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In its broadest sense an ekphrasis is a work of art created to describe an artwork in another medium, usually as a form of practice or rhetorical device. In a more narrow, contemporary sense it usually refers to a particularly vivid verbal description of a visual artwork within a literary text.
Writers will occasionally write an ekphrasis as a practice exercise, or to enhance the detail and texture of a fictional account or piece of poetry.
There is a long history of ekphrasis within philosophy and art history, dating back to Plato. The term itself comes from ἐκ (ek) and φράσις (phrásis), 'out' and 'speak' respectively, and the verb ἐκφράζειν (ekphrázein), 'to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name' (Wikipedia, 2021). A famous example is Homer’s detailed description of Achilles’ shield within the Iliad (Heffernan, 1991). Another famous work that might be considered ekphrasis is Ozymandius:
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
(Shelley, 1994)
As noted by Heffernan, Shelley’s use of ekphrasis goes beyond simple material description to envisage the decay and destruction of the artwork (Heffernan, 1991).
Philosophers have pondered whether eukphasis has a purpose beyond practice and rhetorical device. Goldhill (2007) suggests eukphrasis is:
part of a system that functions to produce a cultivated and cultured citizen of Empire, who knows how to perform in the world of culture and who knows thus how to play the game of competitive self-scrutiny as a performer in culture (Goldhill, 2007:18)
As such it seems to be principally an activity focused on education, learning, and practice.
Goldhill, S. (2007). What is ekphrasis for? Classical Philology, 102(1), 1–19.
Heffernan, J. A. W. (1991). Ekphrasis and Representation. New Literary History, 22(2), 297–316.
Shelley, P. B. (1994). The selected poetry & prose of Shelley. Wordsworth editions.