The wallflower avant-garde [electronic resource] : modernism, sexuality, and queer ekphrasis / Brian Glavey.

9780190202675 (electronic book)

New York : Oxford University Press, 2016.

English

1 online resource (ix, 218 pages) : illustrations

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190202651 doi

PS228.M63 G57 2016eb

810.9112

This title argues for the importance of a strain of modernist formalism based in ekphrasis, the literary imitation of the visual arts. Often associated with a conservative aesthetic of wholeness, permanence, and autonomy, ekphrastic writing nonetheless also involves excess, failure, and mimesis, conjuring an aesthetic sense of closure and unity out of impossible imitations. This book suggests that this particular interplay between imitation and autonomy resonates with many of the foundational insights of queer theory: the way it situates identity as an effect of performativity, artifice, and mimesis.

This title argues for the importance of a strain of modernist formalism based in ekphrasis, the literary imitation of the visual arts. Often associated with a conservative aesthetic of wholeness, permanence, and autonomy, ekphrastic writing nonetheless also involves excess, failure, and mimesis, conjuring an aesthetic sense of closure and unity out of impossible imitations. This book suggests that this particular interplay between imitation and autonomy resonates with many of the foundational insights of queer theory: the way it situates identity as an effect of performativity, artifice, and mimesis.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Access limited to authorized users.

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on September 9, 2015).

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