Art has always fed off each other. Andy Warhol’s “Last Supper” painting drew direct inspiration from Da Vinci’s seminal piece. But these interactions aren’t limited to the boundaries of a singular medium. Ekphrastic poems explore the relationship between visual and written art, where poets may react to, interpret or flesh out the world of an existing or fictitious piece. Like many words in the English language, the term is a derivative of the Greek’s “ekphrasis”, which translates literally to “description”.
This form of poetry is in no way a novel concept. The practice of giving art new life has spanned over centuries—but notable ones include “The Disquieting Muses”, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, and “Musée des Beaux Arts”:
1. The Disquieting Muses (1957)
Sylvia Plath is best known for “The Bell Jar”, “Lady Lazarus”, sticking her head in an oven—and more relevantly, “The Disquieting Muses”. It is a confessional, ekphrastic poem found in one of the few recorded broadcasted readings by Plath herself. It's inspired by Giorgio de Chirico’s 1917 painting of the same name, of which was an important piece to the metaphysical art movement.
Scratching the Surface
Plath took the painting and its muses to create a harrowing poem that explores maternal relationships—a theme commonplace in her writing. The poem is chronological. Its opening stanza offers the naïve questions of a baby, then of a toddler, a schoolgirl and her present, wiser state.
Literally, the poem depicts the conversation of a mother and daughter, as the speaker recalls memories about the three faceless figures that have followed her since birth. But to scratch the surface, each stanza hints to motherly neglect. If we view these three figures as symbolic of the speaker’s darkness—as suggested by Plath’s verbal preface, “darker emotions may well put on the mask of quite unworldly things”—we can deduct that her questions for her mother throughout, indeed ask if she had noticed her daughter’s suffering, and if she did, why she did not do anything to help her.
It’s a poem rich with literary devices such as polysyndeton, tricolons, imagery—and similar to the painting itself, allusions. Chirico alluded to Greek mythology’s muses of art, while in Plath’s poem particularly, she relates the three statues in the painting to “other sinister trios of women”, alongside referencing fairytales like Hansel and Gretel. The two pieces of art reflect each other in other ways. Plath notes that her figures are eternal in their “gowns of stone” as Chirico immortalises his muses by painting them as statues—both trios now exist outside of time. The painting contrasts light and dark through colour and value; Plath achieves this by juxtaposing cold storms against warm food, or more directly, having the speaker being “set aside in the shadow”. Ultimately, Plath has taken this painting, and interpreted it to echo the woes of an abandoned, somber speaker.
As with the rest of the poems in this list, it is nearly impossible to cover every detail and every interpretation in a condensed discussion such as this. It would be a disservice to each poem to take my words as fact! Thus, it is recommended for you to read each poem yourself.
2. Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819)
This poem by John Keats is arguably the most famous ekphrastic poem—but excuse this cliche. The Romantic poet had only received recognition for his work posthumously, this ode being one of the most popular in English Literature. Unlike “The Disquieting Muses”, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is not based on a particular piece—or at least to our knowledge. The speaker of the poem ponders a Grecian urn. Keats would proceed to use apostrophe, to portray imagery of ancient Greek life that has been etched onto the pottery. The speaker responds to the art by fantasizing about the world of the urn, animating it.
Scratching the Surface
The Ode deals with themes of transience, love, beauty and nature. To put it broadly, he does so by exploring the sides of the fictitious urn, where the speaker finds lovers on one area, and a group of villagers and a heifer on another.
The two lovers are immortalised, forever beautiful and eternally in love. It’s a blissful scene, where the lovers are beneath a great tree with pipers playing alongside them. The aspirated epizeuxis in “Happy, happy” repeats throughout the stanzas about the couple, placing emphasis on the frozen display of youthful romance—yet they are punished for their refute of natural laws, since “never canst thou kiss”. The speaker ponders if mortality is simply a necessary part of living. From this point onwards, the speaker’s anxieties about their own temporality heighten. After all, the connotation of the urn reminds readers of the present reality of their own mortality. Alternatively, the other discussed image is of a cow about to be sacrificed—it is now suspended in a period right before its death. The potter has spared the heifer death. Yet again, the villagers who lead the cow have left their own homes empty. There is “not a soul to tell why art thou desolate,” the speaker adds, effectively reminding themself that immortality is soulless.
Throughout the speaker’s restless prying, they muse the reign of beauty. The lovers are unable to touch, but “do not grieve”, as she will remain fair perpetually. The heifer attends its immolation adorned in flowers and silk, and finally—the famed chiasmus, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”. After the speaker voices its disdain for the urn and its pretences, they proclaim that the urn will stay as a figure of truth and beauty, and that this is all the urn knows.
3. Musée des Beaux Arts (1940)
W.H. Auden often spoke of politics and morality—but his adamancy towards discussing public concerns did not stop his bewilderment towards myths and the mystics appearing in his poetry and prose. Unsurprisingly, Auden’s work is famed for its versatility—not solely in topics or themes, but structure, form and technique. He’d write prose and plays; brief poems, lengthy verse—and ekphrastic poetry. “Musée des Beaux Arts” is believed to be an ekphrasis of Pieter Brueghel’s paintings, with a primary focus on “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”. Akin to Brueghel’s other pieces, this one of Icarus is a landscape and peasant scene. The world in it is alive, and it continues despite Icarus’s wings of wax melting.
Scratching the Surface
Auden’s poem speaks of exactly that. Initially, they reference two paintings, which are believed to be: “The Census at Bethlehem” and “The Massacre of the Innocents”. The speaker notes that former showcases a pregnant Mary and Joseph, while the latter is of the first martyred Christians—both significant, yet the world around them pays no mind and carries on. Young peasants go about their day, “walking dully along;”, domesticated animals don’t make exceptions for their primal routines, “where the dogs go on with their doggy routines”. Consequential events are contrasted with the quotidian, while the enjambed lines of the poem mirrors this theme of nonchalant continuity.
A more significant display of this occurrence is the poem’s focal painting, “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”. Similar to the title of the painting itself, Icarus’s fall is secondary. It’s set aside, where focus is not solely on the result of Icarus’s temerity—the “sun shone as it had to” and ships “sailed calmly on”. Auden iterates the idea of the world’s lack of empathy to what ails the public, a concept commonplace in his writing. The recurrence of caesura throughout creates a physical divide between the people and the tragedy, “Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away”, the colon demarcates it clearly, akin to the illustrations in Brueghel’s painting.
Conclusion
As established, ekphrastic poetry occurs when literature is inspired by visual arts— hopefully, these poems have inspired you too!
Author Bio
From Malaysia, Leia Emeera is a writer at TESSR, and a published author. She has been putting pen to paper ever since she learned how to, and has an anthology to her name, titled 'Ten'. Leia loves music, games and her beloved labrador retriever, George. She aims to further her studies in English Literature and Creative Writing the moment her gap year ends. 'Till then, you will find her sitting behind a desk, writing with TESSR.
Connect with her on LinkedIn: Leia Emeera
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