Table Of ContentCultural Interactions:
Studies in the Relationship between the Arts
J
o
h
‘Ut pictura poesis’, Horace said, but through the two millennia in which n
‘the sister arts’ have been compared, little has been said about the nature of H
a
sight itself. What we see in ‘our mind’s eye’ as we read has not been explored, r
v
though by following the visual prompts in texts, one can anatomize the pro- e
y
cess of visualization.
The Poetics of Sight analyses the role of sight in memory, dream and popular
culture and demonstrates the structure of a complex sight within the meta-
T
phors of Shakespeare, Pope and Dickens; and within the visual metaphors h
e
of Picasso, Magritte and Bacon. This book explores the difference between
P
the great and the failed works of the supreme poet-painter, William Blake, o
e
and tracks the migrations of the Satiric muse between verbal mockery and t
i
c
scabrous images in Persius, Pope, Gillray and Gogol. It records the rise, and
s
partial decline, of the vividly ‘seen’ novel in Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Proust o
f
and Hardy. S
i
g
h
The key concept throughout this book is visual metaphor, which in the twenti- t
eth century acquired overarching importance: in art from Picasso to Kapoor,
in poetry from Eliot to Hughes, in aesthetics from Pound to Derrida. The
book closes with a far-reaching definition of visual metaphor and with the
great visual metaphor of the human body.
The Poetics of Sight
John Harvey is a literary critic and novelist. He is a Doctor of Letters of
Cambridge University and a Life Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cam-
bridge, where he has lectured in the English Faculty since 1970. In 2000 he
John Harvey
was appointed University Reader in Literature and Visual Culture. He is
the author of Victorian Novelists and their Illustrators, Men in Black and The Story
of Black.
ISBN 978-3-0343-0723-9
Peter Lang
www.peterlang.com
Cultural Interactions:
Studies in the Relationship between the Arts
J
o
h
‘Ut pictura poesis’, Horace said, but through the two millennia in which n
‘the sister arts’ have been compared, little has been said about the nature of H
a
sight itself. What we see in ‘our mind’s eye’ as we read has not been explored, r
v
though by following the visual prompts in texts, one can anatomize the pro- e
y
cess of visualization.
The Poetics of Sight analyses the role of sight in memory, dream and popular
culture and demonstrates the structure of a complex sight within the meta-
T
phors of Shakespeare, Pope and Dickens; and within the visual metaphors h
e
of Picasso, Magritte and Bacon. This book explores the difference between
P
the great and the failed works of the supreme poet-painter, William Blake, o
e
and tracks the migrations of the Satiric muse between verbal mockery and t
i
c
scabrous images in Persius, Pope, Gillray and Gogol. It records the rise, and
s
partial decline, of the vividly ‘seen’ novel in Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Proust o
f
and Hardy. S
i
g
h
The key concept throughout this book is visual metaphor, which in the twenti- t
eth century acquired overarching importance: in art from Picasso to Kapoor,
in poetry from Eliot to Hughes, in aesthetics from Pound to Derrida. The
book closes with a far-reaching definition of visual metaphor and with the
great visual metaphor of the human body.
The Poetics of Sight
John Harvey is a literary critic and novelist. He is a Doctor of Letters of
Cambridge University and a Life Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cam-
bridge, where he has lectured in the English Faculty since 1970. In 2000 he
John Harvey
was appointed University Reader in Literature and Visual Culture. He is
the author of Victorian Novelists and their Illustrators, Men in Black and The Story
of Black.
Peter Lang
www.peterlang.com
The Poetics of Sight
C I
ultural nteraCtIons
Studies in the Relationship between the Arts
Edited by J.B. Bullen
Volume 25
PETER LANG
Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Wien
John Harvey
The Poetics of Sight
PETER LANG
Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Wien
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the
Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Harvey, John, 1942-
The poetics of sight / John Harvey. -- First edition.
pages cm -- (Cultural Interactions : studies in the relationship be-
tween the arts ; 25)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-3-0343-0723-9 (alk. paper)
1. Art and literature. 2. Metaphor in literature. 3. Metaphor in art. 4.
Visual communication. 5. Visual perception. I. Title.
PN53H38 2015
809’.93357--dc23
2014035502
ISSN 1662-0364
ISBN 978-3-0343-0723-9 (print)
ISBN 978-3-0353-0706-1 (eBook)
Cover Image: The Night Café by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888.
Yale University Art Gallery.
© Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2015
Hochfeldstrasse 32, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
[email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net
All rights reserved.
All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.
Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the
permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.
This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and
storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.
This publication has been peer reviewed.
Printed in Germany
For Julietta, Ekaterini,
Julietta and Eleni
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction: Sight, the Mind’s Eye and Art 1
Chapter 1
Shakespeare Pictures 21
Chapter 2
The Unequal Art of William Blake 71
Chapter 3
Satire and Sight 109
Chapter 4
Bleak House to Lighthouse: The Optics of the Novel 159
Chapter 5
Metaphor and Modernism 213
A Note on the Pre-Raphaelites and Shakespeare’s Women 267
Notes 277
Select Bibliography 299
Index 305
Also by John Harvey 310
