Ekphrasis Essay

In order to examine the development of the term ekphrasis I needed to go back to the Homeric poem where we have seen the first instance of ekphrasis, where it functions as a vivid and suggestive description of an object, and how that ekphrastic description appears in a text. In this subchapter I will continue the multifarious usage of the term by providing a survey about its further development and how various scholars have defined it, also examining its aplicability. The reason for starting with a diachronic account of the term’s development is that it will provide an overall impression about the term’s usage, not only historically, but also from a theroretical perspective.
The ekphrasis has been the subject of research for countless scholars. In her book entitled Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice Ruth Webb provides an account of the term’s usage and its meaning in the context of the Antiquity. She states that the first trace of the ekphrasis can be found in the first century C.E., more precisely in the rhetorical Greek schools of the Roman Empire. The ekphrasis was part of the Progymnasmata, and it was a rhetorical training exercise by means of which, the talented students could develop their oratorical skills and compose and perform valuable speeches when they put in practice the rules of

Webb insists about the applicability and different ways in which the ekphrasis was used within the ancient rhetorical practice, providing her own definition of the ekphrasis. Her own view highlights several features that will be quintessential to the modern usage of the term. She asserts