Publisher's Synopsis
This collection of essays on works ranging from medieval illuminated manuscripts to the literature and Pop Art of our own time has a dual purpose. It aims not simply to make specific comparisons across the borderline between literature and the visual arts, but also to scrutinize the borderline itself, and specifically to question two basic assumptions. One is that pictures are fundamentally spatial and literature fundamentally temporal; the other is that pictures differ from words as natural images differ from signs, that pictures represent objects by means of natural resemblance while words signify meanings by arbitrary convention. By repeatedly questioning and testing these assumptions against the art and literature of several different periods, this volume seeks to enrich our understanding of both the image and the word.
