"Ekphrasis" and Image Presentification: The Aracne Episode in Ovid’s "Metamorphoses" (VI, 1-145)

Abstract

Ekphrasis is a rhetorical and descriptive procedure that aims to visually describe an object or event as occurring before the eyes of the speech receiver. Thus, through a very thorough work with language, the ecfrastic procedure is able to make the images of speech present, which gives it a great persuasive power. This article aims to discuss the aesthetic potentiality of the concept of ekphrasis and enargeia, through the analysis of the episode of Arachne, contained in the sixth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in an unpublished translation created by António Feliciano de Castilho in the 19^th century. This episode presents a very detailed description of the weavings elaborated by the goddess Palas and the mortal Aracne, which result in the metamorphosis of the second  in a spider. It was intended to show how the ekphrasis operates within a poetic production and how it is able to confer a strong presence effect on the described images, as well as a strong influence on the main action of the epic narrative