Michael Benton's book develops the concept of spectatorship as an answer to these questions. It explores the similarities and differences in our experiences of literature and the visual arts, and discusses their implications for pedagogy and their applications in cross-curricular work in the classroom.
Teachers will find that, while many of the visual and verbal texts may be familiar, the approaches to them offer fresh insights and a rich agenda for the classroom. Shakespeare, Fielding, Hogarth, Blake, Wordsworth, Constable, Turner, the Pre-Raphaelites, Wilfred Owen, Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer, Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney - the range of authors and artists discussed is both extensive and relevant to the National Curriculum and to post-16 and undergraduate courses.