The Poetics of Description: Imagined Places in European Literature

by Kenneth A. Loparo

This book tells a remarkable story that begins in classical antiquity with ecphrasis, the art of describing the world so vividly that the audience could become imaginative eyewitnesses, and the events that caused an ideal of immediacy to be transformed into nearly its opposite, a preoccupation with representation of representation.

244 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 2006