The Poet as Painter: A Study in John Ashbery's "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror"

Abstract

This paper deals with John Ashbery (1927 -), who is acknowledged as one of the ''greatest'' American living poets. Actually, his fanaticism towards ''art for art's sake'' leads him to distil his poetry from any social, religious or political issues. The present paper sheds light on the impact of painting on his poetry generally and on his masterpiece "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror'' in particular. It also focuses on how Ashbery follows the technique of Abstract Expressionism or The New York School whichAshberyforms its backbone. Like the Abstract Expressionist, Ashbery believes that the artist has the capacity to use art as a means to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. It can also be noticed that most of his works are nonobjective because they do not attempt to depict objects from the real world or portray figures from the visible world.

This paper is a part of an M.A. thesis entitled "The Poet as Aesthete: A Study in the Relationship Between Art and Poetry in Selected Poems by John Ashbery" prepared atthe University of Al-Qadisiya, College of Education, Department of English.