On Saturday, September 6, 2003, at 01:23 AM, Rebecca Seiferle wrote:
> I can't find the word in my dictionaries either, most annoying,
> (where's Robin?) but it seems to me that the term as it has
> been used here is rather fluid. Jill's original post on the subject
> seemed to concern writing about or in response to
> real works of art, almost collaborations in some cases, and
> with the sense (and perhaps it was just me and my reading of it) that
> ekphrasis is new and somewhat innovative.
Rebecca,
If I ever gave the impression that I thought ekphrasis was 'new and
somewhat innovative' it was most certainly not intended. Ekphrasis is
ancient, indeed it's a Greek word, and the Greeks used it as a form
rhetorical exercise - a response to or description of an object, real
or imagined. It's come to be used pretty loosely these days. For
instance, some would call Keats' 'Grecian urn' poem ekphrasis.
The impression may come from the fact that I personally had done little
of this kind of work - which is not to say never but 'little'. And the
particular situation I had found myself in was involving a project with
other poets all responding in our own ways to visual material. I was in
turn responding to Max's references to an exhibition coming to the NGV
which had just been at the AGNSW and had been one which some of us had
responded to. I got a lot out of the projects but I was in no way
trying to claim more than that.
Hope that clarifies my contribution to the discussion.
Cheers,
Jill
> _______________________________________________________
Jill Jones
http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~jpjones
Latest book: Screens Jets Heaven. Available now from Salt Publishing
http://www.saltpublishing.com
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