Ekphrasis and the Mind’s Ear

Abstract

The ekphrasis of Herakles’ shield in Pseudo-Hesiod’s Aspis comprises an immersive experiment in the poetics of sound. As complement to the standard modes of visualization that are crucial to effective ekphrasis, this poem’s rich soundscape invites the audience to ‘auralize’ the sounds described by the internal observer. From the monstrous noises emitted from the shield’s iconographic world to the overdetermined correspondence of sonic features within and between narrative levels, the acoustic techniques of this poem actively destabilize traditional archaic modes of constructing and shattering ekphrastic illusion. As sound effects undermine the notion that materiality must serve as an index of iconographic fixity, and as lexical and semantic recursions echo across representational planes, the poem’s unruly acoustics ultimately problematize the relationship between the world of the shield and the world of its wielder.