ABSTRACT
In Ancient Greece, ekphrasis referred to a rhetoric exercise in which the orator tried to make such a vivid and accurate description that his listeners thought they were in front of the scene described. Drawing an analogy between the ekphrastic poems of Wordsworth and the visual referents he used can be rather difficult at times. It is common to find that instead of describing the actual painting that inspired him, the pictorial use of words that he developed during his career allowed him to transform his poems into completely different visual scenes, sometimes driven by his willingness to be true to reality, some others in order to provide mute paintings with voice and movement in an attempt to vindicate the communion of the visual and the written arts to please imagination. Exploring a selection of Wordsworthian ekphrastic poetry, we will discover a poet who used his pencil to wander the realms of visual art to stimulate the imagination of both spectators and readers.
