F0305 Word and Image: Literature and the Visual Arts

From Homer\'s description of the gloriously decorated surface of Achille\'s shield onward, literature and the visual arts have been in constant traffic with one another. In this course we will examine a series of twentieth-century explorations of the connection between word and image. Starting with Oscar Wilde\'s The Picture of Dorian Gray we will read a series of novels in which the problem of painting is also the problem of literature. We will also visit the Venice Bienale to examine, in particular, works of contemporary art in which text and writing are the subject of the visual arts.