The theory and history of ekphrasis. A summary and prospects of research, or, forty-five articles on ekphrasis

Abstract

The article is devoted to ekphrasis, its historical and literary evolution, as well as aspects of its stylistic, cultural, and ideological origins. The research is based on the versatile collection of The Theory and History of Ekphrasis [Teoriya i istoriya ekfrasisa], which contains a number of previously little known texts and theories on ekphrasis, developed in regions with different ethnic and cultural characteristics. The author spares no effort in the examination of this monograph and, using the observations made by various scholars, discerns a similar development process of cross-cultural and cross-aesthetic transformations and transpositions, which, however, adopts divergent paths. Transpositions, the author suggests, occur in the model of a text awaiting a pictorial interpretation. The article concentrates on the ways to present an image anticipated in a written word, and to generate a new text, whose subject and content draw not only on poeticized observations of the source material, but also on metapoetic tales about its creators.