2. To use imagery is to create a
mental picture in language
Imagine>>Imagery>>Images.
The poet imagines something. The poet
uses imagery to describe what she has
imagined. The reader translates the imagery
into images—that is the imagery forces the
reader to imagine what the poet saw, heard,
felt, smelled or tasted.
3. Imagery is language that appeals
to the senses
Visual imagery—appeals to sight
Aural (or auditory) imagery—appeals to
hearing
Tactile imagery—appeals to touch
Olfactory imagery—appeals to smell
Gustatory imagery—appeals to taste
4. Language must be vivid
Sometimes people mistakenly say that any
words referencing something that can be
seen or heard constitute imagery. Instead
we are talking about vivid language. On the
next two slides I will quote examples of
imagery and paraphrase the idea without
using imagery in red font so you can see the
difference.
5. Visual
Color, size, brightness, shape, position, motion
“shoots dangled and drooped. . . Hung down long yellow
evil necks”
The bulbs were sprouting and their shoots hung down
from the boxes where they were stored
“As he paces in cramped circles over and over,/ the
movement of his powerful, soft strides/ is like a ritual
dance”
The panther paced in his cage
“the white eyes writhing in his face”
His eyes rolled back so you could not see the pupils and
irises.
6. Aural
“In a wailful choir the small gnats mourn”
“Hedge crickets sing”
“Gathering swallows twitter in the skies”
Gnats, crickets and swallows all make noises at
dusk
“Deaf even to the hoots of gas shells
dropping softly behind”
They couldn’t even hear the sound of the gas
shells
7. Olfactory
“I could smell them, a seething rancid odor of
feces and feathers and naked scaly feet that
crawled down my throat and burned my nostrils”
(from “Carnal Knowledge”)
“tepid water smelling of the cedar bucket and of
living beech trees” (from “Barn Burning”)
“Peach trees breathe their sweetness”
“Drowsed with the fume of poppies”
8. Tactile
Texture, weight, temperature, pain, pleasure, all
forms of touch
“. . .took my hand in a hard, calloused grip”
“My right ear scraped a buckle”
“Their claws dug at the back of my shoulders, the
crown of my head”
“Sun-warm clothes at twilight”
“Put on his clothes in the blue-black cold”
9. Gustatory
“the salty sweetness of her skin”
“Slices of warm bread spread with peach
butter”
“The orange-sponge cake is rising in the
oven. . . .I’ll watch you drench your slice of
it in canned peaches.”
10. Different kinds of imagery can
combine in a single image
“I hear the cold splintering, breaking”
Aural and tactile
“My hair freshly washed. . .like a bridal
veil”
Visual primarily but also evokes tactile and
olfactory through words “freshly washed”
11. Images do not have to be literal
“And the hapless Soldier’s sigh/Runs in blood
down Palace walls”
Literally=the government is indifferent to the pain and
death faced by the soldier
“And here we are as on a darkling plain/ Swept
with confused alarms of struggle and flight/
Where ignorant armies clash by night”
This is a simile comparing life to a struggle on a dark battlefield
where the soldiers don’t know who or what they are fighting
12. Imagery can be effectively
combined with other techniques
Hyperbole: “The whiskey on your breath/could
make a small boy dizzy” (“My Papa’s Waltz”)
Simile: “Dim through the misty panes and thick
green light/as under a green sea I saw him
drowning” (“Dulce et Decorum est”)
Sound effects: “cracked hands that ached/ from
labor in the weekday weather” (“Those Winter
Sundays”)—note repeated k, long a and w sounds
We will talk about these techniques in later
chapters.
