Foregrounding

The figure in The Scream draws your attention to the centre of the painting because it is foregrounded by its facial expression. The strict linearity of the bridge contrasts with the curving shape of the foreground and the background. In art, the object / person / thing in the lower middle of the frame is used as a foregrounding device.

Foregrounding devices in literature work to sharpen the reader's focus on the text. The reader has more insight into the painting's meaning and the authorial choices which have been made. Consider what specific word or pattern (broken or repeated) the author wants to call to attention for the reader to experience epiphanies or a new understanding of a work of art or literature.

Tip: Always consider in art and literature how objects and symbols are placed in the foreground.

Foregrounding and backgrounding

• Within literature, both foregrounding and backgrounding are used. They are opposites of each other and are used as means to provide information to the reader.

Foregrounding definition:
Foregrounding is used to draw the reader's attention to specific points or details in the text.
Backgrounding definition:
Backgrounding is used to elaborate further on the points and details proposed in the foregrounding. Backgrounding provides background information.

Foregrounding examples in literature

• Foregrounding in literature gains meaning as a contrast to the background. The figure seen against the background is applied to poetry, where the narrator or the subject of the poem is measured against the background of a regular or expected pattern.
• In Dylan Thomas's elegy 'A Grief Ago' (1935), the figure of grief is 'She', the 'rose maid' or 'masted venus' who stands foregrounded against a backdrop filled with imagery such as the tower, the sea, and the sun. The grief Thomas experiences is focused on the figure of 'She'.

Example

• A grief ago, She who was who I hold, the fats and flower, Or, water-lammed, from the scythe-sided thorn, Hell wind and sea, A stem cementing, wrestled up the tower, Rose maid and male, Or, masted venus, through the paddler's bowl Sailed up the sun.