What Is Imagery?

1. What Is Imagery? An image is a representation of anything we can touch smell see taste hear

2. What Is Imagery? Imagery is language that • appeals to our five senses • creates images in our minds Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling;  Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard;  Give me a field where the unmow’d grass grows;  Give me an arbor, give me the trellis’d grape; from “Give Me the Splendid, Silent Sun” by Walt Whitman

3. What Is Imagery? Quick Check To which senses does this passage appeal? It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit. I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot. And after all really they’re ebony skinned: The blue’s but a mist from the breath of the wind, A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand. from “Blueberries” by Robert Frost [End of Section]

4. Imagery and Feelings Poets may use imagery to convey a feeling about their subject or to create a certain mood. • What feelings do T. S. Eliot’s images of fog evoke? The brown waves of fog toss up to me Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts An aimless smile that hovers in the air And vanishes along the level of the roofs. from “Morning at the Window” by T. S. Eliot

5. Imagery and Feelings Now read Carl Sandburg’s lines about fog. • How does the speaker of this poem feel about fog? How is that feeling different from that Eliot’s imagery creates? The fog comes on little cat feet.    It sits looking over harbor and city  on silent haunches and then moves on. from “Fog” by Carl Sandburg [End of Section]

6. Surprises and Uncertainties Writers use irony and ambiguity to create true-to-life stories. Irony and ambiguity help writers convey • the way real life surprises us, whether to our delight or to our disappointment • our lack of knowledge about the future and whether it will fulfill our expectations [End of Section]

7. What Is Irony? Irony is the contrast between expectation and reality. Three kinds of irony are • verbal irony • situational irony • dramatic irony [End of Section]

8. Verbal Irony In verbal irony, a speaker says one thing but means the opposite. Verbal irony • is the simplest kind of irony • can become sarcasm if taken to a harsh extreme

9. Verbal Irony Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice begins with an excellent example of verbal irony. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. How might this opening sentence be an example of verbal irony? [End of Section]

10. Situational Irony In situational irony, what actually happens is the opposite of what is expected or appropriate. Situational irony • is often humorous • may mock human plans and intentions, which in real life often come to little

11. Situational Irony Read this sentence from Hanson W. Baldwin’s R.M.S. Titanic. . . . she was fresh from Harland and Wolff’s Belfast yards, strong in the strength of her forty-six thousand tons of steel, bent, hammered, shaped, and riveted through the three years of her slow birth. Explain the situational irony in this ship sinking on its first voyage. [End of Section]

12. Dramatic Irony Dramatic irony occurs when the reader or the audience knows something important that the character does not know. Dramatic irony • adds greatly to the tension in stories, plays, and movies • heightens the sense of humor in comedies and deepens the sense of dread in tragedies

13. Dramatic Irony In this passage from Stephen Vincent Benét’s “By the Water of Babylon,” the narrator describes the vision he has while exploring the ruins of New York City. What do readers know that the narrator does not? When gods war with gods, they use weapons we do not know. It was fire falling out of the sky and a mist that poisoned. It was the time of the Great Burning and the Destruction. They ran about like ants in the streets of their city—poor gods, poor gods! Then the towers began to fall. A few escaped—yes, a few. The legends tell it. . . . I saw it happen, I saw the last of them die. It was darkness over the broken city and I wept. [End of Section]

14. Review Quick Check • Identify each item as one of the following: • verbal irony • situational irony • dramatic irony After tripping over his own feet, the teen exclaims, “That was graceful!” The movie audience knows that a hostile alien is just past the door. “Don’t go in there!” one viewer yells at the screen. The guest opens his mouthto compliment the chef, but before he can speak, he burps long and loudly. [End of Section]

15. What Is Figurative Language? Figurative language is language based on some sort of comparison that is not literally true. Suzie’s endless gossiping droned in our ears like the buzzing of a bee. =

16. What Is Figurative Language? Figurative language • is a natural part of everyday speech • is the most important means of imaginative expression in poetry • makes us see ordinary objects in a new way Snowed in for three days, the children were restless animals pacing the cage of our house. [End of Section]

17. Figures of Speech A figure of speech compares one thing to another, seemingly unlike thing. Three common figures of speech are • simile leaves twirled like dancers on the water • metaphor • personification the leaves were dancers twirling down the stream leaves danced on the water [End of Section]

18. A wind comes from the north Blowing little flocks of birds Like spray across the town. from “Patience” by D. H. Lawrence Simile Similes use the word like, as, than, or resembles to compare two seemingly unlike things. [End of Section]

19. I am soft sift In an hourglass from “The Wreck of the Deutschland” by Gerard Manley Hopkins Metaphor Metaphors compare two unlike things without using the connective like, as, than, or resembles. • Metaphors allow us to speak and write in a kind of imaginative shorthand.

20. My soul is an enchanted boat from “Prometheus Unbound” by Percy Bysshe Shelley Metaphor Direct metaphors say that something is something else.

21. Tiger, tiger, burning brightIn the forests of the night from “The Tiger” by William Blake Metaphor Impliedmetaphors suggest a comparison between two things instead of stating it directly. He picked up the scent of food from the cafeteria. Stay out of his way. He’s on the prowl for a hot meal. Even single words can contain implied metaphors.

22. Metaphor Extended metaphors are developed over several lines of a literary work. All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely players.They have their exits and their entrances;And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. from As You Like It by William Shakespeare [End of Section]

23. Somewhere the wind-flowers fling their heads back, Stirred by an impetuous wind. from “Study” by D. H. Lawrence Personification Personification is a figure of speech in which a nonhuman thing or abstract idea is talked about as if it were human. [End of Section] Personification in everyday speech

24. Review Identify each of the following as a simile, metaphor, or personification. Quick Check Desolate winds that beat the doors of Heaven from “A Cradle Song” by W. B. Yeats And all hours long, the town Roars like a beast in a cave from “Apprehension” by D. H. Lawrence The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman from “Autumn Movement” by Carl Sandburg [End of Section]