ImageryGroup 4

IX – GALILEOTagab

Bisnar

Bonares

Eden

Mozar

Imagery

Most figures of speech cast up a picture in your mind. These pictures created or suggested by the poet are called 'images'. To participate fully in the world of poem, we must  understand how the poet uses image to convey more than what is actually said or literally meant.           We speak of the pictures evoked in a poem as 'imagery'. Imagery refers to the "pictures" which we perceive with our mind's eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, and through which we experience the "duplicate world" created by poetic language. Imagery evokes the meaning and truth of human experiences not in abstract terms, as in philosophy, but in more perceptible and tangible forms.

This is a device by which the poet makes his meaning strong, clear and sure.  The poet uses sound words and words of color and touch in addition to figures of speech.  As well, concrete details that appeal to the reader's senses are used to build up images. 

Although most of the image-making words in any language appeal to sight (visual images), there are also images of touch (tactile), sound (auditory), taste (gustatory), and smell (olfactory).

Through the words used by the poet, as expressed by the “persona” / speaker, the vivid images, clear sounds, and exact feelings are clearly conveyed. The descriptions help in making sense of the poem.

Read the poem silently and think of the images the words created in your mind.

Picture them in your mind and try to bring them in clear focus.

List these words that create clear pictures in your mind.

Share the feeling each image evokes. Point out the real-life experience or

observation in life that each image suggests.

Copy the chart shown on the next page and fill it out with the entries called for.

Imagery in The Seven Ages of Man

Words/LinesImages Created

Feelings Evoked

Meaningful Experience

Woeful ballad A phonograph playing sad

songs

Grief and Sorrow

During a burial

Sighing like Furnace

Tired and Weary person

Exhausted and worn-out

Loaded with tasks

Creeping like snail

A kid forced to go to school

Reluctant Forced by parents to

wake up early in the morning

THANK YOU