Mnemosyne: The Parallel Between Literature and the Visual Arts

The classic study of the timeless relationship between literature and the visual arts

In his search for a common link between literature and the visual arts, Mario Praz draws on the abundant evidence of mutual understanding and correspondence they have long shared. Each epoch, he writes, has “its peculiar handwriting or handwritings, which, if one could interpret them, would reveal a character, even a physical appearance,” and while these characteristics belong to the general style of a given period, the personality of the writer does not fail to pierce through. Something of the same sort, Praz contends, occurs in art. The kinship of literature and painting rests on this: a work of art, whether visual or literary, must use the distinctive “handwriting” of its particular age even as its originality pierces through this handwriting.

In this beautifully illustrated book, Praz shows how the likeness between the arts within various periods of history can ultimately be traced to structural similarities―similarities that arise out of the characteristic way in which the people of a certain epoch see and memorize facts aesthetically. Mnemosyne, at once the goddess of memory and the mother of the muses, therefore presides over this view of the arts. In illustrating her influence, Praz ranges widely through Western sources, providing an incomparable tour of the literary and pictorial arts.