Image in Poetry

[champagne1982]

But I'm very prone to performance anxiety. If I don't finish i get shot.

LOL! If you don't finish well, you get shot. You can still come last and survive, dependent on how many are in the race, of course.

Ahhh, see Tzed? Extended metaphors are an inspiration all on their own.

 

[letterman999]

Images

An image is only a photograph
without a trope attached.

A 'scene' is not a poetry image.

Some great poems have no images.

Images are not the same as imagery.

Some imagery needs no images.

Images can flood a poem to its death.

The fewer the images in one poem the
better.

Restricct your images, win greater fame.

letterman999

 

[Tzara]

Welcome, letterman999 to the PF&D. You've made some bold assertions, which is good (I like bold assertions), but given those, I have one initial question for you:

Some great poems have no images.

Name one. And tell me why it's "great."

 

[Tzara]

Extended metaphors are an inspiration all on their own.

Corndog is (ahem) his own extended metaphor.

 

[letterman999]

"Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening"

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

**
Not one image.
**
Greatness is also sustainability and longevity,
and (gasp!) it's tauaght in every eight
grade English class north of the Mississippi.

Frost is not Browning, nor Auden.. but these
two craze my mind with their their images.

Ands in Prufrock, I think only eight or nine
tropes in the entire poem. Many allusisons, "
tho.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Tzara]

Not one image.

Really?

Then I guess we disagree about what "image" means. Let me just cherry pick He gives his harness bells a shake, which seems to me very visual, and a bit aural, if nothing else. I see a horse, I hear a horse (well, to be accurate, I hear the bells about the collar of the horse).

If you don't think this is "image," I'm a bit puzzled as to what you think image is. Even more so, if you include the following line: To ask if there is some mistake you have, I think an extremely clear image of the narrator's horse feeling somewhat disturbed by the narrator's action.

But, you know, I may be wrong.

Convince me.

 

[letterman999]

Image

In one of your earlier comments about the hypnotist's
swinging watch (girl's hair) (I think the origin of your
Image thread), you suggested the image was enhanced by
the associations one attributes to hynotism, made by the simile, explicit comparison.

I agree that by the 'like' we have an image.

Without the like we do not.

Image is the connection to a trope.

Now can I scan Frost's poem and claim no trope?
i am famailiar with tropes-- metaphor, simile,
synecdoche, metonomy, antanaclasis, paronomasia,
syllepsis, anthimeria, antonomasia, prosopoeia,
hyperbole, litotes, erotema, irony, onomatopoeia,
contradictio in adjecto (and)

I suppose irony, present in all fine poems, is
to be found in Frost's poem, if so, it's a trope,
and my argument is compromised.

Just so, one or two of the other more 'collected'
tropes.

I looked at the poem again and tried to find a
trope (otherwise singularly connected) and could
not. I saw a lot of photographs. I saw a video.
I heard sounds.

My argument is provisional. of course.

letterman999

 

[corndog_]

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep" is an image.
Rhyme is a trope.

 

[corndog_]

Corndog is (ahem) his own extended metaphor.

Tell me Champ hasn't extended your metaphor on more than one occasion.

 

[letterman999]

Corndog, sir,

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep" is an image.

Rhyme is a trope.

In the abaove, we have
an editorial,
and an photograph of dark, deep woods.

I see shadows, so I know the woods are dark
(in the picture); also I know they are deep
because I see lots and lots of trees.

I don't think rhyme is a trope.

Thanks for the discussion.
It makes for a more pointful day.

Delighted,
leterman999

 

[butters]

An image is only a photograph
without a trope attached.

A 'scene' is not a poetry image.

Some great poems have no images.

Images are not the same as imagery.

Some imagery needs no images.

Images can flood a poem to its death.

The fewer the images in one poem the
better.

Restricct your images, win greater fame.

letterman999

since imagery is defined as 'images collectively ... a set of mental pictures or images ... the use of figurative or vivid language ...', i fail to grasp your argument.

if language is described as 'vivid' (a pre-requisite of imagery), surely that implies a visual (or at least emotive) effect when read? it is very difficult, to the point of becoming a mental exercise rather than the implementing of a tool to benefit a poem, for imagery to exist without images. poetry should be about the poem's voice, not the author's imo.

i agree that an overdose of images can smother a poem's message.

it is better to have fewer images that are so well constructed as to glitter, jewel-like, to act as a counterpoint to the body and shadows of a write than to fill each and every line with them UNLESS you are good enough to make all of them work - as the rich threads of a tapestry work in unison to create an overall effect of density, texture, and sense-orientated pleasure.

 

[Tzara]

Image is the connection to a trope.

I assume you have some source you can cite for this. It is not the usual definition of "image," at least that I've seen. For example, in my copy of A Handbook of Literature, Sixth Edition, "image" is defined, in part, as

Originally a sculptured, cast, or modeled representation of a person; even in its most sophisticated critical usage, this fundamental meaning is still present, in that an image is a literal and concrete representation of a sensory experience or of an object that can be known by the senses.... The image is a distinctive element of the language of art by which experience in its richness and complexity is communicated, as opposed to the simplifying and conceptualizing processes of science and philosophy.​

I think you are talking about what the handbook describes as a "figurative image" as opposed to a "literal image":

Images may be either literal or figurative, a literal image being one that involves no necessary change or extension in the obvious meaning of the words, one in which the words call up a sensory representation of the literal object or sensation; and a figurative image being one that involves a "turn" on the literal meaning of the words.​

which would describe a trope ("...a figure of speech involving a "turn" or change of sense--the use of a word in a sense other than the literal" ibid.).

 

[letterman999]

Thank you for answering

Maybe that's it... figurative.

But we all must invent our own
meanings.

Authorities notwithstanding.

As Humpty Dumpty said,
"When I use a word it means
what I want it to mean."
(half remembered)

I don't go that far. And I would push
him of the wall for saying such a dumb
thing.

But Wittgenstein understood what he meant.
Someday I might too.

letterman999

 

[Tzara]

In one of your earlier comments about the hypnotist's
swinging watch (girl's hair) (I think the origin of your
Image thread), you suggested the image was enhanced by
the associations one attributes to hynotism, made by the simile, explicit comparison.

I agree that by the 'like' we have an image.

Without the like we do not.

This may be flogging a dead horse at this point, but this seems to be an inconsistency in your definition of image. The presence or absence of the word "like" would merely determine whether the line uses simile or metaphor. In

Her ponytail swung like a hypnotist's watch​

the comparison is formed as a simile. In

Her ponytail swung, a hypnotist's watch​

the comparison is formed as a metaphor. (I think. I am not an expert on this.) In both forms, the analogy between the movement of the hair and the movement of the watch are essentially the same; the method of forming the analogy is slightly different. The presence or absence of "like" would seem to be irrelevant.

 

[Tzara]

Tell me Champ hasn't extended your metaphor on more than one occasion.

I think she's rather had me focused on concrete nouns.

 

[Tzara]

But we all must invent our own
meanings.

That would make discussion of a topic pretty nigh impossible, I would think. If the parties to a discussion have fundamental disagreements about what the basic terms mean, how can they communicate?

 

[letterman999]

yes

I am swamped here by more reasonable voices.

I must rethink, or give it up.

I admire the almost syllogistic form of
your argument-- the placement of 'like'
and its absence.

Thank you.
L

 

[Tzara]

I admire the almost syllogistic form of
your argument-- the placement of 'like'
and its absence.

That's an interesting, though inaccurate, comment, Letterman. I like to think my argument was logical, but it wasn't syllogistic. (Two comments: Yes, you said "almost syllogistic," and again, my typical CYA caveat--this is not my area of expertise.) The classic example of syllogism is:

• All men are mortal.
• Socrates is mortal.
• Therefore, Socrates is a man.

The equivalent on this argument might have been

• All poems contain images.
• The line He gives his harness bells a shake is an image.
• Therefore, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a poem.

The problem is, that's an invalid argument. Images are not exclusive to poetry--that line (that image) might have appeared in a short story or novel, an essay, even (as it does here) in this response.

Making it a true deduction, by saying something like Therefore, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" may be a poem is a kind of tepid conclusion.

And the whole logical thing avoids the bigger question about whether a "poem" is a poem in the sense of actually working.

Topic for a different thread, I think.

 

[letterman999]

"That's an interesting, though inaccurate, comment, Letterman.
I like to think my argument was logical, but it wasn't syllogistic.

(Two comments: Yes, you said "almost syllogistic," and again,
my typical CYA caveat--this is not my area of expertise.)

The classic example of syllogism is:

All men are mortal.
Socrates is mortal.
Therefore, Socrates is a man.
***
The above pretends to be an Aristotelian
syllogism of the Figure One, Mode AAA,
but slips a bit.

The correct, if a Figure One, is--

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Socrates is mortal.

The placement of the three terms defines whether Figure
One, Two, or Three and if the premises are particular
or universal(mode).

Note in yours, that the positiong of the word ' mortal'
is ill- placed. Such gives rise to the undistributed
middle fallacy, although not specific in your syllogism.

Delightful conversation.
Rare.

letterman999

 

[Tzara]

"That's an interesting, though inaccurate, comment, Letterman.
I like to think my argument was logical, but it wasn't syllogistic.

(Two comments: Yes, you said "almost syllogistic," and again,
my typical CYA caveat--this is not my area of expertise.)

The classic example of syllogism is:

All men are mortal.
Socrates is mortal.
Therefore, Socrates is a man.
***
The above pretends to be an Aristotelian
syllogism of the Figure One, Mode AAA,
but slips a bit.

The correct, if a Figure One, is--

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Socrates is mortal.

The placement of the three terms defines whether Figure
One, Two, or Three and if the premises are particular
or universal(mode).

Note in yours, that the positiong of the word ' mortal'
is ill- placed. Such gives rise to the undistributed
middle fallacy, although not specific in your syllogism.

Delightful conversation.
Rare.

letterman999

Ha ha ha ha ha! That reminds me--I'm supposed to have the Use Brain switch in ON position when I respond to someone's post.

I told you I was a psych major. We never study.



By the way, L-man, if you click on the QUOTE button when you want to respond to a post, it'll put the post you're quoting in a box, which makes it easier to see where, for example, my stupidity stops and your response starts.

 

[letterman999]

If I learn

... the rudiments
over my computer stupidaments.

I'll try it next time.

Where do you study?
or have?

I mention daseinsansanalysis's
rigorous jump over unconditional
Rodgers and positive Maslow.

L999

 

[Tzara]

Where do you study?
or have?

I did graduate work at the University of Washington and at the University of Southern California.

I mention daseinsansanalysis's
rigorous jump over unconditional
Rodgers and positive Maslow.

My specialization was in animal learning. I know who Boss and Binswanger were, of course (and Maslow and Rogers), but not much about them.

And all of that was a long time ago.

 

[letterman999]

admire

I admire your prose.

Surely you have had training in rhetoric.

Greek and Latin.
persuasion and argument.

What better than the classic attempt by the three
envoys to lure pouting Achilles back to war; or,
Xenophon's 'a priori' speech that he be elected
general to lead the mercenaries home after the
battle at Cunaxa.

It's all there in the attempt and in the speech.

I'm not saying your prose models the plea and the
answer and the speech, but it has a lock on the
techniques few have.

You ought be reviewing lit for a major journal.

Maybe you are.

l999

 

[bronzeage]

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore,
All men are Socrates.
I am Socrates and you are Socrates
Socrates sits to my left and right.
The poet can say
what the philosopher must deny.

 

[butters]

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore,
All men are Socrates.
I am Socrates and you are Socrates
Socrates sits to my left and right.
The poet can say
what the philosopher must deny.

i'm glad i'm not socrates. or a man. i get to sit in your lap?