By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
There is a special term to describe literary depictions of visual works of art: ekphrasis. Poems about pictures or paintings are, then, ekphrastic poems. But what are the greatest ekphrastic poems in English literature? Here are ten of the very best examples of ekphrasis from the last couple of centuries.
By Patrick Smith, Bainbridge State College, Georgia Writers have drawn on vivid descriptions of the visual arts to enhance their work since Homer famously used 130 lines to describe the chronicle emblazoned on Achilles’s shield in Book 18 of Homer’s Iliad more than 2,500 years ago. Ekphrasis—the representation in language of a work of art—acts … Read more