Imagery Explained

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.

Further reading

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

External links

• imagery . Imagery and Imagination.
  • Belyaev, Igor A. (2020), "Human-sizedness as a principle of 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

Notes and References

1. Web site: Malewitz . Raymond . What is Imagery? . Definitions and Examples . Oregon State Guide to English Literary Terms . 8 November 2019 . Oregon State School of Writing, Literature and Film . 28 April 2023.
2. Web site: Poetics of Robert Frost: Examples. Friends of Robert Frost. 12 March 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130504082124/http://www.frostfriends.org/imagery.html . 2013-05-04 . dead.