ekphrasis
ekphrasis,an extended and detailed literary description of any object, real or imaginary. ‘There are ekphraseis of faces and objects and places and ages and many other things’ (Hermogenes Progymnasmata 10; cf. Dionysius Halicarnassius Ars rhetorica 10. 17, Lucian, Quomodo historia conscribenda sit 20, Apthonius, Progymnasmata 12). The rhetoricians thus systematized into a rhetorical exercise (progymnasma) a poetic technique stretching from the description of the shield of Achilles in the Iliad to that of Hagia Sophia by Paulus Silentiarius. Most were of works of art. Ekphraseis was a work by Callistratus, and Eikones was the title of works by Philostratus, Lucian, and others.
Jeffrey Stuart Rusten
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