ENG 261 - Literature & The Visual Arts

1 course unit

The course will explore the multiple relationships between word and image in a variety of interdisciplinary texts. We will examine the genres of illustration (poem and novel), composite text, ekphrasis, children’s story, concrete and imagist poetry, the graphic novel, and film. Historically, the scope of the course is broad, reaching from the classical period to last year. We’ll move from The Iliad to a comic strip, from a children’s picture book to the revolutionary poetics of Blake’s dynamic art. The course will trace the increasing sophistication and partnership of the word/image relationship as we move deeper into the digital age. Texts may include: William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794); Jonathan Safron Foer’s erasure novel, Tree of Codes (2010); Robert Frank’s photographic essay, The Americans (1958); Richard McGuire’s graphic novel, Here (2014); Christopher Nolan’s film, Memento (2000); Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (1964); and Lynd Ward’s wordless novel, Mad Man’s Drum (1930).
Meets general academic requirement HU.