Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

Attributive Ekphrasis
The first category I propose to call “attributive ekphrasis,” a name which I
have borrowed from Robillard’s system (61-62). However, my use of this
category goes beyond hers, which describes the way in which a text marks its
source. As she explains, the marking of a picture in this category can range from a
mere allusion without explicitly specifying the source, to explicit and direct
naming but without descriptive elaboration. Similar to Torgovnick’s “decorative”
category, this category refers to the smallest degree of involvement with the
visual arts, yet, as Yacobi has shown in her discussion of the ekphrastic simile and
the ekphrastic model, even a brief allusion to an art work, style or genre can be
sufficiently complex to be an instance of ekphrasis.
My category of attributive ekphrasis includes the verbal allusion to
pictures in a description or dialog of a text or film, that is, scenes in which
artworks are shown (as actual pictures or tableaux) or mentioned, but not
extensively discussed or described. In Plett’s terms, they can be only slightly
marked, and with little frequency and distribution. Yet they are generally
quantitatively fairly high, that is, in a film, the images are shown either whole or
in significant portions, generally in wide angle so as to situate them within the
scene and in relation to other objects and/or characters. Moreover, they are also
qualitatively important since they contribute to the signification of the text or
film, or to the characterization of the protagonists. The visual arts may also be
used visually as background images or narrative device, as in Poulton’s sixth
category (22-25).
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