T. S. Eliot’s Ekphrastic Poems

Rosanna Rion

English Department, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.

DOI: 10.4236/als.2014.21007                

Abstract

Poems which have been inspired by paintings or mention a pictorial work can be analysed following a long tradition of studies between painting and poetry. Three of Eliot’s early poems: The Love Song of Saint Sebastian, Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service and On a Portraitare examples of this kind of ekphrastic exercise. There are different kinds of connections between painting and poetry and Eliot uses the iconological elements for different aims. The painters who interested the poet shared in common the fact that they represent a bridge between past and future, not a moment of perfect execution but one of great creativities.

Keywords

Ekphrasis; Italian Primitives; Mantegna; Manet; Saint Sebastian

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	Barthes, R. (1964). “Rhetorique de l’image” Communications (pp. 40-51). Paris: Editions du Seuil.
[2]	Childs, D. (1997). T.S. Eliot, Mystic, Son and Lover. London: The Athlone Press.
[3]	Eco, U. (1979). A Theory of Semiotics. Indiana University Press.
[4]	Eliot, T. S. (2001). Inventos de la liebre de marzo (Bilingual ed.). Madrid: Visor.
[5]	Eliot, T. S. (1999) Sobre poetes y poesia. Barcelona: Columna.
[6]	Eliot, T. S. (1998). The Letters of T.S. Eliot (Valery Eliot, ed.). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovish.
[7]	Eliot, T. S. (1953). Selected Prose (John Hayward, ed.). London: Penguin.
[8]	Eliot, T. S. (1967) Christianity and Culture. London: Harcourt, Inc.
[9]	Fry, R. (1988). Visión y dise?o. Barcelona: Paidós.
[10]	Gilman, E. B. (1989). Interart Studies and the “Imperialism of Lan- guage”. Poetics Today, 10, 3-29.
[11]	Gordon, L. (1977). Eliot’s Early Years. Oxford University Press.
[12]	Lessing, G. E. (1990) Laocoonte. Madrid: Técnos.
[13]	Marangoni, M. (1973). Para saber mirar. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.
[14]	Metz, C. (1981). “Cine y lenguaje”, Imagen y lenguajes. Barcelona: Signos.
[15]	Moody, D. (1994). Thomas Stearns Eliot Poet. Cambridge University Press.
[16]	Panofsky, E. (1972) Estudios sobre iconología. Madrid: Alianza Uni- versidad.
[17]	Sautham, B. (1981). A Student’s Guide to the Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot. London: Faber & Faber.
[18]	Scofield, M. (1988). T.S. Eliot: The Poems. Cambridge University Press.
[19]	Vega, A. (2005). Arte y santidad. Cuatro lecciones de estética apo- fàtica. Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra.
[20]	Zunzunegui, S. (1998). Pensar la imagen. Madrid: Càtedra.
[21]	Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York and London: Routledge.
[22]	Draper, J. W. (1938). The Theory of the Comic in Eighteenth-Century England. Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 37, 207-23.
[23]	Savoy, E. (2007). “Entre chien et loup”: Henry James, Queer Theory and the Biographical Imperative. In P. Rawlings (Ed.), Palgrave Ad- vances in Henry James Studies (100-125). New York: Palgrave Mac- millan.