The Lyric Eye: Self-Representation in The Early Modern English Portrait-Poem
Through a discussion of a number of early modern poems on portraits, this essay addresses questions related to representation on several levels. Many of these poems focus on the question of likeness: to what extent a painted portrait may truly represent its object. At the same time, the ekphrastic g...
Bewaard in:
| Gepubliceerd in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/edl, |
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| Hoofdauteur: | |
| Formaat: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Taal: | Anglais |
| Gepubliceerd in: |
Études de lettres
2022
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| Online toegang: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Samenvatting: | Through a discussion of a number of early modern poems on portraits, this essay addresses questions related to representation on several levels. Many of these poems focus on the question of likeness: to what extent a painted portrait may truly represent its object. At the same time, the ekphrastic genre inevitably invites the age-old question regarding to what extent the written word can adequately capture the medium of visual art. The essay will focus particularly on John Donne’s love elegy “His Picture” which addresses both these aspects of the question of representation. Donne’s problematisation of the possibility of a true painted likeness reflects back on the question of verbal representation and on the difficulty – indeed impossibility – of ever fully pinning down the speaking self of his verse. |
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