Art's Visionary Moment

The collection Art's Visionary Moment: Personal Encounters with Works That Last a Lifetime was inspired by T. S. Eliot's observation in his Dante (1929): "e;The experience of a poem is the experience both of a moment and of a lifetime. ... There is a first, or an early moment which is unique, ... which can never be forgotten, but ... is never repeated integrally; and yet which would become destitute of significance if it did not survive in a larger whole of experience."e; In this collection, scholars and artists from a variety of fields speak in personal terms, but with what one has called "e;intellectual passion,"e; of a work of art (poem, play, novel, film, visual art, among others) that, as Dante suggest, has had an immediate effect on them (the "e;Visionary Moment"e; from the title) yet survives "e;in a larger whole of experience"e; (that "e;Last a Lifetime"e; in the collection's sub-title). Some of the titles of essays already submitted show the range of this inquiry: "e;Conversations with the Dead"e;; "e;Playing Richard III: The Experience of a Moment and a Lifetime"e;; "e;Picasso's 'Three Musicians'"e;; "e;Poetry Meets Power: Tamburlaine the Great"e;; "e;Pleasant Dreaming with 'Thanatopsis'"e;; "e;From Madness to Miracle: An Encounter with Shakespeare's Winter's Tale"e;; "e;Fight the Power"e; Spike Lee's Visionary Moment"e;; and "e;Plastic Art Moment."e;