A creative, synaesthetic and multimodal mind map of Wilde’s poem
Activity: A creative, synaesthetic and multimodal mind map of Wilde’s poem. Reader’s engagement and cognitive elaboration:
Synaesthesia: “a phenomenon whereby a stimulus applied to one of the ‘five senses’ produces a response from the others” (Wales, 1995, A Dictionary of Stylistics, Harlow: Longman, 447)
In your group or individually, you have to work on a possible multimodal interpretation of Wilde’s “The Harlot’s House” that uses visual images (or video if you like) and sounds to express certain aspects of the poem that you perceive or have already learned about (such as the poem’s gothic elements, its particular form, or representation of femininity, for example). Think about either a particular part of Wilde’s poem that lingers in your mind (a word, a phrase, a passage from the poem) or the poem as a whole, and find:
z either an image (a photo of a nightly street, a reproduction of a painting or statue, a nature photo altered with Instagram, etc.)
z or a video file (something you record yourself or that you find via YouTube, etc.)
z or a sound file (such as a particular piece of music, the sound of footsteps, a sound from nature, a voice reading another text, etc.)
that, to you, represents something important about Wilde’s poem. Add your image/video/sound file (one or more) and write a sentence or two explaining why you picked this image/video/sound file in response to Wilde’s poem.
Try to work out the cognitive elaboration of the linguistic material that you have ‘translated’ into other type of images, perceptions, suggestions, knowledge, i.e. how people will respond to or interpret your work.