Grasping Shadows offers the most thorough examination of the cultural uses of shadows. Exploring a myriad of major literary and artistic evocations of shadows, Grasping Shadows puts forth a unifying theory for how shadows function and how they transformed our relationship to darkness and light.

Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: The Shadow Speaks Chapter 2: The Vital Shadow Chapter 3: The Look Elsewhere Shadow Chapter 4: The Completing Shadow Chapter 5: The Independent Shadow Chapter 6: City of Shadows Epilogue Bibliography Index

"Grasping Shadows is a passionately argued and truly interdisciplinary work of scholarship. Attentive readers will indeed be transformed by this new lens through which to perceive the formal nuances in art and literary narrative." -- Allison Young, Louisiana State University, College of Art Association "Using literature, art, films, and photographs, Sharpe elucidates why shadows are important, their meanings and how they have changed over time, and why shadows have continued to play such a crucial role in how humans interpret what they see. He presents a typology for shadows and illustrates it with skill. This is a brilliant book. It ranges in inquiry from literature to art-from cave paintings to modern and contemporary works-presenting what one sees and why it is meaningful. Sharpe's analysis of these various art forms is always satisfying. The writing is dense and scholarly, but the result is a book that will prevent readers from ever again taking a shadow for granted. Handsomely illustrated, with many images in color. Summing Up: Essential." --CHOICE CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title (2018) "This is a significant, thoroughly researched and highly-perceptive study. Its scope, nuanced articulation and broad accessibility identify it as an ideal selection for many types of libraries. ... Highly recommended for many levels of readership." -- Ann C. Kearney, ARLIS/NA Reviews "Moving deftly between literature, painting, photography, film and cultural history, William Sharpe casts a light on a much overlooked aesthetic and cognitive phenomenon. His nuanced readings of a rich panoply of speaking shadows compels us to rethink what is both ordinary and intangible. At the end of this fascinating journey through the dark side of art we recognize that only with and alongside shadows do things take shape." --Elisabeth Bronfen, University of Zurich "This is a brilliant book. It ranges in inquiry from literature to art-from cave paintings to modern and contemporary works-presenting what one sees and why it is meaningful. Sharpe's analysis of these various art forms is always satisfying. The writing is dense and scholarly, but the result is a book that will prevent readers from ever again taking a shadow for granted. Handsomely illustrated, with many images in color. ... Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers." --D. Schuyler, CHOICE "Vision uses shadows for understanding the scene in front of our eyes, but it also goes a long way trying to edit them out, so that we seldom pay attention to them. William Sharpe's masterful book documents how artists tried to rescue shadows from visual oblivion, at the same time bestowing high symbolic significance on them. It's a wonderful and surprising exploration of the interplay between nature and culture." --Roberto Casati, Institut Jean Nicod "Ranging from literature and art history to photography and film, probing with equal acuity the literal, graphic, and figurative meanings of shadow, Grasping Shadows makes a compelling case for his central contention that all shadows represented in pictures or words either express, point to, complete, or break free of the objects that cast them. As a bonus, this extraordinary book is studded not only with figures but with an astonishing number of color plates." --James Heffernan, Dartmouth College "A brilliant book on shadows, sure to become a classic. Grasping Shadows is a fascinating, profound and delicate exploration of how evanescence is essential to western art and literature." --Nathalie Cochoy, University of Toulouse

Selling point: Offers first full-length study of artistic shadows in over a decade Selling point: Presents a general theory of how all shadows function in artworks and how they can be understood by viewers and readers in just about every artistic medium Selling point: Addresses how shadows have been used to represent both African Americans and the burden of racism

William Chapman Sharpe is a Professor of English at Barnard College. His previous books include New York Nocturne: The City After Dark in Literature, Painting, and Photography, 1850-1950 (2008) and Unreal Cities: Urban Figuration in Wordsworth, Baudelaire, Whitman, Eliot, and Williams (1990).

Selling point: Offers first full-length study of artistic shadows in over a decade Selling point: Presents a general theory of how all shadows function in artworks and how they can be understood by viewers and readers in just about every artistic medium Selling point: Addresses how shadows have been used to represent both African Americans and the burden of racism