This essay explores the way that Shakespeare dramatizes an ekphrasis process with the wager between Iachimo and Posthumus in Cymbeline. Recent critics have defined ekphrasis as the verbal representation of visual representation. Many Shakespearean critics increasingly consider Shakespeare’s drama as powerful examples of ekphrasis. In this way, it is possible that ekphrasis should be central to the study of Shakespeare. The wager between Iachimo and Posthumus is a masculine competition for verbal representation and Imogen’s beauty or her body becomes an object for the ekphrasis battle. Thus, the descriptive contest can be seen as an triangle relationship and in Cymbeline, ekphrasis is represented as a strategy by which men describe the female body in order to triumph in a verbal contest with other men. Above all, Iachimo’s description of Imogen and decorations in her bedroom, especially tapestry is one of the best examples of the verbal representation of visual objects in Shakespearean drama. In particular, it is remarkable that Iachimo first calls the hanging in Imogen’s bedchamber an “arras” and then later a “tapestry.” Through the shift in textile terminology, he skillfully dramatizes tapestry ekphrasis. As tapestry is not on the stage but described by Iachimo, Shakespeare requires the audience /reader to see it in the mind’s eye. In bringing pictures to the mind’s eye, ekphrasis can provide images that are not represented on the stage. Eventually, in Cymbleine, Shakespeare’s ekphrasis is presented as a trope that can create a powerful illusion of presence, describing the absent object that we cannot see on the stage.
한국중앙영어영문학회 [The Jungang English Language And Literature Association Of Korea]
설립연도
1968
분야
인문학>영어와문학
소개
본 학회는 영미어문학의 학술연구와 이에 부합하는 아래의 사업을 기획 수행하며,
또한 회원 상호간의 친목을 도모함을 목적으로 한다.
1. 학회지 발간
2. 연구 발표회, 강연회, 공동연구
3. 영미어문학 관련 도서출판
4. 영미어문학 관계 도서 및 자료의 모집 및 비치
5. 기타 본회의 목적 달성에 필요한 사업
간행물
간행물명
영어영문학연구 [The Jungang Journal of English Language and Literature]