Introduction

The history of literature is marked by a deep engagement with the visual arts and aesthetic philosophy. It is the contention of the editors of this volume that recent decades have witnessed significantly increased levels of critical considerations of the interfaces between literature and aesthetics, as well as a clear escalation in the number of literary texts across all major genres that creatively engage with the visual arts. While the scholarly engagements in this volume inevitably return to considerations of classical ideas related to beauty—including approaches to the sublime, style, form, pleasure, and how these critical concepts have evolved over the centuries—they also involve a distinct embrace of contemporary approaches like neuroaesthetics, ethics, the body, cultural diversity, gender, and narrative theory. Specific intersections between the visual and literary arts such as ekphrasis are reconceptualized in the context of contemporary visual culture, social media, and the digital world.