Reading iconotexts

by Wagner, Peter

Traditionally, texts and images have been discussed together on the assumption that they are 'sister arts', but in Reading Iconotexts Peter Wagner pushes beyond the word-image opposition in a radical attempt to break down the barriers between literature and art. He sets out here the new approach he has identified for dealing with the 'iconotext' - a genre in which neither image nor text is free from the other. Examples include Swift's Gulliver's Travels, a number of William Hogarth's best-known engravings, and a sample of the so-called 'obscene' propaganda prints that were published during the French Revolution. Throughout, the author argues for the importance of seeing text and image as mutually interdependent in the ways they establish meaning. . It becomes clear in the course of Wagner's exposition that one cannot study prints without taking into account their accompanying inscriptions; whilst illustrated books contain two kinds of 'text' - one verbal, one visual - that are invariab