In
writing imagery is one of the most important parts of that piece of writing.
This imagery can help the reader imagine the setting that the story is taking
place in. Imagery can be all sorts of different things that inform the reader
what is happening within what they are reading. Examples of different types of
imagery are olfactory-smell- imagery or gustatory-taste- imagery, or
auditory-sound- imagery. All of these different types of imagery give the
reader a better understanding of what is happening within the story. Even if
the book is minimalistic imagery is needed in the book. For example The Road by Cormac McCarthy; this
book is set in the time period of the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse, and is
a minimalistic book, though it has great imagery to show how horrifying the
world is.
Imagery
is also needed in smaller pieces of writing such as poetry. Even though a piece
of poetry may be small they usually are jam full of imagery that helps the
reader understand the poem more fully. Sometimes the imagery may be more
difficult to pinpoint in these pieces of poetry, but that is why poetry takes
more thought to read. It is also more non literal than normal prose. A poem
that uses imagery to its advantage and paints a beautiful picture or pictures
in your head is “To Autumn” by John Keats. This poem utilizes the use of
imagery to its advantage, and has a beautiful seasonal scene.
Here is the poem:
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.
John
Keats (1795-1821)
