Writing Prompt: As WJT Mitchell demonstrates in Iconology Download Iconology(1986: 2), the term visual does not necessarily mean that we are dealing with visual artifacts; “it does not necessarily mean talking about images and the things people say about them but rather with the way we talk about the idea of imagery, perceiving, etc. The visual is in a way what might come to a blind listener overhearing a conversation of sighted speakers talking about images”. Over this course, we have examined how the visual and the textual compliment each other. Just like the text can bring forth an image, so can an image speak a story? What are the different ways in which the textual leads to a vivid and complete visualization? Discuss the ekphrastic modes of writing in two primary works and demonstrate how visualization is made manifest within the texts, and to what end.
Guidelines: For your final essay, you will produce a 7page research paper, double-spaced (including works cited).
I am most interested in your own creativity, so this final essay provides you with a significant amount of autonomy in terms of topic choice. You will be expected to do an appropriate amount of individual research in relation to the topic you choose. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate an excellent depth of knowledge and a complex understanding of the dialectic between the Textual and the Visual, informed by a rich critical background, and to demonstrate the ability to produce a masterfully structured argument with a complex analysis. Your essay must include at least 5 academic references (primary readings are not academic sources) and follow the MLA format. Furthermore, you are responsible for finding these sources on your own. I cannot find them for you. I will deduct 5 points from your final grade for every academic reference you are missing. Please also consider including specific images/artworks in your essay. Note that your essay must include at least 2 primary readings studied this semester. (read below for two primary readings, one is attached in the files.)
Part Three: T.S. Eliot and Francis Bacon
We have discussed the way Eliot creates a visual and auditory world out of his poetry, but we have yet to discuss how Eliot represents a significant influence on the visual arts. Francis Bacon, a contemporary of Eliot’s, was deeply influenced by Eliot’s poetry as it is made manifest in many of his paintings. After close examination, we can see how Bacon’s paintings literally offer a visual response to Eliot’s words. Take, for example Bacon’s “Triptych” inspired by T.S. Eliot’s verse drama Sweeney Agonistes (See Figure 1). Sweeney Agonistes, despite its musicality and its overall laid-back tenor, depicts a very silent violence. This violence is depicted most obviously, yet very casually, in Sweeney’s story in the second scene:
“I knew a man once did a girl in
Any man might do a girl in
Any man has to, needs to, wants to
Once in a lifetime, do a girl in.
Well he kept her there in a bath
With a gallon of lysol in a bath”
The violence in this scene is purposely played down and understated by Eliot. This is probably due to the lack of communication/interaction between the characters; each character is isolated in his or her own mind, which is made obvious by the constant interruptions and repetitions in the verse drama. At any rate, the violence of this scene finds its iconic echo in Bacon’s “Triptych”.
On the first panel of the triptych, Bacon portrays two naked women lying down in a room, presumably dead. The second portrays no characters but a visible bloodbath in a different setting. The third is a repetition of the first, yet with a few changes: the lifeless bodies are expanded, perhaps melted, and a man is added in the corner talking on the telephone. The middle panel, with its different setting, separates the first and the second, as if to avoid linear narration, or narration altogether. Gilles Deleuze writes in his Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation: “Isolation is thus the simplest means […] to break with representation, to disrupt narration, to escape illustration, to liberate the Figure: to stick to the fact” (3). Not only are the panels each separated, but also the figures are isolated inside a red circle, inside a parallelepiped of glass .
We could argue that Eliot purposefully diluted the manner in which the horror of the multiple accounts of violence is depicted in order to prompt the readers to visualize the given experience. Sweeney himself clearly understood that words could only do so much: “I gotta use words when I talk to you / But if you understand or if you don’t / that’s nothing to me and nothing to you”. Bacon read Eliot’s texts, (and learnt them by heart according to Bacon himself), understood them, and communicated/conveyed them in his paintings, and more specifically in his “Triptych” (1967).
bacon triptych (picture)
‘Triptych’ inspired by TS Eliot’s ‘Sweeney Agonistes’ (1967) © The Estate of Francis Bacon /All rights reserved / Adagp, Paris and DACS, London 2019
Your essay must include the following segments:
(1) A synopsis offering a clear insight of what your topic is, and how you intend to address the question,
(2) A thesis statement. Ideally, it has a good opening sentence, a clear thesis, and an explicit agenda. Remember that in some courses your papers are being read among various other entries, and this means that the more help you can give the instructor in explicitly telling him or her what you’re doing, the easier it will be to grasp the paper and intelligently mark it. If the instructor has to stop and puzzle on what the student is doing, well, you can guess what’s going to happen to the mark. A thesis and an agenda provide clarity; they show how the paper is meant to fit together and pre-structure the whole for the reader. This is essential if you want to make a good impression on people who are marking many papers at a stretch. By the way, even in the business world, people want to know up front what they’re getting into. No one has the time to figure out a murky paper. The thesis and agenda sentences usually come at the end of the first paragraph. This means that the opening sentence introduces the main topic; you develop a context within which the topic becomes of interest; then you focus on your specific argument or thesis and end with a programmatic agenda that tells us how your analysis is going to proceed. This way we get a snapshot of the whole and all we have to do as markers is take pleasure on how cleverly you’ve developed the main thought. If this is done reasonably well, it should get you in the B+ range. If it’s done brilliantly, an A is in order. Remember that compared to the muddled paper your neighbor may be handing in, you have an immense advantage if your paper sets up a clear argument, execution, and conclusion.
(3) Main critical body of your work – generally divided into 2/3 main sections. Each section should have a clear title, and therefore a clear argument with academic refs to support it (clearly and properly referenced) and – indispensable – excerpts/quotes from the actual plays. It is useful to know that each paragraph in this section needs to have a very definite purpose or function. Look at each paragraph and ask what it’s accomplishing (in other words: avoid unfounded assertions). Find those sentences and paragraphs that don’t earn their keep and get rid of them or strengthen them. Usually, the problem is structural. The sentences or paragraphs are straying from the topic, or they’re repeating something you’ve already proven. Also, think how you are planning to transition from one part to another and ask yourself if the connection comes naturally – if it doesn’t you might have a structural problem and might have to re-juggle your arguments.
