Ekphrastic Poetry

Paper Summary:

Poets make a conscious decision with ekphrastic poetry (poems based on works of art) as to the extent of the role of the artwork in the poem. This paper looks at Elizabeth Bishop's "Large Bad Picture" and compares it to W.H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts" and explores each poet's different ekphrastic approach.

From the Paper:

"Bishop's poem, unlike Auden's, takes for its basis an unknown work of art. She overcomes reader unfamiliarity with the painting by describing the painting in close detail. Then by providing a wealth of personal details about the artist in the first stanza-his profession, his love of exploring the Canadian coastline-she establishes her reliability as a narrator. It is as if Bishop pulls up a chair and invites her reader to sit down and listen while she shares all she knows about an awful painting and its painter. This initial grounding is a technique described by poet William Stafford as "traction on the ice between writer and reader-statements that do not demand much belief, easy claims, even undeniable progressions without need of authority" (65)."

More papers on Ekphrastic Poetry:

• Analytical Essay # 63742 : "Large Bad Picture": Positioning the Painting"
• Comparison Essay # 120057 : "The Apology for Poetry" and "Faerie Queene"
• Essay # 33686 : "The Poetry of Longfellow"

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