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 Contents List of plates Acknowledgements Introduction: Thinking colour-writing Part I Colour Concept and Practice: Mallarme’ s Monochromes ‘Un vieil et magique instinct me mène, invinciblement, vers des choses colorées’ Making modern, moving colour Displacements of black Azure ironies White (im)material Conclusion Part II Matter, Metaphor, Metamorphosis Valery: Vanguard and rearguard ‘Carroty-red bits of fibre’ and a pink-bristled toothbrush Thinking art and writing colour Resisting and revealing colour Sense and sensuousness: Seascape and landscape Ekphrasis: Figure and fruit Chiaroscuro modulations Conclusion Part III Emblematic Chromatics and the Colour of Ethics: Yves Bonnefoy' s Lessons in Things Moving colour The dereliction of colour The equipoise of grey Colour incarnate Unbiddable colour: The ethical turn Acts of attention Ethics and ekphrastics Interrupted white The curve of colour Conclusion Conclusion: Moving colour forward Colour concept Colour Capacity Colour agency Notes Bibliography Index 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