Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
6-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Program
Comparative Literature
Advisor
Nancy K. Miller
Subject Categories
Arts and Humanities | Classical Literature and Philology | Comparative Literature | Film and Media Studies | French and Francophone Literature | German Literature | Literature in English, British Isles | Literature in English, North America | Modern Languages
Keywords
Sontag, Woolf, Carson, Gadamer, Interpretation, Visual Art
Abstract
In “Against Interpretation,” Susan Sontag argues for an erotics of art in art criticism in place of hermeneutics. In this thesis, I examine erotics of art, a focus on form and experiencing art instead of exclusively on content, in practice. Drawing on other essays by Sontag, specifically the essay “Godard” in comparison with the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard’s own filmic criticism in Breathless, criticism according to an erotics of art becomes a new artwork itself. Subsequently, I present a definition of erotic through Anne Carson and Roland Barthes and juxtapose the term with Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics. The comparison ultimately undoes the supposed binary. In terms of art criticism then, I argue that the language of erotics of art is ekphrasis – making new art from existing art, which Anne Carson further applies in her poetry. Then I present Virginia Woolf as an ekphrastic writer within several genres. Woolf both critiques art explicitly in her essays that center around the experience of viewing a work of art, and she transforms mental images of memories into visual art through her pictorial descriptions. I argue that her novel The Waves combines the multiple levels of erotics of art criticism through ekphrasis in the depiction of different works of art, and in her writing process.
Recommended Citation
Ligon, Joanna A., "When Critics Are Artists: Ekphrasis in Erotic Art Criticism" (2024). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5833
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Included in
Classical Literature and Philology Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Film and Media Studies Commons, French and Francophone Literature Commons, German Literature Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Modern Languages Commons