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This study investigates the capacity of Shakespeare’s texts – obviously destined for stage performances – to generate images and mental colours in the readers’ and in the spectators’ minds. Such notions as Ut pictura poesis and the paragoneare discussed in the first part of this book, along with the function and nature of colours. After considering the sets of correspondences and the major differences between texts and images, the author presents and analyzes some of his own illustrations of Shakespearean characters. Jean-Louis Claret, both a university professor specialized in Shakespeare’s theatre and an illustrator, proposes to shed light on the process that led him from the perusal of the written text to the visualization of visages. The voice of poets is unconventionally called upon to shed light on the complex mechanisms he describes.
“In this deeply inventive, moving book, Jean-Louis Claret takes stock of forty years of passionate research on Shakespearean drama, offering a touchstone for a new literary humanism that treats Shakespeare’s texts as ‘invaluable manuals for life’. Picturing Shakespeare unveils how the generative capacity of Shakespeare’s visual language gives rise to mental performances, theatrical incarnations and pictorial illustrations.” —Marguerite A. Tassi, Professor of English, University of Nebraska, USA.
List of Figures; Acknowledgements; Foreword by François-Xavier P. Gleyzon; Critical Gesture: Preface to a Poetics of the Image; Introduction; 1. Dramatic Texts and Images; 2. The Drawings; Conclusion: A Lesson in Love; Bibliography; Index