Imagery
AP English Literature
Definition: the verbal representation of sensory description. Imagery is description that is so vivid (so life-like) that you can see in your mind, hear it, smell it, touch it, or even taste it. Imagery depends on both diction and detail; an image’s success in producing a sensory experience results from the specificity of the author’s diction and choice of detail.
(from Voice Lessons by Nancy Dean)
1. As for the grass, it grew scant as hair
In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud
Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.
One stiff, blind horse, his every bone a-stare,
Stood stupefied, however he came there;
Thrust out past service from the devil’s stud.
· What effect is produced by the image of the grass in lines 1-3?
· Does the imagery of the horse inspire sympathy? Explain your answer with direct references to specific images.
2. Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells
--T.S. Eliot “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
· Identify the images conveyed in this passage. What emotions to they evoke?
· What effect does Eliot create through the combination of images in the stanza?
3. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Mary Oliver “Wild Geese”
· Label the types of imagery in this stanza.
· What does the imagery suggest about the speaker’s despair?
4. Write your own example of imagery here. Use imagery to create the tone or feeling of pure happiness. Or if you’re not feeling that this morning, go for the tone of boredom.