54 pages • 1 hour read
Paula HawkinsThe Blue Hour
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: Ekphrasis
Ekphrasis refers to a literary technique wherein a writer describes a work of visual art (either real or imagined). The term derives from the Greek word meaning description or interpretation. Ekphrasis can occur in either poetry or prose. Famous examples of ekphrasis include John Keats’s poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1820), in which the speaker addresses a Grecian urn directly and describes the images on it, and Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), where the narrative begins with a painter named Basil Hallward painting a portrait of a young man named Dorian Gray. Contemporary authors also make use of ekphrasis; if the plot of a novel involves visual art, ekphrasis will typically occur. For example, novels such as Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait (2022) and Emily Franklin’s The Lioness of Boston (2023) feature descriptions of both historical and fictional works of art, primarily paintings.
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By Paula Hawkins
