Imagery

Imagery is the literary device of using vivid sensory language. Less commonly known as enargia, it is figurative language that evokes a mental image or other kinds of sense impressions in the reader or listener. Imagery in narrative literature can also be instrumental in conveying tone, mood, and other literary elements. ^[1]

Types

There are five major types of sensory imagery, each corresponding to a sense, feeling, action, or reaction:

• Visual imagery pertains to graphics, visual scenes, pictures, or the sense of sight.
• Auditory imagery pertains to sounds, noises, music, or the sense of hearing. (This kind of imagery may come in the form of onomatopoeia).
• Olfactory imagery pertains to odors, aromas, scents, or the sense of smell.
• Gustatory imagery pertains to flavors or the sense of taste.
• Tactile imagery pertains to physical textures or the sense of touch.

Other types of imagery include:

• Kinesthetic imagery pertains to movements.
• Organic imagery / subjective imagery, pertains to personal experiences of a character's body, including emotion and the senses of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and pain. ^[2]
• Phenomenological , pertains to the mental conception of an item as opposed to the physical version.
• Color imagery is the ability to visualize a color in its absence.

References

1. Malewitz, Raymond (8 November 2019). "What is Imagery?". Definitions and Examples. Oregon State Guide to English Literary Terms. Oregon State School of Writing, Literature and Film. Retrieved 28 April 2023.
2. "Poetics of Robert Frost: Examples". Friends of Robert Frost. Archived from the original on 2013-05-04. Retrieved 12 March 2013.

Further reading

• Wells, H. G. (Herbert George) (20 July 2021). The time machine. ISBN   978-1-7225-2491-3. OCLC   1261367980.

External links

• Fieser, James; Dowden, Bradley (eds.). "Imagery and Imagination". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy . ISSN   2161-0002. OCLC   37741658.
• Thomas, Nigel J.T (Winter 2011), "Mental Imagery", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Stanford University, retrieved February 16, 2012
• Belyaev, Igor A. (2020), "Human-sizedness as a principle of existance[sic] for literary-artistic image, Proceedings of the Philological Readings (PhR 2019), EPSBS European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences, London, 19–20 September 2019, pp. 560–567.
• What is Imagery?: Oregon State Guide to English Literary Terms