Simple Ekphrasis

     I read through the University of Chicago definition of Ekphrasis and thought that it seemed as if they were greatly over defining what used to be a simple word. In turn, I went to look it up on Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, which gave me the definition of  “a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art.” From this, I can more clearly see why these poems are structured the way they are, and why Homer wrote it a certain way. In the excerpt from the Illiad, we are treated to Hephaestus crafting pieces of armor for Achilles, but of note is the shield he makes. It was made with the world exquisitely carved upon it, using precious metals, careful crafting, and slow work. What actually appears on the shield, is Homer’s social commentary at the time, a society that appears beautiful, but is full of vast ugliness. Using ekphrasis, he was able to fill his work with social commentary, yet hide it from the world, carefully concealed within his story.

This is a tool that allows an author to tell people what they want seen, without having to leave it open to interpretation like a regular picture. For example, in Keats poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” he is not telling use what he sees on the urn. Rather, he is describing what he feels from the urn, his opinion, which, similar to any written work, influnces ones feeling upon whatever subject is being described. Take into consideration, a review in a newspaper that is negative to whatever subject work is being described. While people may have liked the item in question, by being told what another thinks of it leads one to change their own interpretation of it. Ekphrasis allows an author to merely define what they see in something, but to a greater degree it allows them clout among their audience.

But beyond even this, Ekphrasis allows an author to show an audience strife and darkness in the world. Returning to the two seperate descriptions of Achilles shield, both show the darkness and evil prevalent in the world, and how even in the Greeks advanced civilization, there still remains all the barbarism of less cultures. Notably, in Homer’s poem, there is a point where he describes a murder, and people are bartering to pay for it rather than take it as a crime. This is also shown in Auden’s “Musee des Beaux Arts,” about Achilles, where he shows the audience that people are too preoccupied with themselves to even notice a boy falling out of the sky to drown, a very strange occurence. Williams “Landscape With the Fall of Icarus” says a very similar thing, where a farmer is shown too concerned with himself to bother with Icarus. While the authors could have chosen to not allow Icarus any chances, he was ignored rather than unseen.

This in effect shows that while ekphrasis may have been intended as a descriptive tool to describe other works in literature, it is used as a way to conceal an author’s opinion within their works, in these cases shadowing the darkness of society into simple stories.