Was "Leda and the Swan" based on a painting, or did I make that up?
I read somewhere the casual opinion that ekphrastic poetry began as "descriptive-type writing." In my understanding it wasn't "descriptive" writing so much as the creation by description of a work of art within a poem, such as the Shield of Achilles or the cups of Alcimedon in the Eclogues. By those criteria, Ode on a Grecian Urn would also be ekphrastic, since it isn't really based on one pot as much as the creation of one from scattered sources.
Also, I'm not sure but I think Wilbur's "This Pleasing Anxious Being" is about photographs; at least, the second part is, and the first could be, though it doesn't seem to fit with the third. Photographs and memories. Ekphrastic or not, it's great.
Chris
[This message has been edited by Chris Childers (edited July 17, 2003).]
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