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Ekphrasis Analysis

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Introduction Ekphrasis can modestly be defined as “ the verbal representation of visual representation”. (Heffernan 2004) It is the art of rendering images into words and possibly giving a broader dimension, specific details, intrinsic creativity or even a mere personal flavour of the artist using ekphrasis. Ekphrasis is not a contemporary phenomenon. It has existed for three thousand years, from Homer the greatest epic poet to Joyce the most influential poet and novelist in contemporary literature. In his introduction to his book Museum of Words, Heffernan suggests that probably the accurate method to learn about the sister arts is: “ by simply comparing them, by observing similarities that help us to read _ more accurately to construct_ the signature of a “period” or to formulate a master theory of signification”(Heffernan 2004). In his book Museum of Words he writes about W. J. T. Mitchell’s analysis in the ground of sister arts analysis Iconology that “ treats the relation between literature and the visual arts as essentially paragonal, a struggle for dominance between the image and the word”(Heffernan 2004). When addressing the constructiveness of ekphrastic texts in The Moor’s Last Sigh, I followed theorist Ruth Webb’s categorization of the identifiable elements of ekphrasis, which corresponds, to the Greek Progymnasmata’s presentation of ekphrasis. She mentions how Quintilian, a Roman rhetorician, differentiated between “ a plain …show more content…

She explains that the blind man might have an insight into an image and see even beyond what the seeing man sees on the condition that the seeing man gives an ekphrasis to the blind. (Schmidt 2005). Imagination is stimulated by the words we hear and read, and here comes the significance of

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