Twentieth-Century Poetry and the Visual Arts

The emergence of photography and film in the twentieth century helped to establish a dominant culture of images. This extended treatment of the poetic representation of visual art uses a wealth of source material to examine the complex, changing relationship between words and images.

The emergence of photography and film in the twentieth century helped to create a shift from a culture of words to a culture of images. Since then, the question of how literature engages the visual arts has become a key question for literary studies. This extended treatment of the poetic representation of visual art examines a wide range of figures, from W. B. Yeats and Marianne Moore to Anne Sexton and Ted Hughes. Elegantly and persuasively written, the study also contains a rich sample of images that allows readers to see the same works these poets were addressing. By investigating the complex, changing relations between twentieth-century poetry, visual art and audience, it considers the way in which poetic responses to visual art place the lyric firmly within the social world. For those interested in the interplay between poetry and visual art, this will be essential reading.