ekphrasis

plural ekphrases · alternative ecphrasis

1. countablerhetoricuncountableA clear, intense, self-contained argument or verbal description of an object, especially of an artwork.

   Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a good contender, the classic example of ekphrasis.

   2026 June 3, Elisa Gabbert, “How Poets Went From Describing Art to Personally Admiring It”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   1 more example

   One [trope] is ekphrasis, the literary description of a work of art, the most famous example of which may be the careful depiction of the shield of Achilles in book 18 of the Iliad.

   2004, Daniel Donoghue, Old English Literature, Blackwell, published 2004, page 75