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For those who don’t know the kinds of Imagery used in Poetry, that there are more than the known five based on the five senses that you can use, here is a brief kind of rule of the thumb, with examples all from one poem, which makes it fascinating, the poem being John Keats’s Ode to Autumn.
For those who don’t know the kinds of imagery there are in poetry and that you can use:
Based on Keats’s Ode ‘To Autumn.’
They are:
1. Visual imagery is for seeing. “the vines that around the thatch-eves run.”
2. Auditory imagery is for hearing. “in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn.. lambs BLEAT…crickets sing…the red breast WHISTLES.”
3. Tactile imagery is describing the sensation of touch. “barred clouds…”Touch the Stubble”-plains with rosy hue.” This is also synesthesia.
4. Gustatory imagery is the sense of taste. “to…plump the hazel shells with a ‘Sweet’ kernel.”
5. Olfactory imagery is the sense of smell “drowsed with the ‘Fume’ of poppies.”
6. Kinetic imagery is the sense of movement “thy ‘hair soft-lifted’ by the ‘Winnowing’ wind.”
7. Organic imagery is describing a thing without naming it in such a way the reader correctly guesses it name, i.e; accurately. If the great ode or poem “To Autumn” did not have a name, it would be a perfect example of this.
8. Related to this is onomatopoeia where through sound you capture the sound of the thing being described – “And gathering swallows TWITTER in the skies.”
9. And last of all synesthesia – “Synesthesia is a condition in which one sense (for example, hearing) is simultaneously perceived as if by one or more additional senses such as sight. Another form of synesthesia joins objects such as letters, shapes, numbers or people’s names with a sensory perception such as smell, colour or flavor.” It lays it on thick, not paint, but layer upon layer of the senses in combination, pell-mell, mix and match, helter-skelter, in ones or twos.
John Keats (Pic: Wikipedia)
Example:
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
“And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees…”
The last four lines are an example of synesthesia where Keats connects the sun and autumn to being conspiratorial ‘innoculators’, female and male, lovers, mischievous just-past-youth friends-with-benefits (“close-bosom friend of the maturing sun”), mother and father, making babies, having children, bringing them up, growing them or bringing them up, both sexually, and sensuously, by making the shells ‘plump’, and the gourds swell – (the inversion of verbs he uses as in make ‘swell’ the gourds and ‘plump’ the hazel shells is really effective) – and the flowers bud. He says autumn is making them, in other words, pregnant, mixing sight and feel(ing) and touch in those images and making us see the process from outside and inside, a curious ability only the best or most deranged poets like Keats or Rimbaud in his ‘Voyelles’ have! It is possible some may find nothing new here, regarding the types of images, but what is new is connecting it to the poem under consideration to show it has all of them, almost; except for organic imagery due to the title, and enjoying that felicity of expression the young but indubitably great Keats had and appreciating his genius thereby. You may wonder if the young Keats did all this purposefully, but I think he did do it all knowingly and consciously.
To Autumn
BY JOHN KEATS
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
More to read in Literature DIY
Writing, Theory and the Making of Verse
Dr. Koshy A.V. is presently working as an Assistant Professor in the English Department of Jazan University, Saudi Arabia. He has many books, degrees, diplomas, certificates, prizes, and awards to his credit and also, besides teaching, is an editor, anthology maker, poet, critic and writer of fiction. He runs an autism NPO with his wife, Anna Gabriel.
All Posts of Dr Ampat Varghese Koshy
All Posts of Dr Ampat Varghese Koshy
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Today’s Motivation
In the rush of life, we sometimes are so focussed towards a goal that we forget to notice the little little things in life. Eventually, they are these little things that makes our life, not just the goal. So, Ursula K. Le Guin says..."It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end"
This is simply awesome, Sir. I learned many new things with this essay. Many, many thanks!