Abstract
In ‘Radical Ekphrasis; or, An Ethics of Seeing’ poet and translator Sophie Collins applies Susan Sontag’s description of photography to another mode of representation: ekphrastic poetry. Presented here as a form of intersemiotic translation—a hermeneutic practice that converts visual representations into verbal representations—ekphrasis is considered in terms of its neglected radical aesthetic and political possibilties. Specifically, through reference to the available theory and contemporary examples of ekphrastic poetry, Collins considers how the conventional ekphrastic dynamic, as informed by sexist formulations of Michel Foucault’s gaze, might be subverted through engagement with alternative strategies, source materials and contexts of reception. Collins concludes this study by reflecting on two of her own ekphrastic poems, ‘Healers’ and ‘Thank You For Your Honesty’.
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Notes
- 1.
Oft-cited examples from Anglophone literature include John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1820), W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” (1939) and John Ashberry’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” (1974).
- 2.
In which a toddler, looking into a mirror, first realises their external appearance, inducing further apperceptions.
- 3.
See, for example, the work of Linda Nochlin, Judy Chicago, Griselda Pollock and Chris Kraus.
- 4.
See, for example, the Advancing Women Artists Foundation: www.advancingwomenartists.org/invisible-women.php; the Gallery Tally: gallerytally.tumblr.com.
- 5.
As its title would suggest, Morgan adopts photographs as the source material for this book-length ekphrastic project.
- 6.
In his introduction to Poets on Painters: Essays on the Art of Painting by Twentieth-Century Poets, J. D. McClatchy provides a strangely sensual account of the ekphrastic impulse: ‘to trace the beloved’s body is a traditional poetic feat, and a painting is as beguiling as any idealized lip or lash, any fetish’ (McClatchy1988: xiii).
- 7.
Invoked here too is Russ’s concept of ‘anomalousness’; if Sexton is death-obsessed, why then is Auden not ‘morbid’ or ‘morose’?
- 8.
Via Google.com, last checked 4 February 2018.
- 9.
There is, of course, equally a type of experience that occurs in the museum that is impossible online; most importantly, we are able to gain a physical sense of the object, its dimensions, its texture, its impact on a room.
- 10.
The leaked nudes of Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Kardashian and others, and the threats of (sexual) violence made towards Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian and Emma Watson, can be traced back to 4chan’s boards. More recently, the site has been attributed blame for generating support for Donald Trump among young white males, and the recent uprise in fascist support and fascist visibility in mainstream contexts.
- 11.
This raises a question regarding the limits of ekphrasis in poetry: if the majority of poems contain some element of imagery or visual description, surely all poems can be classified as ekphrasis to some degree? Ekphrasis might be usefully differentiated by distinguishing between poetry that simply describes the visual (imagery) and that which describes a visual representation (ekphrasis).
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Collins, S. (2019). Radical Ekphrasis; or, An Ethics of Seeing. In: Campbell, M., Vidal, R. (eds) Translating across Sensory and Linguistic Borders. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97244-2_17
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