Mute Poetry, Speaking Pictures

(Princeton University Press) Since ancient Greece, poets and painters have compared their work, but their efforts raise more questions than they answer. Often a comparison between poetry and pictures is an attempt to promote one medium over the other, but analogies between word and image have helped artists from both sides think about their craft. Barkan argues that this dialogue is an expression of desire: Both sides yearn for the depth the other can achieve. Barkan is the Class of 1943 University Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University.