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(Hilary Owen, University of Oxford)

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(Onesimo Teotonio Almeida, Brown University)

As Aristotle has written, the image is at the core of the soul's language. Indeed, given its significant potential and capacity for revelation - heightened in a society dominated by visual culture - the image would seem to be key to reflecting, critically and creatively, on humanity and on history itself.

Lidia Jorge has asserted several times that her writing has always taken as its starting point a powerful and inspiring image, which concentrates the various meanings and reflections that she intends to explore while also dispersing these across her texts. Radiating from the initial image, Jorge manages to develop a gaze which is simultaneously critical, thorough and informative. Scholars point out that whenever language opens to universal images and mythologies capable of conveying visions of clarity, the subversive power of beauty is re-asserted. This power is confirmed and examined from different points of view and theories in this volume.