Reading Relationally looks at literary works alongside works of art to enrich our appreciation of what texts do and how texts mean. Laurie Edson's fresh and provocative readings of a range of literature and visual art shed new light on the contributions of writers and artists and the resonances between their work.
Reading Relationally is grounded in poststructuralist theory, feminist theory, interdisciplinary studies, and postmodern practice. It proceeds by a series of exemplary comparisons whose purpose is to unsettle habitual, codified terms of analysis and to suggest alternative ways of seeing, thinking, and organizing knowledge. The book explores reverberations between the work of Marguerite Duras and Cindy Sherman; Francis Ponge and Rene Magritte; Mallarme, Duchamp, and Calvino; Apollinaire and Picasso; Lautreamont and Dali; Rimbaud and Matisse; and Duchamp, Miro, Apollinaire, and Lichtenstein.
Written in an accessible and lively style, this interdisciplinary study will interest general readers as well as students and specialists in postmodernism and literary criticism, as well as those interested in the relationships between literature and visual art.