Authors and Artists

Catalog description

This course explores formal and historical links between literature and art in modernist movements. "Ut pictura poesis" (like painting [is] poetry). This statement, originally articulated by the ancient Roman poet Horace, has been quoted and debated ever since. Links between art and literature have exerted a formative influence on the development of modern fiction and poetry as authors and artists in various avant-garde groupings collaborated and competed to generate modes of artistic expression appropriate to modernity. This course examines those interactions. Course objectives are to bring together for comparative examination: - formal or generic relationships between texts and images at particular historical moments. - issues of creative collaboration and cross-pollination between writers and artists, which have been crucially important in the history of literature and poetry. - conceptions of creativity as these have been expressed by writers using the figure of the artist. This course allows students to explore the ways knowledge of literature and skills in critical reading can be rewardingly brought to bear on the visual arts, and to consider how visual art can illuminate the workings of literature both for individual readers and in the classroom.