Imagery, Symbol, Allegory,
and Irony
Week 6-7
Imagery
• “An image is language that addresses the senses”(Meyer, 105).
• Images in poetry can appeal to our senses like the visual and the
auditory.
• The use of imagery in poetry is crucial in conveying a representation
of the meaning rather than the meaning itself. This representation
manifests itself as more effective than the direct literal meaning.
• Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods of a Snowy Evening” (Meyer,
371) and Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” (Meyer, 125).
Emily Dickinson’s A Narrow Fellow in the
Grass 1096
He likes a boggy acre,
A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him—did you not
His notice sudden is,
The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your feet,
And opens further on.
A floor too cool for corn,
But when a boy and barefoot,
I more than once at noon
Have passed, I thought, a whip lash,
Unbraiding in the sun,
When stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled and was gone.
Several of nature’s people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality.
But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.
Symbol
• “A symbol is something that represents something else”(Meyer, 153).
• In literature, understanding the hidden meanings behind symbolism depends
on the context and the reader. “An object, a person, a place, an event, or an
action” are often used to “suggest more than its literal meaning”. (Meyer,
153).
• In reading any poem, the reader should first read the surface meaning of it.
After that, the reader should consider the connotations of the words and
symbols used.
• Conventional symbols are symbols recognized by many people to
represent certain ideas whereas literary or contextual symbols go “beyond
traditional, public meaninfs
• Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night” (Meyer, 154).
Allegory
• “Allegory is a narration or description usually restricted to a single
meaning because its events, actions, characters, and objects represent
specific abstractions or ideas” (Meyer, 156).
• Edgar Allan Poe “The Haunted Palace” (Meyer, 156).
Irony
• Irony is also used to “take readers beyond literal meanings. It is “a
technique that reveals a discrepancy between what appears to be and
what is actually true”(Meyer, 158).
• Situational Irony
• Verbal Irony
• Robinson’s “Richard Cory” (Meyer, 158) Dickinson’s “Fame Is a Bee”
Emily Dickinson’s Fame Is a Bee (1788)
Fame is a bee.
It has a song—
It has a sting—
Ah, too, it has a wing.