Intermedialising Modernities: The Polyphonism of Modernist Ut pictura poesis

Bowen Wang

doi:10.25159/1753-5387/16262

Authors

Bowen Wang Shanghai Jiao Tong University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/16262

Keywords:

intermediality, collaborative modernism, ut pictura poesis, polyphonism, dialogic poetics

Abstract

The early twentieth century ushered in an unprecedented era of intermedial convergence, where different art forms such as poesis and pictura began to confabulate with each other rather than competing in historically paragonal debates. A hallmark of modernist aesthetics is the shift towards the non-verbal mediums, with poets breaking away from outdated subjects and linguistic structures, and instead experimenting with the visual, material, and spatial incorporation from non-literary domains. Hence, this article proposes an alternative framework for understanding and reconceptualising modernism through intermediality. It develops the polyphonically dialogic poetics—based on four types of dialogues: referential, associative, programmatic, and self-reflexive—emphasising the interaction and re-unification between textuality and visuality. Concluding with this typology of modernist collaborations, the study illuminates the mutual agency of creators of the time and the sociocultural implications of their artefacts. By adopting a revisionary focus on intermediality as an act of dialogising, it critically reinterprets the mediation within modernist ut pictura poesis as fluid, multifarious, and synergetic.

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