Part III, Chapters 16–17: Imagery, Figures of Speech, and Tone

In literature, imagery refers to words that trigger your imagination to recall and recombine images—memories or mental pictures of sights, sounds, tastes, smells, sensations of touch, and motions.

Human beings are visual. Sight is the most significant of our senses, for it is the key to our remembrance of other sense impressions.

Auditory images trigger our experiences with sound.

Shakespeare includes an olfactory image of sweet perfumes in Sonnet 130: "My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun," and the odor of roses is suggested in Burns's "A Red, Red Rose."

Gustatory images—taste images—are also common, though less frequent than those referring to sight and sound.

Images of touch and texture—tactile images—are not as common, because touch is difficult to render except in terms of effects.

References to movement are also images. Images of general motion are kinetic (remember that motion pictures may be called "cinema"; note the closeness of kine in kinetic and cine in cinema), whereas the term kinesthetic is applied to human or animal movement.

References to movement are also images. Images of general motion are kinetic (remember that motion pictures may be called "cinema"; note the closeness of kine in kinetic and cine in cinema), whereas the term kinesthetic is applied to human or animal movement.

Figures of speech, metaphorical language, figurative language, figurative devices, and rhetorical figures are terms describing organized patterns of comparison that deepen, broaden, extend, illuminate, and emphasize meaning.

Yes, literature presents specific and accurate descriptions and explanations, but it also moves in areas of implication and suggestiveness through the use of figurative language, which enables writers to amplify their ideas while still employing relatively small numbers of words.

A metaphor (a "carrying out a change") equates known objects or actions with something that is unknown or to be explained (e.g., "Your words are music to my ears," "You are the sunshine of my life," "My life is a squirrel cage").

A simile (a "showing of likeness or resemblance") illustrates the similarity or comparability of the known to something unknown or to be explained.

In language, the words image and imagery define words that stimulate the imagination and recall memories (images) of sights, sounds, tastes, smells, sensations of touch, and motions.

First is the vehicle, or the specific words of the metaphor or simile.

Second is the tenor, which is the totality of ideas and attitudes not only of the literary speaker but also of the author.

A paradox is "a thought beyond a thought," a figurative device through which something apparently wrong or contradictory is shown to be truthful and noncontradictory.

Anaphora ("to carry again or repeat") is the repetition of the same word or phrase throughout a work or a section of a work in order to lend weight and emphasis.

In an apostrophe (a "turning away," or redirection of attention) a speaker addresses a real or imagined listener who is not present.

A close neighbor of apostrophe is personification, another dramatic figurative device through which poets explore relationships to environment, ideals, and inner lives.

Synecdoche ("taking one thing out of another") is a device in which a part stands for the whole or a whole for a part, like the expression "all hands aboard," which describes the whole of a ship's crew by their hands, that part of them that performs work.

Metonymy (a "transfer of name") substitutes one thing for another with which it is closely identified, as when "Hollywood" is used to mean the movie industry, or when "the White House" signifies the policies and activities of the American president.

A pun ("a point or a puncture") or paronomasia ("something alongside a name") is wordplay stemming from the fact that words with different meanings have surprisingly similar or even identical sounds and that some individual words have surprisingly differing and even contradictory meanings.

A pun ("a point or a puncture") or paronomasia ("something alongside a name") is wordplay stemming from the fact that words with different meanings have surprisingly similar or even identical sounds and that some individual words have surprisingly differing and even contradictory meanings.

In synesthesia (the "bringing together of feelings") a poet describes a feeling or perception with words that usually refer to different or even opposite feelings or perceptions.

Two important devices creating emphasis are overstatement (or hyperbole), and understatement.

Overstatement, also called the overreacher, is exaggeration for effect.

In contrast with overstatement, understatement is the deliberate underplaying or undervaluing of a thing.

Tone, a concept derived from the phrase tone of voice, describes the shaping of attitudes in poetry.

Irony is a mode of indirection, a means of making a point by emphasizing a discrepancy or opposite.

At almost any point in a poem, a poet may introduce the ironic effects of language itself—verbal irony.

Situational irony is derived from the discrepancies between the ideal and the actual.

In addition to the situational irony of "The Workbox," the wife's deception reveals that the husband is in a situation of dramatic irony.

Satire, a vital genre in the study of tone, is designed to expose human follies and vices.