The Duplicity of the Word in Lynd Ward's Vertigo (1937)

Vertigo culminates the series of six woodcut novels Lynd Ward executed in the 1930s, and while considered his masterpiece, it has received scant critical attention. I consider the complex function of textual inscription within the visual narrative as well as the socio-historical and cultural context...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of modern literature 2020-03, Vol.43 (3), p.19-44
Main Author: Scott, Grant F.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aesthetics
Allusion
Ambiguity
Authorship
Consciousness
Criticism and interpretation
Discourse functions
Engraving
Epic literature
Exegesis & hermeneutics
Experiments
Graphic novels
Hegemony
Heroism & heroes
Ideology
Illustrators
Inscriptions
Language
Libraries
Literary characters
Literary criticism
Literary devices
Literary translation
Literature
Modern literature
Modernism
Narrative techniques
Narratives
Novels
Plot (Narrative)
Readers
Social aspects
Ward, Lynd
Wood engraving
Woodcuts
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Vertigo culminates the series of six woodcut novels Lynd Ward executed in the 1930s, and while considered his masterpiece, it has received scant critical attention. I consider the complex function of textual inscription within the visual narrative as well as the socio-historical and cultural contexts of this “wordless” novel. None of Ward's other pictorial novels contains nearly as much diegetic language and none is so concerned about its rhetorical impact on the characters and the reader-viewer. The many billboards, notices and other textual markers in the engravings not only offer the reader interpretive guidance and direction but also supply ironic commentary on the characters' lives. The technique of reverse ekphrasis accentuates the climate of power as well as the historical resonance of the book and gives the silent characters—and the corporation—a complex voice.
ISSN:0022-281X
1529-1464
DOI:10.2979/jmodelite.43.3.02