder’s Netherlandish Proverbs (1559). Sttatliche Museen (Berlin); Oil on oak panel; 117 cm x 163 cm.
389
Illustration III.vii.
Peter Brueghel the Elder’s The Census at Bethlehem (1566). Museé des Beaux Arts (Brussels); Oil on canvas; 116 cm x 164,5 cm.
390
Illustration III.viii.
Referred spots in Peter Brueghel the Elder’s The Census at Bethlehem (1566). Museé des Beaux Arts (Brussels); Oil on canvas; 116 cm x 164,5 cm.
391
Illustration III.ix.
Referred spots displaying Mary, Joseph, and the Hapsburg cote of arms in Peter Brueghel the Elder’s The Census at Bethlehem (1566). Museé des Beaux Arts (Brussels); Oil on canvas; 116 cm x 164,5 cm.
392
Illustration III.x.
Detail from Peter Brueghel the Elder’s The Census at Bethlehem (1566). Museé des Beaux Arts (Brussels); Oil on canvas; 116 cm x 164,5 cm.
393
Illustration III.xi.
Indifferent figures in Peter Brueghel the Elder’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1558 ca.). Museé des Beaux Arts (Brussels); Oil on canvas; 73,5 cm x 112 cm.
394
Illustration III.xii.
Detail from Peter Brueghel the Elder’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1558 ca.). Museé des Beaux Arts (Brussels); Oil on canvas; 73,5 cm x 112 cm.
395
Illustration III.xiii.
Detail from Peter Brueghel the Elder’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1558 ca.). Museé des Beaux Arts (Brussels); Oil on canvas; 73,5 cm x 112 cm.
396
Illustration III.xiv.
Horizontal axis and the centralised figure in Peter Brueghel the Elder’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1558 ca.). Museé des Beaux Arts (Brussels); Oil on canvas; 73,5 cm x 112 cm.
397
Illustration III.xv.
Horizontal and vertical axes and the centralised figure in Peter Brueghel the Elder’s The Census at Bethlehem (1566). Museé des Beaux Arts (Brussels); Oil on canvas; 116 cm x 164,5 cm.
398
Illustration III.xvi.
Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s The Kermess (Peasant Dance) (1568 ca.). Kunsthhistorisches Museum (Vienna); Oil on panel; 114 cm x 164 cm.
399
Illustration III.xvii.
Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s The Corn Harvest (1565). The Metropolitan Museum (New York); Oil on panel; 160 cm x 118 cm.
400
Illustration III.xviii.
Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s The Hunters in the Snow (The Return of the Hunters) (1565). Kunsthhistorisches Museum (Vienna); Oil on wood; 162 cm x 117 cm.
401
Illustration III.xix.
Paolo Uccello’s A Hunt in the Forest (The Hunt by Night) (1470 ca.). Ashmolean Museum (Oxford); Tempera on wood; 165 cm x 65 cm.
402
Illustration III.xx.
Vanishing point in Paolo Uccello’s A Hunt in the Forest (The Hunt by Night) (1470 ca.). Ashmolean Museum (Oxford); Tempera on wood; 165 cm x 65 cm.
403
Illustration II.xxi.
Colour and brightness levels in Paolo Uccello’s A Hunt in the Forest (The Hunt by Night) (1470 ca.). Ashmolean Museum (Oxford); Tempera on wood; 165 cm x 65 cm.
404
Illustration III.xxii.
Distribution of figures in Paolo Uccello’s A Hunt in the Forest (The Hunt by Night) (1470 ca.). Ashmolean Museum (Oxford); Tempera on wood; 165 cm x 65 cm.
405
Illustration III.xxiii.
Parmigianino’s Self-Portraint in a Covex Mirror (1524 ca.). Kunsthhistorisches Museum (Vienna); Oil on wood; 24,4 cm.
WORKS CITED
Ackroyd, Peter. Blake. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995.
Acquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Trans. FEDP (Fathers of the English
Dominican Province). London: Benzinger, 1947. Rpt. Hypertext. New
Advent, 1996.
Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting: Della Pittura. Ed. Luigi Mallé. Trans. John R.
Spencer. New Haven: Yale UP, 1966.
Alexander, Edward P. and Mary Alexander. Museums in Motion. An Introduction to
the History and Function of Musuems. Plymouth: AltaMira, 2008.
Allingham, Philip V. “Applying Modern Critical Theory to Robert Browning's “My
Last Duchess.” 14 February 2009. /duchess/pva264. html>. Anselment, Raymond A. “„Clouded Majesty:‟ Richard Lovelace, Sir Peter Lely, and the Royalist Spirit.” Studies in Philology. 86-3 (1989). 367-387. Apollonius of Rhodes. The Voyage of Argo: The Argonautica. Trans. E.V. Rieu. Baltimore: Penguin, 1959. Aritotle. Poetics. Trans. Malcolm Heath. London: OUP, 1996. Arnauld, Antoine. The Art of Thinking. Trans. James Dickoff and Patricia James. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964. “Ashbery, Parmigianino, and the Convex Mirror.” Anon. 16 March 2009. Ashbery, John. “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.” Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. London and New York: Penguin, 1976. Ash, Russell. Dante Gabriel Rosetti. London: Pavilion, 1995. “Auden‟s „Museé des Beaux Arts‟.” Anon. 25 August 2009. /archive/2008/11/hbc-90003880>. Auden, W.H. Selected Poems. ed. Edward Mendelson. London: Vintage, 2007. ---. “Calm Even in the Catastrophe.” McClatchy 127-138. ---. “Museé des Beaux Arts.” Auden Selected. Irving Babbitt. The New Laokoön: An Essay on the Confusion of the Arts. London: Biblio Bazaar, 2008. Baker, David. “Poetry, Pleasure, and the Hedonist Reader.” David Citino.ed. The Eye of the Poet: Six Views of the Art and Craft of Poetry. NY: OUP, 2002. 1- 37. Baker, William, Kenneth Womack and et al. “XIII: The Nineteenth Century; The Victorian Perod.” 611-767. 10 June 2006. /cgi/reprint/81/1/767>. Baker-Smith, D. “Literature and teh Visual Arts.” Encyclopedia of Literature and Criticism. Eds. M. Coyle et al. London: Routledge, 1990. 991-1003. Baldwin, Charles Sears. Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic. New York: Macmillan, 1928. Barringer, Tim. Reading the Pre-Raphaelites. New Haven: Yale UP, 1998 Baş, Işıl. Conversation with Işıl Baş, the former President of PALA. 14 March 2006. Bate, Jonathan. Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition. London and New York: Routledge, 1991. 408 Becker, Andrew Sprague. The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Ekphrasis. London: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995. Bennett, Tony. The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics. London: Routledge, 1999. Bentley, Gerald Eades. Jr. ed. William Blake: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge. 1995. Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 1986. Bergin, Joseph. ed. The Seventeenth Century: Europe 1598-1715. ed. T.C.W. Blanning. Oxford: OUP, 2001. Bergmann, Emilie L. Art Inscribed: Essays on Exphrasis in Spanish Golden Age Poetry. Harvard Studies in Romance Languages. Vol. 35. Cambridge and London: Harvard UP, 1979. Blackhawk, Terry. “Ekphrastic Poetry: Entering and Giving Voice to Works of Art.” Foster and Prevallet, 1-14. Blake, William. “Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Proverbs of Hell.” The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. ed. David V. Erdman. intro. Harold Bloom. London: Anchor, 1997. Bloom, Harold. “The Breaking Form.” Deconstruction and Criticism: Harold Bloom, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey H. Hartman, J. Hillis Miller. Ed. Geoffrey H. Hartman. London: Continuum, 2004. 1-31. Blümner, Hugo. Lessing’s Laokoon. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1880. Borsi, Franco and Stefano Borsi. Paolo Uccello. London: Thames and Hudson, 1994. Bosveld, Jennifer. “Elastic Ekphrasis: Another Way Toward Poetry.” Web Article. 10 June 2008 Bradford, Richard. Stylistics. London: Routledge, 1997. Braida, Antonella and Guiliana Pieri. ed. “Reflections from Art and Literature from the Middle Ages to the Present.” Extract from Image and Word. Legenda. London: European Humanities Research Centre (Oxford UP) and Modern Humanities Research Association, 2003, 10-23. Brooks, Cleanth. Historical Evidence and the Reading of the Seventeenth-Century Poetry. St. Louis: Missouri UP, 1991. Brooks, Cleanth and Robert Penn Warren.Eds. Understanding Poetry. New York and London: Faber, 1956. Broomwich, George. “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time.” de Almeida 245-251. Brown, Carl R.V. “Contemporary Poetry about Painting.” The English Journal. 18-1. (1992): 41-45. Browning, Robert. Selected Poetry. ed. Daniel Karlin. London: Puffin, 1990. ---. “My Last Duchess.” Browning. ---. “Andrea del Sarto.” Browning. Bruhn, Siglind. “Some Thoughts Toward a Theory of Musical Ekphrasis.” Web Article. 19 June 2008 /honeycutt/ekphrasis .html>. Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful. Ed. J. T. Boulton. Indiana: Notre Dame UP, 1968. Burrows, John. “Andrew Marvell and the „Painter Satires:‟ A Computational Approach to Their Authorship.” The Modern Language Review. Vol. 100.2. 2005. 281-297. 410 Burwick, Frederic. Mimesis and Its Romantic Reflections. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State UP, 2001. ---. “Ekphrasis and the Mimetic Crisis of Romanticism.” Wagner, 78-104. Carpenter, Humphrey. W.H. Auden: A Biography. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981. Carrier, David. Principles of Art History Writing. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State UP, 1993. ---.“Ekphrasis and Interpretation: Two Modes of art History Writing.” British Journal of Aesthetics. Vol. 27.1.(1987): 20-31. Carter, Ronald. “Poetry and Conversation: An Essay in Discourse Analysis.” Carter and Simpson, 59-74. Carter, Ronald and Walter Nash. Seeing Through Language: A Guide to Styles of English Writing. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Carter, Ronald and Paul Simpson. ed. Language, Discourse and Literature: An Introductory Reader in Discourse Stylistics. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989. Chammings, Louis. “Thomas Acquinas‟s Conception of Image in Summa Theologica.” 19 August 2009. Aquinass-Conception -of-Image-in-Summa-Theologica-Louis-Chammings>. Chandler, Daniel. Semiotics: The Basics. London: Routledge, 2002. Chapman, Raynold. “Literature and Style” Verdonk Twentieth, 24-36. Charbonnier, G. Conversation with Claude Lévi-Strauss. London: Cape, 1969. Chatman, Seymour. “The Structure of Narrative Transmisson.” Fowler Style and Structure, 213-257. 411 Chaucer, Geoffrey. Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. Walter W. Skeat. London: Kessington, 2003. ---.“The Knight‟s Tale.”Chaucer 60-88. ---. “General Prologue.” Chaucer 25-59. Clark, Matthew. A Matter of Style: On Writing and Technique. Oxford, Oxford UP, 2002. Coleridge, Samual Taylor. Biographia Literaria. Ed. J. Shawcross. 2 Vols. Vol II. London: OUP, 1949. Rpt. Eds. James Engell and Walter Jackson Bate. 2 Vols. Vol. II. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983. ---. “On Poesy of Art.” Coleridge, 253-63. ---. “On the Principles of Genial Criticism Concerning the Fine Arts: Preliminary Essay.” Coleridge, 220-22. ---. “The Blossoming of the Solitary Date-Tree.” The Complete Poems: Samuel Taylor Coleridge. ed. William Keach. London: Penguin, 1997. Colie, Rosaline. “Pictorial Traditions.” Andrew Marvell: Poems. Arthur Pollard. Ed. A. E. Dyson. Casebook Series. London: Macmillan, 1980. 146-166. “Collection History.” Anon. 14 November 2009. org.uk/paintings/history/collection-history/ collection-history/*/viewPage/1>. Corbett, M. And R.W. Lightbown. The Comely Frontispiece: The Emblematic Title- page in England, 1550-1660. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979. Crary, Jonathan. Gözlemcinin Teknikleri: On Dokuzuncu Yüzyılda Görme ve Modernite Üzerine. Trans. Elif Daldeniz. Istanbul: Metis, 2005. Crowell, B. Norton. A Reader’s Guide To Robert Browning. New Mexico: U. New Mexico P., 1972. 412 Cuddon, J.A. Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. London: Penguin, 1998. Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism After Structuralism. London and Melbourne: Routledge, 1983. Dante, Alighieri. The Divine Comedy: Purgatory. Vol. II. Trans. Mark Musa. London: Penguin, 1985. Davidson, Michael. “Ekphrasis and the Postmodern Painter Poem.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Vol. 42. Philedelphia: Temple UP, 1989. 69-89. Davies, Stephen. The Philosophy of Art. Malden: Blackwell, 2006. da Vinci, Leonardo. Treatise on Painting. Vol. 1. Trans. A.P. McMahon. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1956. ---. Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci: Compiled and Edited from the Original Manuscripts. Ed. Jean Paul Richter. London and New York: Phaidon, 1994. de Almeida, Hemione. ed. Critical Essays on John Keats. Boston and Massachusetts: G.K. Hall, 1990. de Man, Paul. Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke and Proust. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1979. DeGeorge, Richard T. and Fernande M. DeGeorge. eds. “Linguistics and Poetics.” The Structuralists from Marx to Lévi-Strauss. New York: Doubleday-Anchor, 1972. 92-121. De Quincey, Thomas. New Essays by De Quincey: His Contributions to the Edinburgh Saturday Post and the Edinburgh Evening Post: 1827-1828. Intro. and ed. Stuart M. Tave. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1966. 413 ---. Selected Writings of Thomas de Quincey. ed. Bonamy Dobrée. London: B.T. Batsford, 1965. ---. “Lessing‟s Laocoön.” De Quincey Selected 202-205. ---. “Poetic Diction.” De Quincey Selected 194-196. Derrida, Jacques. The Archeology of the Frivolous: Reading Condillac. Trans. John P. Leavey. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 1980. ---. The Truth in Painting. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1987. ---. Writing and Difference. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1978. ---. Positions. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1981. ---. Of Grammatology. Trans. and Intro. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. New York: Johns Hopkins UP, 1998. ---. Achieve Fever: A Freudian Impression. Trans. Eric Prenowitz. New York: Chicago UP, 1998. Dewey, John. Art as Experience. New York: Perigee, 1980. Dolce, Ludovico. Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento Fra Manierismo e Controriforma. Ed. Paola Barocchi Scittori. Bari: Laterza, 1960 . Donne, John. The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne. Ed. Charles M. Coffin. Toronto: Random House, 1952. Dryden, John. “Ode to the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady, Mrs. Anne Killigrew, Excellent in the Two Sister Arts of Poesy and Painting.” John Dryden Everyman Library: Poems. Ed. David Hopkins. London: Phoenix, 1998. 414 DuBois, P. History, Rhetorical Description, and the Epic. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1982. Dundas, Judith. Pencils Rhetorique: Renaissance Poets and the Art of Painting. Newark: U. of Delaware P., 1993. Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minnesota: U. of Minnesota P., 2008. Eco, Umberto. Yorum ve Aşırı Yorum. Trans. Kemal Atakay. Istanbul: Can, 1996. Edelman, Lee. “The Pose of Imposture: Ashbery‟s „Self-Portraiy in a Convex Mirror‟.” Twentieth-Century Literature. Vol. 32-1, 1986. 95-114. Eidt, Laura M. Sager. Writing and Filming the Painting: Ekphrasis in Literature and Film. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2008. Eliot, George. The Complete Essays of George Eliot. Ed. Nathan Shephard. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1883. 20 June 2008. E-book version: gutenberg.org /files/28289/28289-h/28289-h.htm>. ---. Middlemarch. Intro. Rosemary Ashton. London: Penguin, 2003. Eliot, Thomas Sterns. On Poetry and Poets. London: Faber and Faber, 1957. ---.“The Three Voices of Poetry.” T.S. Eliot On Poetry and Poets, 89-102. ---. “Dante.” Selected Essays. London: Faber and Faber, 1932. 230-234. Erinç, Sıtkı M. Resim Sanatı Üzerine. Ankara: Ütopya, 2004. “Etching.” Anon. 4 March 2010. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relief_etching# citeref-0>. Farmer, Norman K. Poets and the Visual Arts in Renaissance England. Austin: U. of Texas P., 1984. 415 Fehl, Philipp. “The Hidden Genre: A Study of the Concert Champêtre in the Louvre.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 16-2: 1957. 153-160. Fisher, Philip. Making and Effacing Art: Modern Art in a Culture of Museums. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. “For a Venetian Pastoral: Scholarly Commentary.” Anon. 10 August 2009. Fort, Bernadette. “Ekphrasis as Art Ciritcism: Diderot and Franogard‟s „Coresus and Callirhoe‟.” Wagner, 58-77. Foster, Tonya and Kristin Prevallet, ed. Third Mind: Creative Writing through Visual Art. NY: Teachers and Writers Collaborative, 2002. Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972- 1977. Ed. and Trans. Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon, 1980. ---. Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London: Routledge, 2001. ---. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage, 1995. Fowler, Roger. ed. Style and Structure in Literature: Essays in the New Stylistics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975. ---. “Linguistics, Stylistics; Criticism?” Lingua. Vol.16. (1966):153-65. ---. “The New Stylistics.” Fowler Style and Structure. 1-18. Francis, James A. “Metal Maidens, Achilles‟s Shield and Pandora: The Beginnings of Ekphrasis.” American Journal of Philosophy. 130-1 (Spring 2009): 1-23. Frank, Joseph. “Spatial Form in Modern Literature.” Spatial Form in Narrative. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1981. 199-211. 416 Freedberg, Sydney J. Parmigianino: His Works in Painting. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1980. Freedman, William. “Postponement and Perspectives in Shelley‟s „Ozymandias‟.” Studies in Romantics. Vol 25. 1986. 63-73. Freeman, Donald C. “The Strategy of Fussion: Dylan Thomas‟s Syntax.” Fowler Style and Structure, 19-39. Friedlaender, Walter. Caravaggio Studies. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1955. Ganguly, Aritro and Rangeet Sengupta. “Memory in Romanticism: Mnemosyne, Plasticity, and Emotion Recollected in Tranquillity.” 6 November 2009. Garrett, John. British Poetry Since the Sixteenth Century. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986. Gaunt, William. The Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy. London: Cap, 1975. Genette, Gerard. Figures of Literary Discourse. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Columbia UP, 1982. ---. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Trans. Jane E. Lewin. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1980. Greenberg, Clement. “Towards a Newer Laocoon.” Pollock and After. Ed. Frascina F. London: Harper and Row: 1985. 35-42. Goodman, Nelson. Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976. Goff, Barbara. “Euripides‟ Ion.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Studies. Vol. 212.n.s.32.25-52. Rept. in The Tent.1132-65. Gombrich, Ernst Hans. Art and Illusion. 3rd ed. London: Phaidon, 1962. 417 ---. The Story of Art. 15th edition. New York: Phaidon, 2005. Graham, John. “Ut Pictura Poesis.” Philip P. Wiener.ed. The Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas. Vol.4. NY: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1974, 465-477. Haberer, Adolph. “From Picture to Poem: Derek Mahon‟s „The Hunt by Night‟.” Author‟s own copy. Paper presented at the First International IDEA Conference. Boğaziçi University (Istanbul). 24 April 2006. Hagstrum, Jean. The Sister Arts: The Tradition of Literary Pictorialism and English Poetry from Dryden to Gray. Chicago: U. of Chicago P., 1958. Haines, Elizabeth. “The Sister Arts.” New Thesis. Vol. 1.1-2004. 39-52. 14 April 2008. sister%20arts%22%22>. Halliday, Michael A.K. “The Linguistic Study of Literary Texts.” Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguistics. New York: The Hague, 301-12. Hammond, N.G.L. and H.H Scullard. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. 2nd edition. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970. Harrold, E. William. The Variance and the Unity. Ohio: Ohio UP, 1973. Harvey, Judith. “Ut Pictura Poesis.” Web Article. 26 April 2008. uchicago.edu/faculty/mitchell/glossary2004/utpicturapoesis/htm>. Hausenblas, Karel. “Semantic Contexts in a Poetical Network.” Studies in Functional Stylistics. ed. Jan Chloupek and Jiři Nekvapil. Amsterdam: John Benjamin‟s, 1993. Hawkins, Gary. “Unfamiliar Ground: Inspiring Students with Abstraction.” Tonya and Prevallet 15-25. 418 Haynes, John. “Metre and Discourse.” Carter and Simpson, 236-256. Hecht, Anthony. The Hidden Law: The Poetry of W.H. Auden. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1993. Heffernan, James A.W. Museum of Words: the Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery. Chicago: Chicago UP, 2004. ---. “Entering the Museum of Words: Browning‟s „My Last Duchess‟ and Twentieth- Century Ekphrasis.” Wagner, 262-280. Heidegger, Martin. “The Origin of the Work of Art.” Basic Writings. Ed. David Farrell Krell. New York: Harper and Row, 1977. Herbert, George. “Easter Wings.” The Poems of George Herbert. Intro. Helen Gardner. London: Oxford UP, 1969. Herrick, Robert. Works of Robert Herrick. Ed. Alfred Pollard. Vol. I. London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1891. ---.“Upon a Painted Gentlewoman.” Herrick 122. ---.“Painting Sometimes Permitted.” Herrick 26. ---.“To His Nephew: To be Prosperous in His Art of Painting.” Herrick 188-189. Higgins, Lynn A. and Brenda Silver. ed. Rape and Representation. York: Columbia UP, 1991. “History of the British Museum.” Anon. 13 November 2009. ral_ history.aspx>. Hjelmslev, Louis. Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. Trans. Francis J. Whitfield. Madison: U. of Wisconsin P., 1961. 419 Hoey, Michael. “Discourse-Centred Stylistics: A Way Forward?” Carter and Simpson, 123-136. Hollander, John. The Gazer’s Spirit: Poems Speaking to Silent Works of Art. Chicago: U. of Chicago P., 1995. ---. “The Poetics of Ekphrasis.” Word and Image. Vol. 4. (1988): 209-219. Homer. The Iliad. Trans. Ian Johnston. 28.12.2003. /Greeks/Texts/Iliad.htm>. Horace, Augustus. Ars Poetica. Epistles: The Epistle to the Pisones. Book II. Ed. and Trans. Niall Rudd. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989. Hornsby, Jennifer and Guy Longworth. Reading Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. Howatson, M.C. The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989. Hugh, Haughton. The Poetry of Derek Mahon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Hughes, Ted. Audio Cassette. By Heart: 101 Poems to Remember. London: Penguin, 1997. Hunt, Patrick. “Ekphrasis or Not: Ovid (Met. 8.183-235) in Peter Brueghel the Elder‟s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” Philolog. 26 August 2009. reug.html>. Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism. London: Routledge, 1988. Huson, Paul. Mystical Origins of the Tarot: From Ancient Roots to Modern Usage.Vermont: Destiny: 2004. 420 Ingarden, Roman. The Literary Work of Art: An Investigation on the Borderlines of Ontology, Logic, and Theory of Literature. Trans. George G. Grabowicz. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1973. Jack, Ian. Keats and the Mirror of Art. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1967. Jakobson, Roman. “Linguistics and Poetics.” Style in Language. Ed. T. Sebeok. Massachusetts: Cambridge, 1960. 348-361. Jameson, Frederic. Marxism and Form. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1971. Janet, Paul and Gabriel Sb‟Ailles. The History of the Problems of Philosophy. Trans. Ada Monahan. ed. Heney Jones. New York, MacMillan, 1902. Rpt. Hypertext. 13 September 2009. /cu31924092279508/cu31924092279508_djvu.txt>. Johnson, Barbara. The Critical Difference: Essays in the Contemporary Rhetoric of Reading. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins UP, 1980. Jonson, Ben. “The Mind of the Frontispiece to a Book.” Ben Jonson: The Complete Poems. Ed. George Parfitt. London and New York: Penguin, 1996. Joplin, Patricia Kleindiest. “The Voice of the Shuttle is Ours.” Higgins and Silver 35-64. Kahn, Coppelia. “Lucrece: The Sexual Politics of Subjectivity.” Higgins and Silver 141-59. Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Judgement. Trans. James Creed Meredith. London: OUP, 1978. Kaplan, Genevive. “Ekphrasis for Writers: John Ashbery‟s „Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror‟.” 30 August 2009. /kaplan.htm>. 421 Karwoska, Susan. “Our Story Quilt: Memories in Words and Fabric.” Tonya and Prevallet, 40-53. Keats, John. Complete Poetical Works. Ed. Horace E. Scudder. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1899. ---. “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Keats. Kennedy, David. New Relations: The Refashioning of British Poetry 1980-1994. Mid Glamorgan: Seren, 1996. Kennedy, George. Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983. Kermode, Frank. Romantic Image. New York: Routledge, 2002. Kinney, Arthur F. “Auden, Brueghel, and „Museé des Beaux Arts‟.” College English: National Council of Teachers of English. Vol. 24:7. 1963. 529-531. Knox, Dilwyn. “Order, Reason and Oratory: Rhetoric in Protestant Latin Schools.” Mack, 63-81. Krieger, Murray. The Play and the Place of Criticism. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins UP, 1967. ---. Ekphrasis: The Illusion of the Natural Sign. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins UP, 1992. Krier, Theresa M. Gazing on Secret Sights: Spenser, Classical Imitation and the Decorum of Elizabethan Poetry. Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 1990. Kroeber, Karl. Romantic Lanscape Vision: Constable and Wordsworth. Madison: U. of Wisconsin P., 1975. Kurman, G. “Ecphrasis in Epic Poetry.” Comparative Literature. Vol. 26. (1974): 1- 13. 422 Landow, George P. “Ruskin‟s Theories of Sister Arts.” Web Article. 11 February 2009. Langbaum, Robert. „Dramatic Monologues of Browning.‟ Robert Browning. ed. Philip Drew.Methuen: London, 1966, 149-159. Langer, Suzanne. “Descriptive Analogies: Specious and Real Relationships among the Arts.” Problems of Art. New York: Scribners, 1957.74-93. Leach, E.W. The Rhetoric of Space: Literary and Artistic Representtaions of Landscape in Republican and Augustan Rome. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1988. Lecklie-Tarry, Helen. Language and Context: A Functional Linguistic Theory of Register. ed. David Birch. London: Pinter, 1995. Lee, Renssleaer W. Ut Pictura Poesis: the Humanistic Theory of Painting. New York: WW Norton, 1967. Leech, Geoffrey N. and Michael H. Short. Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose. London and New York: Longman, 1981. Leisman, J.B. Rilke: Selected Poems and Introduction. London: Penguin, 1964. Lennard, John. The Poetry Handbook: A Guide to Reading Poetry for Pleasure and Practical Criticism. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997. Lentricchia F. and T. McLaughlin. Critical Terms of Literary Study. Chicago and London: U. of Chicago P., 1990. Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. Laocoön: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry. Trans. and Intro. Edward Allen McCormick. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1962. 423 Levinson, Marjorie. Wordsworth’s Great Period Poems: Four Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986. Lien, Henry. “Deep Freezing in „Ode on a Grecian Urn‟ and „In Memoriam‟.” 24 August 2009. Locke, John. “Of Words.” An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Book III. 22 May 2009. Long, Beverly Whitaker and Timothy Scott Cage. “Contemporary American Poetry: A Selected Bibliography.” Text and Performance Quarterly. Vol.9: (1989). 286-96. Lottes, Wolfgang. “Appropriating Boticelli: English Approaches 1860-1890”. Wagner 236-261. Louvel, Lillian. E-mail to the Author. 11 February 2008. Lovejoy, Bess. “William Blake‟s Grave: Lost and Found.” 2 November 2009. Lubbock, Percy. „The Use of Monologues in Browning‟s Poetry‟: Drew, Philip Edt. Robert Browning. Methuen: London, 1966, 45-53. Lovelace, Richard. “To My Worthy Friend Mr. Peter Lilly: on that Excallent Picture of His Majesty, and the Duke of York, Drawne by him at Hampton-Court.” The Poems of Richard Lovelace: Lucasta Etc. Ed. Herald Hannyngton Child. New York: Bibliolife, 2009. Lynn-George, Michael. Epos: Word, Narrative and the Iliad. London: Macmillan, 1988. Mack, Peter. ed. Renaissance Rhetoric. New York: St.Martin‟s Press, 1994. 424 Marin, Louis. Sublime Poussin. Trans. Catherine Porter. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1999. ---. To Destroy a Painting. .Trans. Mette Hjort. Chicago: U. of Chicago P, 1995. Mahon, Derek. “The Hunt by Night.” Selected Poems of Derek Mahon. Oxford: OUP, 1991. Marsico, Lynn and Rogers Capa. “Ekphrastic Poetry: Exploring the Visual Arts with a Poet‟s Eye.” Web Article. 203-226. 16 January 2009 chatnam.edu/pti/2005%20Units/Play%20It%20Again,%20Sam/Marsico%20 UNIT.pdf>. Marvell, Andrew. Andrew Marvell: The Complete Poems. Ed. George de F. Lord. London: Everyman, 1984. ---.“Last Instructions to a Painter.” Marvell 114-136. Mason, Jeff. Philosophical Rhetoric: The Function of Indirection in Philosophical Writing. London: Routledge, 1989. Mayor, A. Hyatt. “Pieter Brueghel the Elder.” Prints and People: A Social History of Printed Pictures. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971. 423-431. McClatchy, J.D. ed. Poets on Painters: Essays on the Art of Painting by Twentieth- Century Poets. Berkeley and London: U. of California P., 1990. McGann, Jerome. Beauty of Inflections: Literary Investigations in Historical Method and Theory. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985. McKee, Alan. Textual Analysis: A Beginner’s Guide. London: Sage, 2003. McMahan, Anna Benneson. ed. With Shelley in Italy. Chicago: Cambridge UP, 1905. Meek, Richard. “Ekphrasis in the „Rape of Lucrece‟ and The Winter’s Tale.” SEL: Studies in English Literature. 46-2 (Spring 2006): 389-414. 425 Méndez-Ramirez, Hugo. Nerruda’s Ekphrastic Experience: Mural Art and Canto General. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 1999. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. Colin Smith. London: Routledge, 1962. Mitchell, W.J.T. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1986. ---. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representaion. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1986. ---. “Ekphrasis and the Other.” South Atlantic Quarterly. Vol. 91. (1992): 695-719. ---. “Showing Seeing: A Critique of Visual Culture.” Journal of Visual Culture. 2005-1. 165-181. Sage Publications Database. 15 March 2008 Moffitt, John F. Inspiration: Bacchus and the Cultural History of a Creation Myth. Leiden and London: Brill, 2005. Moran, Berna. Edebiyat Kuramları ve Eleştiri. İstanbul: İletişim, 2007. Morrison, Blake and Andrew Motion. eds. The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982. Motion, Andrew. Keats.London: Faber and Faber, 1997. Murry, John. Keats. New York: Noonday, 1955. Norbrook, David. “Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Elizabethan World Picture.” Peter Mack, 140-165. Ong, Walter J. The Presence of the Word. New Haven: Yale UP, 1967. ---. Interfaces of the Word. London: Cornell UP, 1977. Ormerod, David, and Christopher Wortham, eds. Andrew Marvell: Pastoral and Lyric Poems, 1681. Nedlands: U of Western Australia P., 2000. 426 Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. A.D. Melville. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986. Özünlü, Ünsal. Edebiyatta Dil Kullanımları. Istanbul: Multilingual, 2001. Pace, Claire. “„Delineated Lives:‟ Themes and Variations in Seventeenth-Century Poems about Portraits.” Word and Image. 2-4. (1986): 12-20. Parry, Graham. The Seventeenth Century: The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English Literature, 1603-1700. London: Longman, 1989. Parker, Patricia A. “Keats.” de Almeida 103-128. Pater, Walter. The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry. Twickenham: Senate, 1998. Patke, Rajeev S. “Painting into Poetry: The Case of Derek Mahon.” 29 December 2009. %20into%20Poetry.htm>. Pekmezci, Hasan. Interview with the Painter. 7 October 2009. Petrucci, Mario. “Anaesthesia or Synaesthesia?” Public Art. Vol. 1. No: 2 October (1999): 12-18. ---. “Poetry in Performance: Intertextuality, Intra-Textuality, Poeclectics” Handout at Cultural Encounters Symposium. Hacettepe University. 1999. ---. “Poetry Workshops: Sea-change or Algal Bloom” Agenda: An Anthology Poems, Essays and Translations. ed. Anita Money. Vol. 35: 4-36/1. 40-51. Philips, Tom. Music in Painting. New York: Prestel-Verlag, 1997. Philostratus the Elder. Imagines. Descriptions. Callistratus. Trand. Arthur Fairbanks. Loed Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1931. Piaget, Jean. Structuralism. Trans. Chaninah Maschler. London: Routledge, 1971. 427 Plato. The Collected Dialogues of Plato Including the Letters. Ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. New York: Bollingen-Pantheon, 1966. ---. Gorgias. Trans. W.D. Woodhead. Plato, 229-308. ---. Sophist. Trans. F.M. Cornford. Plato, 957-1018. ---. The Republic. Trans. Paul Shorey. Plato, 575-845. ---. Pheadrus. Trans. R. Hackforth. Plato, 475-526. Plitz, Elisabeth and Paul Åström. ed. Kairos: Studies in Art History and Literature in Honour of Professor Gunilla Åkerström-Hougen. Jonsered: Paul Åströms Förlag, 1998. Poirier, Richard. Poetry and Pragmatism. Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1992. Praz, Mario and Angus Davidson. The Hero in Eclipse in Victorian Fiction. London: Geoffrey Cumberlege, 1956. Prettejohn, Elizabeth. The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 2000. “Poets of Old about to Write Did Use.” Anon. 19 December 2008. u.txt>. Ray, Robert H. An Andrew Marvell Companion. Chicago: U. of Chicago P., 1998. Reid, David. The Metaphysical Poets. Essex: Longman, 2000. Richter, Irma A. Paragone. London: OUP, 1949. Ricks, Christopher. Allusion to Poets. Oxford: OUP, 2002. Ricoeur, Paul. Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action, and Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981. 428 Riffaterre, Michael. Semiotics of Poetry. Ed. Thomas A. Sebeok. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984. ---. “Textuality: W.H. Auden‟s „Museé des Beaux Arts‟.” Caws, Textual Analysis. II: 1989. 1-13. ---. “The Stylistic Function.” Proceedings of the 9th International Congress of Linguistics. New York: Chicago UP, 1962. ---. “Criteria for Style Analysis.” Word. Vol. XV. (1959): 155-167. Rogers, Neville. “Shelley and the Visual Arts.” Keats-Shelley Memorial Bulletin. Vol. XII: 1961, 9-17. Rosand, David. “Ekphrasis and the Generation of Images.” Arion. Vol. 1.1. Boston: Boston UP, 61-105. Rosetti, Dante Gabriel. Collected Poetry and Prose. ed. Jerome McGann. New York: Yale UP, 2003. ---. “For a Venetian Pastoral by Giorgone in the Louvre.” Rosetti. --. “Lilith.” Rosetti. Rothenberg, Tina. “The Verbal-Visual Nexus: Artists in Residence Teach Writing.” Tonya and Prevallet, 154-163. Ruskin, John. Modern Painters. Ed. David Barrie. New York: Knopf, 1988. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Essay on the Origins of Languages and Writings Related to Music. Trans. and ed. John T. Scott. New Haven: Dartmouth College, 1998. Rylance, Rick. "The New Criticism". Encyclopedia of Literature and Criticism. Ed. Martin Cole et al. 730–731. London: Routledge, 1990. Sarup, Madan. An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism. Essex: Pearson, 1993. 429 Saul, Nigel. ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval England. Oxford: OUP, 2000. Sayre, Henry M. The Visual text of William Carlos Williams. Urbana: U. of Illinois P., 1983. Schapiro, Meyer. Words and Pictures: On the Literal and the Symbolic in the Illustration of a Text. Mouton: The Hague, 1973. ---.”The Still Life as a Personal Object – A Note on Heidegger and Van Gogh.” The Reach of Mind: Essays in Memory of Kurt Goldstein. New York: Springer, 1968. 203-209. Schmeling, G. Chariton. New York: Twayne, 1974. Schwartz, Elias. The Form of Feeling: Toward a Mimetic Theory of Literature. New York and London: Kennikat, 1972. Scott, Grant Fraser. “Seduced by Stone: Keats, Ekphrasis and Gender.” PhD Dissertation. U. Of California in Los Angeles, 1989. ---. “Shelley, Medusa and the Perils of Ekphrasis.” The Romantic Imagination: Literature and Art in England and Germany. ed. Frederick Burwick and Jurgen Klein. Atlanta: Rodopi, 1996. 315-332. ---. “The Rhetoric of Dilation: Ekphrasis and Ideology.” Word and Image. 7-4. (1991): 301-310. Seelig, Beth.J. "The Rape of Medusa in the Temple of Athena: Aspects of Triangulation". International Journal of Psycho-Analysis. 83:2002. 895–911 Shakespeare, William. “Rape of Lucrece.” William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. London: Collins, 1960. ---. “Sonnet 18.” Shakespeare. 430 ---. “Sonnet 65.” Shakespeare. Shapiro, Gary. “The Absent Image: Ekphrasis and the „Infinite Relation‟ of Translation.” Journal of Visual Culture. 2007-6-13. 13-24. Sage Publications Database. 22 April 2008. abstract/6/1/13>. Shapiro, Marianne. “Ecphrasis in Vergil and Dante.” Comparative Literature. Vol. 42. Oregon: Oregon UP, 1990. 97-114. Shelley, Percy B. Shelley’s Poems: Lyrics and Shorter Poems. Intro. A.H. Koszul. Two Vols. Vol. I. London and New York: Everyman, 1966. ---. “On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery.” Shelley. ---. “Ozymandias.” Shelley. ---. “Defence of Poetry.” Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments. Two Vols. Ed. Mary Shelley. London: Edward Moxon, 1840. Rpt. Romanticism: An Anthology. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 944-956. Shklovsky, Victor. “Art as Technique.” Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays. Ed. L.T.Lemon and M.J. Reis. New York: Lincoln, 1965. 1-41. Short, Mick. Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose. London and New York: Longman, 1997. Sidney, Sir Philip. Apologie for Poetrie. Ed. and Intro. E.S. Shuckburgh. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1951. Simonsen, Peter. Wordsworth and Word-Preserving Arts: Typographic Inscription, Ekphrasis, and Posterity in the Later Work. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 431 Simpson, Paul. Language Through Literature: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 1996. Smith, A. J. M. ed. Seven Centuries of Verse: English and American from the Early English Lyrics to the Present. 2nd edition. New York: Charles Scribner‟s, 1957. Smith Mack. Literary Realism and the Ekphrastic Tradition. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State UP, 1995. Soames, Scott. Understanding Truth. “Semantics and Semantic Competence.” Oxford: OUP, 1999. 45-74. Spengel, Leonardus. Rhetores Graeci. Vol. II. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1854. Rpt. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1966. Sperry, Stuart M. “„The Epistle to John Hamilton Reynolds‟.” de Almeida 36-47. Spitzer, Leo. “The „Ode to a Grecian Urn‟ or Content VS Metagrammar.” Essays on English and American Literature. ed. Anna Hatcher. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1967. 67-97. Spiegelman, William. How Poets See the World: The Art of Description in Contemporary Poetry. Oxford: OUP, 2005. Stechow, Wolgang. Peter Breugel the Elder. New York: Abrams, 1990. Steiner, Wendy. Pictures of Romance: Form against Context in Painting and Literature. Chicago: U. of Chicago P., 1988. Stewart, Douglas J. “Ekphrasis: A Friendly Communication.” Arion. Vol. 5: 1966. 554-555. Stewart, Susan. Nonsense: Aspects of Intertextuality in Folklore and Literature. London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1979. 432 Stockwell, Peter. Cognitive Poetics. London: Routledge (2002). Strayer, Jeff. “Definition of Art and Necessary and Sufficient Conditions.” Philosophy of Art. 15 October 2008. Art/Handouts /art-and-artifacts.pdf>. Stubbs, Michael. Text and Corpus Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. Strunk, William and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000. Sumi, Akiko Motoyoshi. Desciption in Classical Arabic Poetry: Wasf, Ekphrasis and Interarts Theory. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004. Sweet, David. “‟And Ut Pictura Poesis is Her Name:‟ John Ashbery, the Plastic Arts, and the Avant-Garde.” 10 September 2009. /articles/mi_qa3612/is_199810/ai_n8817035>. Szczepanek, Anna. “Cubistic Techniques in William Carlos Williams‟ Ekphrastic Poetry.” Web Article. 11 March 2008. %20Szczepanek.doc>. Tansuğ, Sezer. Resim Sanatının Tarihi. Istanbul: Remzi, 2004. Taylor, Warren. Tudor Figures of Rhetoric. Wisconsin: The Language, 1972. Taylor, Talbot J. Linguistic Theory and Structural Stylistics. Pergamon: Oxford, 1980. Thalmann, William G. Conventions of Form and Thought in Early Greek Epic Poetry. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1984. The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments (KJV: 1611). New York: American Bible Society, 1990. 433 “The Historical Development of the Ashmolean Museum: History and Future.” Anon. 29 December 2009. andfuture/>. “The Works of Art.” Anon. 25 August 2009. < www.museumvanbuuren.com /gb/oeuvresgb_b.htm>. Theocritus. The Greek Bucolic Poets. Trans. J.M.Edmonds. London: Heinemann, 1923. Tonya, Foster and Kristin Prevallet, ed. Third Mind: Creative Writing through Visual Art. New York: Teachers and Writers Collaborative, 2002. Trager, James. The People’s Chronology: A Year by Year Record of Human Events from Pre-History to the Present. New York: Owlet, 1994. Tucker, Herbert. Browning’s Beginnings: The Art of Disclosure. Minneapolis: U. Of Minnesota P., 1980. Turner, G.W. Stylistics. Middlesex: Penguin, 1975. Uçan, Hilmi. Edebiyat Bilimi ve Eleştiri. Ankara: Hece, 2003. Ulu, Berkan. “New Voices: A Thematic Study of Individuality as Reflected in the Poetry of John Donne, Andrew Marvell, and Other Metaphysical Poets.” MA Thesis. Hacettepe University, 2005. ---. “Understanding a Poem: Poetics, Stylistics, and Holisticism.” Paper presented at the First International IDEA Conference, Boğaziçi University (Istanbul). 24 April 2006. Uzundemir, Özlem. İmgeyi Konuşturmak: İngiliz Yazınında Görsel Sanatlar. Book pending for publication (Author‟s own copy). 434 Vasari, Giorio. “Preface.” The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects. Trans. A.B. Hinds. London: J.M Dent, 1927. Verdonk, Peter.ed. Twentieth Century Poetry: From Text to Context. New York: Routledge, 2001. ---.“Painting, Poetry, Parallelism: Ekphrasis, Stylistics and Cognitive Poetics.” Language and Literature. Vol. 14. (2005). 25.09.2008. com. /cgi/content/abstract/14/3/231>. 231-244. ---. E-mail from the Author. 29 September 2009. ---. “Poems as Texts and Discourse: The Poetics of Philip Larkin.” Literary Pragmatics. ed. Roder D. Sell. London and New York: Routledge, 1991. 94- 110. Virgil. The Aeneid. Trans. and Intro. W.F. Jackson Knight. Middlesex: Penguin, 1965. Vogler, Thomas A. Preludes to Vision: The Epic Venture in Blake, Wordsworth, Keats and Hart Crane. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U. of California P., 1971. Wagner, Peter. ed. Icons-Texts-Iconotexts: Essays on Ekphrasis and Intermediality. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1996. Waldman, Anne. “Going on Our Nerve: Collaborations between Poets and Visual Artists.” Tonya and Prevallet 131-142. Waller, Edmund. “Instructions to a Painter.” Selected Poems of Abraham Cowley, Edmund Waller and John Oldham. Ed. Julia Griffin. London: Penguin, 1998. Walpole, Horace. Anectodes of Painting in England. London: Alex Murray, 1872. Walsh-Piper, Kathy. “Writing Programs in Art Museums.” Tonya and Prevallet, 200- 207. 435 Wetering, Ernst van de. et. al. Rembrandt by Himself. London: Mauritshuis, the National Gallery, the Hague, 1999. Whinney, Margaret and Oliver Millar. English Art: 1625-1714. Oxford: Clarendon, 1957. Whitman, Cedric. Homer and the Heroic Tradition. Massachussetts and London: Harvard UP, 1958. Williams, William Carlos. The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams. Ed. Christopher McGowan. New York: New Directions, 1991. ---. “The Dance.” Williams The Collected. ---. “The Hunters in the Snow.” Williams The Collected. ---. “The Corn Harvest.” Williams The Collected. ---. “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” Williams The Collected. ---. “Painting in the American Grain.” McClatchy 25-38. Witemeyer, Hugh. “George Eliot‟s Theory of Ut Pictura Poesis.” Web Article. Rpt. in George Eliot and the Visual Arts. 26 Jan. 2009. victorianweb.org /authors /eliot/hw/4.1.html>. Wordsworth, Jonathan, Michael Jaye and Robert Woof. William Wordsworth and the Age of English Romantism. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1987. Wordsworth, William. The Collected Poetry of William Wordsworth. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth, 1994. ---. The Prelude: Or Growth of a Poet’s Mind. “School-time” II. William Wordsworth. ---. “Preface to Lyrical Ballads.” William Wordsworth. 436 ---. “Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, Painted by Sir Georges Beaumont.” William Wordsworth. ---. “Tintern Abbey.” William Wordsworth. ---. “My Heart Leaps Up.” William Wordsworth. ---. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” William Wordsworth. Yavuz, Hilmi. Edebiyat ve Sanat Üzerine Yazılar. Istanbul: YKY, 2005.