Regimes of Visual Representation in Selected Contemporary Anglophone Female Artist Novels

This thesis is mainly concerned with the visual dimension of verbal narratives. It develops a new approach to literary visuality by analysing the system of narrative elements and strategies subsumed under the umbrella term 'regimes of visual representation' with special emphasis on their effects on the reader. The analysis focuses on the way both the presence of acts of looking at the story level and the employment of focalization at the discourse level contribute to the reading process. A further key element pertaining to literary visuality, namely ekphrasis, is investigated and a new typology of ekphrases is proposed.
This analytical approach is applied to selected contemporary Anglophone female artist novels. The analysis shows that the visual dimension of narrative extensively contributes to the representation of the female artist's negotiation of her gendered and artistic identity. Arguably, the female protagonists become endowed with agency, as soon as they adopt the artist's look. In the selected novels the strategic employment of focalization contributes to the foregrounding of a feminist perspective.