Text/Image

The mere existence of a “pictorial turn” calls for careful consideration of the relationship between text and image/picture, and thereby of ekphrasis. Examinations of the “visual turn” place at the centre of the discussion the question of comparison between the verbal dimension and that of the picture. James A. W. Heffernan’sHeffernan, J. A. W. formula, “the verbal representation of a graphic representation” had helped clarify the limits of ekphrasis, which had been freed from its ancient relationship with hypotyposis and enargheia.