Colourworks : Chromatic Innovation in Modern French Poetry and Art Writing

How do modern writers write colour? How do today's readers respond to the invitation to 'think colour' as they read poetry and art writing, and explore paintings? To what extent can critical thought on colour in visual media illuminate the textual life of colour? These are some of the lines of enquiry pursued in this bold new study of modern poetry and art writing in French, where colour, Susan Harrow argues, is integral to the exploration of ethics, ekphrasis, objects, bodies, landscape and interiority. The question of colour, in a variety of disciplines and media, has provoked debate from Aristotle to Goethe, and from Baudelaire to Derek Jarman. If the past twenty years have witnessed a 'colour turn' in contemporary cultural studies and screen research, colour values in literary and textual media are often elided or, simply, overlooked. __Colourworks__ tackles this lacuna in the study of modern poetry and art writing in French, revealing the integral role of colour in the work of three iconic French writers in the modern tradition: Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Valéry and Yves Bonnefoy. This book spans the broad modern period from the 1860s to the early twenty-first century in taking an exploratory approach to the visuality of the verbal medium through an adventurous reading of text and image. Harrow uncovers how colour moves and morphs in texts as it challenges the traditionalist containments of chromatic symbolism. Beyond its primary area of investigation in modern poetry and art writing in French, this richly colour-illustrated study has significant interdisciplinary implications-conceptual, methodological, and practical-for the study of visuality in humanities research, from literature studies to material and visual culture studies. "How do modern writers write colour? How do today's readers respond to the invitation to 'think colour' as they read poetry and art writing, and explore paintings? To what extent can critical thought on colour in visual media illuminate the textual life of colour? These are some of the lines of enquiry pursued in this bold new study of modern poetry and art writing in French, where colour, Susan Harrow argues, is integral to the exploration of ethics, ekphrasis, objects, bodies, landscape, and interiority. The question of colour, in a variety of disciplines and media, has provoked debate from Aristotle to Goethe, and from Baudelaire to Derek Jarman. If the past twenty years have witnessed a 'colour turn' in contemporary cultural studies and screen research, colour values in literary and textual media are often elided or, simply, overlooked. Colourworks tackles this lacuna in the study of modern poetry and art writing in French, revealing the integral role of colour in the work of three iconic French writers in the modern tradition: Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Valéry, and Yves Bonnefoy. Colourworks spans the broad modern period from the 1860s to the early 21st century in taking an exploratory approach to the visuality of the verbal medium through an adventurous reading of text and image. Harrow uncovers how colour moves and morphs in texts as it challenges the traditionalist containments of chromatic symbolism. Beyond its primary area of investigation in modern poetry and art writing in French, this richly colour-illustrated study has significant interdisciplinary implications - conceptual, methodological, and practical - for the study of visuality in humanities research, from literature studies to material and visual culture studies"-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Contents 8 List of plates 10 Acknowledgements 13 Introduction: Thinking colour-writing 16 Part I Colour Concept and Practice: Mallarme’ s Monochromes 28 ‘Un vieil et magique instinct me mène, invinciblement, vers des choses colorées’ 28 Making modern, moving colour 36 Displacements of black 54 Azure ironies 64 White (im)material 70 Conclusion 79 Part II Matter, Metaphor, Metamorphosis 82 Valery: Vanguard and rearguard 82 ‘Carroty-red bits of fibre’ and a pink-bristled toothbrush 90 Thinking art and writing colour 95 Resisting and revealing colour 103 Sense and sensuousness: Seascape and landscape 109 Ekphrasis: Figure and fruit 120 Chiaroscuro modulations 128 Conclusion 138 Part III Emblematic Chromatics and the Colour of Ethics: Yves Bonnefoy' s Lessons in Things 142 Moving colour 142 The dereliction of colour 147 The equipoise of grey 152 Colour incarnate 157 Unbiddable colour: The ethical turn 162 Acts of attention 167 Ethics and ekphrastics 174 Interrupted white 183 The curve of colour 189 Conclusion 195 Conclusion: Moving colour forward 198 Colour concept 200 Colour Capacity 201 Colour agency 202 Notes 206 Bibliography 236 Index 245 Introduction: Thinking colour-writing -- Colour concept and practice: Mallarmé's monochromes -- Matter, metaphor, metamorphosis: Valéry's intermittent colour -- Emblematic chromatics and the colour of ethics: Yves Bonnefoy's lessons in things -- Conclusion: Moving colour forward