AustLit

The article compares Webb's poem 'Lament' with sculptures by the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti. Although the two do not share any religious, philosphic or intellectual tradition, the author argues that they do share an artistic vision. She has chosen the point of comparison for two reasons : 'to emphasise that the ways in which absence and silence operate in literature and language should not be divorced from the ways in which they operate in other art forms' and 'because an aesthetics of vision that focuses on absence may help readers to see more clearly how Webb's language operates to make absence present' (291).