Sound And Stasis in Pictorial Poetry

Abstract

In this article I investigate how various representations of sound influence temporality and imagery in pictorial poetry. Literary pictorialism can be defined as a phenomenon that occurs when the fictional reality, psychological or physical, in a text is represented as image. A pictorial poem often revolves around one single image and the poem’s subject matter, a scene or a landscape for example, is described as silent and static; the poem is composed in a way that can lead the reader to create a stable mental image of its subject matter. The introduction of sound into such a poem can have various effects; one being that the static mood of the poem is interrupted. It can have other results as well, depending on the kind of sound. Sound can, for example, be represented as a concrete and tangible object, in which case it becomes part of the visual scene represented in the poem. A cognitive approach is used to illustrate and explain the relation between sound and sight in pictorial poetry.