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Beyond Description: Shapeshifting Ekphrasis and Feminist Reclamation of the Female Figure in a Selection of Nineteenth-Century Women’s Poetry / AMANI ALGHORAIBI
Swansea University Author: AMANI ALGHORAIBI
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PDF | E-Thesis – open access
Copyright: the author, Amani Mohammed Alghoraibi, 2026
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DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUThesis.71505
Abstract
This thesis engages in a feminist reclamation of the female figure within nineteenth-century ekphrasis, investigating how women poets redefined the interplay between the visual and the verbal to challenge patriarchal depictions of women in both art and literature. Traditionally, ekphrasis—the verbal...
| Published: |
Swansea University
2026
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| Institution: | Swansea University |
| Degree level: | Doctoral |
| Degree name: | Ph.D |
| Supervisor: | Barnaby, A., and Bohata, K. |
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71505 |
| Abstract: |
This thesis engages in a feminist reclamation of the female figure within nineteenth-century ekphrasis, investigating how women poets redefined the interplay between the visual and the verbal to challenge patriarchal depictions of women in both art and literature. Traditionally, ekphrasis—the verbal depiction of a visual image—has been associated with the male poet’s authoritative gaze. This study begins by analysing selected ekphrastic poems by the nineteenth-century painter-poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, where the female subject is portrayed as a passive object of aesthetic contemplation. In contrast, a selection of women poets from the same era—including Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Pfeiffer, Rosamund Marriott Watson, Felicia Hemans, Edith Wharton, Alice Meynell, and Michael Field—developed alternative ekphrastic strategies that resisted this objectification.Central to this exploration is the notion of shapeshifting ekphrasis: a versatile mode of writing that defies confinement and transforms static representations of women into dynamic sites of feminist critique. Through their reinterpretations of paintings and sculptures, these women poets destabilised the relationship between image and text, creating an ekphrastic approach that affirms female agency. Their poetry not only engaged with visual art but also challenged restrictive modes of representation across various media, such as music and sculpture, thereby offering alternative perspectives on the interpretation of the female figure. Despite the prominence of ekphrasis in nineteenth-century poetry, critical attention has predominantly focused on male poets, leaving the contributions of women largely unexplored. This thesis addresses that gap by illustrating how women transformed ekphrasis from a form of aesthetic control into a platform for feminist critique and self-expression. By tracing this evolution through the poetry of selected nineteenth-century women, the thesis demonstrates how their work not only contested patriarchal visual representations but also established a distinctly feminist form of ekphrastic writing that confronted the objectification of women and subverted aesthetic conventions through their verse. |
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| Keywords: |
Victorian poetry, nineteenth-century women’s poetry, feminist ekphrasis, ekphrasis, word and image studies, visual culture, the female gaze, representations of the female figure, intermediality |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Funders: |
Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Cultural Bureau |