Query: Which subjects are best represented through poetry, and which ones are best represented by painting?

Nacheinander is the German word meaning “One after another.” Nebeneinander is the German word meaning “Side by side.” Stephen is walking on Sandymount strand contemplating the “corrupt” and “uncorrupt” in time and space. The theory demonstrated is that of the German dramatist and critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing that Nacheinander represents the subject appropriate to poetry, while Nebeneinander represents the subject appropriate for painting. The following quotation is from the “Proteus” episode of Ulysses.

“Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and shells. You are walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a time. A very short space of time through very short times of space. Five, six: the Nacheinander. Exactly: and that is the ineluctable modality of the audible. Open your eyes. No. Jesus! If I fell over a cliff that beetles o’er his base, fell through the Nebeneinander ineluctably! I am getting on nicely in the dark. My ash sword hangs at my side. Tap with it: they do. My two feet in his boots are at the ends of his legs, nebeneinander.”

Chuck