Choose Your Words Wisely

Often times, pictures are not only visually appreciated but are depicted through words to capture an underlying or hidden meaning.  Without knowing it, when someone describes a painting or image they are subconsciously participating in ekphrasis.  According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, ekphrasis is defined as “a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art”.  In considering the reading assigned for this week, it is appropriate that the word ekphrasis has Greek origins.  A picture, although visually descriptive, can have numerous interpretations.  Writers attach words, each with very specific meanings, to previously existing images or to create a specific image in the readers mind.

W. H. Auden’s “The Shield of Achilles” and the excerpt from Homer’s “Iliad” are both examples of ekphrasis and can be juxtaposed to prove how differently a picture can be interpreted through its description.  In the “Iliad”, Homer describes the picture that Hephaestos is depicting on the shield that he is making for Achilles.   Hephaestos fashions “earth and heaven and sea, with the tireless sun, a moon at the full, and all those constellations of the sky” (483-85).  This description depicts a beautiful and glorious setting in the readers’ mind.  The poem continues with descriptions of “two armies in bright armor besieged the other town” (509-10) and wants the reader to see the armies marching “out led by Ares and Athena, gods of gold attired in golden clothing, huge and magnificent, as gods should be” (516-18).  All these descriptions lead the reader to believe that the image on the shield is one of glory, beauty, and pride in battle.  The reader is led to believe that this shield is as epic as the legend of Achilles himself.  The shield is therefore fashioned to inspire envy and awe.  Interestingly enough, Auden’s “The Shield of Achilles” proves that this image can be interpreted differently than its previous intention.  In this poem, Thetis, Achilles mother, sees “A plain without a feature, bare and brown,/No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood (9-10).  Rather than seeing images of beauty and life, she sees barrenness and lifelessness.  She sees the armies as “an unintelligible multitude,/A million eyes,/a million boots in line,/Without expression, waiting for a sign” (13-15).  This image of the army conflicts with the description in the “Iliad”.  By utilizing words that present a dull and “unintelligible” multitude the image has transformed from awe-inspiring to uninspiring.  Auden’s word choice in his description of the shield presents the opposing perspective and experience of viewing this shield.

Auden’s “Musee des Beaux Art” and William Carlos Williams’ “Landscape With the Fall of Icarus” describe the same painting utilizing ekpharsis but through different stylistic techniques.  In “Musee des Beaux Art” Auden emphasizes that the painting depicts that suffering exists while others go about their daily routine right off the bat by stating that “About suffering they were never wrong” (1).  The first lines expresses that the painting has to do with suffering.  In William’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” the reader is depicted with a simple scene until the end where the splash that was “unnoticed”(19) was “Icarus drowning” (21) .  Instead of suffering being the focus of Williams poem, Icarus’ death it is described rather insignificantly.  By implying that, it implies that to Williams the focus of this painting was not on the significance of Icarus’ death.  Through this style, the reader experiences the irony of the painting through the eyes of Williams.

Like the other poems discussed above, John Keat’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, is an example of ekpharsis.  Throughout this poem Keats illustrates in meticulous detail what is depicted on the urn.  The speaker in the poem addresses the urn as a “Sylvan historian” (3) that expresses history through its images.  He then goes on to question all that the urn’s images represent and describes these images vividly for the reader to experience.

It is interesting to experience an image through words that represent anothers’ interpretation.  The experience of the image is one perspective, that of the author’s.  Instead of forming a relationship with a specific image, one is forming a relationship with an expression of an image and is interpeting what the image must be through language.  Word usage is particulary important in ekpharsis because each word has the power to stimulate an emotional response in the reader.  It’s interesting to juxtapose two perspectives, as well as the image that is being described in a work of literature to understand the multitude of experiences an image and its descriptions can elicit.

“ecphrasis.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.
Merriam-Webster Online. 2 September 2009
<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ecphrasis>