The Language of Vision : Photography and Southern Literature in the 1930s and After / Joseph R. Millichap.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Millichap, Joseph R., author.

Series:

Southern literary studies.

Southern literary studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature and photography--Southern states.

Literature and photography.

Photography in literature.

American literature--20th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--Southern States--History and criticism.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University, 2016.

Summary:

The Language of Vision celebrates and interprets the complementary expressions of photography and literature in the South. Southern imagery and text affect one another, explains Joseph R. Millichap, as intertextual languages and influential visions. Focusing on the 1930s, and including significant works both before and after this preeminent decade, Millichap uncovers fascinating convergences between mediums, particularly in the interplay of documentary realism and subjective modernism. Millichap's subjects range from William Faulkner's fiction, perhaps the best representation of literary and graphic tensions of the period, and the work of other major figures like Robert Penn Warren and Eudora Welty to specific novels, including Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Fleshing out historical and cultural background as well as critical and theoretical context, Millichap shows how these texts echo and inform the visual medium to reveal personal insights and cultural meanings. Warren's fictions and poems, Millichap argues, redefine literary and graphic tensions throughout the late twentieth century; Welty's narratives and photographs reinterpret gender, race, and class; and Ellison's analysis of race in segregated America draws from contemporary photography. Millichap also traces these themes and visions in Natasha Trethewey's contemporary poetry and prose, revealing how the resonances of these artistic and historical developments extend into the new century. This groundbreaking study reads southern literature across time through the prism of photography, offering a brilliant formulation of the dialectic art forms.

Contents:

Preface

The language of vision in photography and southern literature

James Agee, photography, and Let us now praise famous men

William Faulkner, photography, and the dialectic of the 1930s

Robert Penn Warren, photography, and southern letters

Eudora Welty, photography, and southern narratives

Ralph Ellison, photography, and Invisible man

Photography and southern literature in a new century.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780807162798

0807162795

9780807162781

0807162787

OCLC:

948631782