Real Portraits in Literature

In Hans Maes (ed.), Portraits and Philosophy. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 213-228 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Many works of fiction include portraits in their storyworlds. Some of these portraits are themselves fictional, such as the portrait of Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde's novel. Others are real, such as the Darnley portrait of Elizabeth I in A. S. Byatt's The Virgin in the Garden. When authors invent portraits, they expect us to visualise them. When they refer to real portraits, they exploit our familiarity with how they actually look. Like representations of other real entities in fiction, references to real portraits function to ground the story in the real world. But portraits are more than material entities; they are also representational in their own right. In contrasting the ways real portraits are used in Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time and Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red, I argue that authors can be criticised when they mischaracterise the representational features of real portraits.

Author's Profile

Stacie Friend
University of Edinburgh

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-11-27

Downloads
144 (#75,466)

6 months
80 (#46,951)

Historical graph of downloads since first upload
This graph includes both downloads from PhilArchive and clicks on external links on PhilPapers.
How can I increase my downloads?