Framing texts: An introduction

TY - CHAP

T1 - Framing texts: An introduction

AU - Squire, Michael James

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - This introduction to a section on ‘framing texts’ explores the frames that surround and contain ancient written texts – both the monumental words of ancient inscriptions, and those systems of representation facilitated by (and in turn bound up with) the material scroll and codex. Within the context of the larger book, this section is ultimately concerned with the once similar and divergent affordances of the frame between visual and verbal semantic frameworks. The introduction tackles these themes with reference to a single case study: the ‘picture-poetry’ of the Roman poet Optatian (writing in the early fourth century AD), and in particular poem 22. For Optatian, this introduction demonstrates, the very form of writing could frame readable text as visual artefact, no less than visual artefact as readable text; hidden within the text, moreover, are concealed messages – a poem within the poem that reframes the art of composition. So just where are the borderlines here between frame and framed – between inside and outside, and (if one so liked) between ergon and parergon? No less importantly, how do these boundaries map onto distinctions between visual and verbal modes of ornament and figuration…

AB - This introduction to a section on ‘framing texts’ explores the frames that surround and contain ancient written texts – both the monumental words of ancient inscriptions, and those systems of representation facilitated by (and in turn bound up with) the material scroll and codex. Within the context of the larger book, this section is ultimately concerned with the once similar and divergent affordances of the frame between visual and verbal semantic frameworks. The introduction tackles these themes with reference to a single case study: the ‘picture-poetry’ of the Roman poet Optatian (writing in the early fourth century AD), and in particular poem 22. For Optatian, this introduction demonstrates, the very form of writing could frame readable text as visual artefact, no less than visual artefact as readable text; hidden within the text, moreover, are concealed messages – a poem within the poem that reframes the art of composition. So just where are the borderlines here between frame and framed – between inside and outside, and (if one so liked) between ergon and parergon? No less importantly, how do these boundaries map onto distinctions between visual and verbal modes of ornament and figuration…

M3 - Chapter

SN - 978-1-107-16236-5

SP - 502

EP - 513

BT - The Frame in Classical Art: A Cultural History

A2 - Platt, V.

A2 - Squire, M.

PB - Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

ER -