Coda. Toward a Narratology of Ekphrasis

Ekphrasis in a text (especially in a novel) often has the function of revealing, anticipating and thematising the deep structure of the narrative itself; ekphrasis is a container for “meta-poetical” reflections or can have a pronounced “meta-narrative” function. By meta-poetic reflections I mean the use of ekphrasis to say something on the structure and the theory of the narrative which contains it or on the described artwork; while with meta-narrative I mean the intertextual relationships that are established, within one text, between themes and motifs of the novel and themes and motifs of the described picture or between the descriptions in the text and the former descriptions (for example in art criticism, aesthetics etc.).