Imagery in Poetry

By seda beyenal, Student

Analysis of Meeting at Ni,ght by Robert Browning in term of imagery

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

Imagery In Poetry
Imagery may be defined as the representation of sense experience through language. Poetry appeals directly to our senses through its music and Rhythm but indirectly it appeals to our senses through imagery. Tho word image most often suggest a mental picture and we frequently come across visual imagery. Besides, Perrine suggests that the details that make up the imagery are selected through senses.

MEETING AT NIGHT
The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cave with pushing prow,
And the quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears ;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each.
Robert Browning

Let’s consider the statements in this poem as if they are written in a story form, and compare this with the poem itself. In a comparison like this, the first thing we will see is that the poem is shorter than the short story. Even when we rewrite the poem in prose we have to remove the lines, rhymes and the meter and of course the rhythm and music that were provided by those; so, the form arrangement will disappear. However, this fact emerges: In order to visualise the meeting, the poet is selecting the few number of details carefully and arranging them to create effectiveness in terms of sense and thought. Situation is the meeting of the two lovers. The poem is about love, it makes, one might say, a number of statements above love: Being in love is a wonderful and exciting experience. When one is in love everything seems beautiful to him and the most trivial things come into sense. When one is in love, his beloved seems the most important thing in the world.
But the poet actually doesn’t tell us any of these things directly. He doesn’t even use the word love in his poem. He aims at communicating experience not imformation. He presents us with a specific situation in which a lover goes to meet his lover and he describes the lover’s journey so vividly in terms of sense impressions that the reader both sees and hears what the lover saw and heard and shares his excitement.
The gray sea, yellow half moon, the startled little waves all appeal to our senses and convey not only shape but also motion. Moreover, if we look at the rhythm of the poem, its gradually increasing tempo also reflects the heart beatings of the lover as the meeting time comes close. The blue spurt of the lighted match is also like the love flames of the two lovers.
In short, every sound, view and motion has been arranged carefully in order to show us how a beautiful feeling being in love is.