Imagery
For Example: Shakespeare's Henry IV
• Shakespeare categorizes honey bees as:
– “soldiers, armed in their stings, [who] make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds”
– “singing masons building roofs of gold,”
– “civil citizens kneading up the honey”
• After reading this, the reader has experienced brief appeals to touch, smell, sound, sight, taste.
– “soldiers, armed in their stings, [who] make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds”
– “singing masons building roofs of gold,”
– “civil citizens kneading up the honey”
• After reading this, the reader has experienced brief appeals to touch, smell, sound, sight, taste.
Poems don't have to contain flowery language to qualify as poetry
Definition:
Definition: The representation in language of sense experience: what can be
– Seen
– Heard
– Touched
– Tasted
– Smelled
– As well as what can be felt internally
Images appeal to the senses of the reader, help re-create the experience being communicated, and suggest the emotional response appropriate to the experience.
– Seen
– Heard
– Touched
– Tasted
– Smelled
– As well as what can be felt internally
Images appeal to the senses of the reader, help re-create the experience being communicated, and suggest the emotional response appropriate to the experience.
Images appeal to the senses of the reader, help re-create the experience being communicated, and suggest the emotional response appropriate to the experience.
Imagery in "In the Plaza We Walk," by Nephtali De Leon
Imagery in "Warning," by Jenny Joseph
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Imagery and Allusion in May Swenson's "Centaur"
"The Centaur"
By May Swenson
The summer that I was ten-- Can it be there was only one summer that I was ten? It must have been a long one then-- each day I’d go out to choose a fresh horse from my stable which was a willow grove down by the old canal. I’d go on my two bare feet. But when, with my brother’s jack-knife, I had cut me a long limber horse with a good thick knob for a head, and peeled him slick and clean except a few leaves for the tail, and cinched my brother’s belt around his head for a rein, I’d straddle and canter him fast up the grass bank to the path, trot along in the lovely dust that talcumed over his hoofs, hiding my toes, and turning his feet to swift half-moons. The willow knob with the strap jouncing between my thighs was the pommel and yet the poll of my nickering pony’s head. My head and my neck were mine, yet they were shaped like a horse. My hair flopped to the side like the mane of a horse in the wind. My forelock swung in my eyes, my neck arched and I snorted. I shied and skittered and reared, stopped and raised my knees, pawed at the ground and quivered. My teeth bared as we wheeled and swished through the dust again. I was the horse and the rider, and the leather I slapped to his rump spanked my own behind. Doubled, my two hoofs beat a gallop along the bank, the wind twanged my mane, my mouth squared to the bit. And yet I sat on my steed quiet, negligent riding, my toes standing the stirrups, my thighs hugging his ribs. At a walk we drew up at the porch. I tethered him to a paling. Dismounting, I smoothed my skirt and entered the dusky hall. My feet on the clean linoleum left ghostly toes in the hall. Where have you been? said my mother. Been riding, I said from the sink, and filled me a glass of water. What’s that in your pocket? she said. Just my knife. It weighed my pocket and stretched my dress awry. Go tie back your hair, said my mother and Why is your mouth all green? Rob Roy, he pulled some clover as we crossed the field, I told her. |
About the Poem
Abstract :
First published in 1955, May Swenson's "The Centaur" remains one of her most popular and most anthologized poems. This is its first appearance as a picture book for children. In images bright and brisk and nearly tangible, the poet re-creates the joy of riding a stick horse through a small-town summer. We find ourselves, with her, straddling "a long limber horse with . . . a few leaves for a tail," and pounding through the lovely dust along the path by the old canal. As her shape shifts from child to horse and back, we know exactly what she feels. Sherry Meidell's water-color illustrations perfectly convey the wit and wisdom of May Swenson's poem. These are playful, satisfying images full of vitality and imagination. Meidell handles the joy of poem's fantasy and the joy of its occasional naughtiness with equal success. "Utah State University." Site. Utah State University, n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2013. See the entire digital copy of the book at: http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1090&context=usupress_pubs What do you think the reason was for Swenson choosing "The Centaur" as the title of the poem?
Imagery and Allusion
Allusion: A reference to a person, thing, event, situation, or aspect of culture, real or fictional, past or present.
An Allusion may draw from literature, myth, history, or the Bible. |
What is the tone of this clip?
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Terms to Know
Imagery
Allusion
Allusion