Lecture 4 Imagery
I ．Image 意象
such of any vivid or picturesque （图画般的） phrase that stimulates a particular sensation in the reader’s mind. ● In the 20th century Ezra Pound defined: “An ‘image’ is that which presents an intellectual and emotional
complex in an instant of time.”
● Pound’s definition claims that the image is a putting -into-words of the emotional, intellectual and concrete stuff
that one experiences in any given moment.
●
It is useful as it allows an author to add depth and understanding to his work, like a sculptor adding layer and layer to his statue, building it up into a beautiful work of art.
- something seen in the mind’s eye (most frequently used) 视觉意象;
eg: The crimson liquid spilled from the neck of the white dove, staining and matting its pure, white feathers. ● Auditory imagery - a sound 听觉意象;
eg: The bells chimed 2 o’clock and Daniel got ready for school.
Onomatopoeia : a word that makes a sound.拟声词
● Kinesthetic imagery - represents movement 动觉意象;
eg ：(Daffodils) tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
● Olfactory imagery - represents a smell 嗅觉意象;
eg ：Tom’s socks, still soaked with sweat from Tuesday’s P.E. class, filled the classroom with an aroma akin to
that of salty, week-old, rotting fish.
● Gustatory imagery - represents a taste 味觉意象;
eg: Tumbling through the ocean water after being overtaken by the monstrous wave, Mark unintentionally took a gulp of the briny （海水的，咸的）, bitter mass, causing him to cough.
● Tactile imagery - represents touch 触觉意象.
eg: Mary dug her feet into the wet sand, burying her toes inside the beach as cold waves lapped at her ankles.
Green
The dawn was apple-green, The sky was green wine held up in the sun, The moon was a golden petal between. She opened her eyes, and green They shone, clear like flowers undone, For the first time, now for the first time seen. --- DH Lawrence
绿
曙光是苹果绿， 天空是绿酒在阳光中举起， 月亮是其间的一瓣金玉。 她张开眼，绿芒 四射，明亮如花 初绽，首次展放。
Wait for a while, then slip downstairs
And bring us up some chilled white wine,
And some blue cheese, and crackers, and some fine
Ruddy-skinned pears.
--- by Richard Wilbur A Late Aubade 《迟唱的晨曲》
A Comparison 苹果花与雪
Apple blossoms look like snow, They’re different, though. Snow falls softly, but it brings Noisy things: Sleighs, and bells, forts and fights Cosy nights. But apple blossoms when they go, White and slow,
Quiet all the orchard space,
Till the place Hushed with falling sweetness seems Filled with dreams. --- John Farrar
苹果花开似白雪，
二者也存异。 雪花轻轻飘落地，却引得 嘈杂声起： 雪橇响铃铛，对垒打雪仗， 夜夜安逸。 苹果花开白又白， 步履轻徘徊， 寂静果园春满怀；
待只待 甜果坠地破安谧， 似入梦境里。 realistic perception to create a picture. They are especially
concrete and contain little or no extension of the obvious meaning of the words used to express them.
● Figurative images (修辞意象) do not follow the literal meaning of the words exactly. They appeal to one’s
imagination to create a vague portrait that is indicative of a certain mood.
The City
In the morning the city
Spreads its wings
Making a song
In stone that sings.
In the evening the city
Goes to bed
Hanging lights
Above its head.
--- Langston Hughes
● The poem creates the image of the city as a bird.
● He is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance.
● Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as
the “New Negro Movement”.
● It is a burst of literary achievement by black playwrights, poets and novelists who presented new insights into
the American experience and prepared the way for the emergence of numerous Black writers after mid-twentieth century.
哈莱姆文艺复兴，又称黑人文艺复兴或新黑人运动，是新黑人文化意识和种族意识的生动反映，它重新界
定了黑人历史、音乐、戏剧及形象艺术，是美国文化解放运动的一个重要组成部分。在文学方面体现为美国纽约黑人聚居区哈莱姆的黑人作家所发动的一种文学运动。它的内容主要为两点：1.在黑人的觉悟和民族自尊心大为提高的情况下，一些黑人青年知识分子开始重新评价自己的艺术创造才能， 并要求在文学艺术中塑造 “新黑人”的形象──一个不同于逆来顺受的汤姆叔叔型的、有独立人格和叛逆精神的新形
象；2.在报刊上广泛开展了“是艺术还是宣传”的讨论，大多数作家都认为必须加强黑人文艺作品的艺术表现能力。
●枯藤老树昏鸦，
小桥流水人家，
古道西风瘦马。
●孤村落日残霞，
轻烟老树寒鸦，
一点飞鸿影下。
青山绿水，
白草红叶黄花。
●雨中黄叶树，灯下白头人。
●鸡声茅店月，人迹板桥霜。
Fog
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
--- Carl Sandburg
II．Imagism 意象主义
●An English and American Poetry movement that flourished between 1908 and 1917.
●The Imagists used precise, clearly presented images in their works. They also used common, everyday speech
and aimed for conciseness, concrete imagery, and the creation of new rhythms.
●Participants in the Imagist movement included Ezra Pound, H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), and Amy Lowell, among
others.
意象主义是在20世纪早期由英美诗人发起的反对维多利亚式感伤主义的一场文学运动，主张使用自由体(free verse)、普通的语言模式和清晰具体的意象。意象主义者反对过多的涉及情感和技巧，而这些是在浪漫主义诗歌和维多利亚诗歌中经常出现的。这一流派的诗人有英国的理查·奥尔丁顿、戴维·劳伦斯，美国的希尔达·杜利特尔、埃兹拉·庞德和威廉·卡洛斯·威廉斯等。意象派诗人着重用视觉意象引起联想，表达一瞬间的直觉和思想。一般用自由体写作短小篇章。庞德指出，他们曾受中国旧诗和日本俳句中运用意象方法的影响。这一流派对英美现代诗歌在采用口语、自由体和铸造意象方面颇有影响。
7, and 5 syllables.
●Haiku traditionally invokes an aspect of nature or the seasons.
●Matsuo Bashō（松尾芭蕉）, the most famous poet of the Edo period（江户时代）in Japan, is recognized as a
master of brief and clear haiku（俳圣）.
俳句，日本古典短诗。俳句的创作必须遵循两个基本规则：1）由五、七、五三行十七个日文字母组成；2）必定要有一个季语。季语即表示春、夏、秋、冬及新年的季节用语。在季语中除“夏季的骤雨”、“雪”等表现气候的用语外，还有像“樱花”、“蝉”等动物、植物名称。俳句的精神，在于简短的体量和具体的意象所激发出的感性与想象之美。所以俳句是简短的，而不是繁复的；是具体的，而不是抽象的；是应景的，而不是说理的。
Japanese haiku
● 古池や蛙飛込む水の音
中译： 闲寂古池旁，
青蛙跳进水中央， 扑通一声响。
英译：
old pond a frog leaps in water’s sound
● 树下肉丝、菜汤上，飘落樱花瓣。
● 春雨细细落，润泽沙滩小贝壳。
● 蔷薇开处处，想似当年故乡路。
● 渡船春雨至，船上伞高低。
focuses on a particular subject or scene and captures that image in language that is plain and
precise.
● It’s typically written in free verse, without the complex rhyming structures and devoid of the flowery and
excessive language often associated with Romantic poetry and similar works.
III. Poem Appreciation
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
--- Ezra Pound Imagist tradition.
● Written in a Japanese haiku style, Pound’s process of deletion from thirty lines to only fourteen words typifies
Imagism’s focus on economy of language, precision of imagery and experimenting with non -traditional verse forms.
● Th e poem is Pound’s written equivalent for the moment of revelation and intense emotion he felt at the Metro at
La Concorde, Paris.
expatriate (流放的) poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist
movement in poetry.
● He was the leader of the Imagist school in poetry. He believed that good poetry was based on images rather than
ideas.
● His technique came from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry. On one hand the stressed clarity, precision, and
economy of language. On the other hand, Pound mused the traditional rhyme and meter in order to, as Pound put it, “compose in the sequence of the music al phrase, not in the sequence of metronome(节拍器)”.
The Red Wheelbarrow 红色手推车
so much depends Upon a red wheel Barrow glazed with rain Water beside the white chickens.
--- William Carlos Williams
那么多东西
依靠 一辆红色 手推车 雨水淋得它 晶亮 旁边是一群 白鸡 is a poem often considered the masterwork of American 20th-century writer William
Carlos Williams.
●
The poem exemplifies the Imagist-influenced philosophy of “no ideas but in things.”
● The subject matter of The Red Wheelbarrow is what makes it the most distinctive and important. He exemplifies
the importance of the ordinary; as he says, a poem “must be real, not “realism”, but reality itself."
● In this way, it holds more in common with the haiku of Bash ō.
● He is widely acknowledged to be among the most important American poets of the twentieth century.
● He avoided artificiality and sentimentality in his work by producing clear, direct verse about common, everyday
subjects.
Autumn Haze
Is it a dragonfly or maple leaf
That settles softly down upon the water?
—— Amy Lowell
秋雾
是一只蜻蜓还是一片枫叶
轻轻地落在水面？
(《访戴天山道士不遇》)
● 洛威尔(Amy Lowell)译：
A dog,
A dog barking.
And the sound of rushing water.
How dark and rich the peach-flowers after the rain.
● 许渊冲译：
Dog’s barks are muffled by the rippling brook,
Peach blossoms tinged with dew much redder look.
弧线（顾城）
鸟儿在疾风中
迅速转向
少年去捡拾
一枚分币
葡萄藤因幻想
而延伸的触丝
海浪因退缩
而耸起的背脊
IV. Quiz
●Blank-filling.
1. Literal images appeal to one’s se nse of perception to create a picture; while figurative images do not follow the meaning of the words exactly. They appeal to one’s to create a vague portrait that is indicative of a certain mood.
●True / False Questions.
1. Langston Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance.
2. Harlem Renaissance is a burst of literary achievement by black playwrights, poets and novelists who presented new insights into the American experience.
●Multiple-choice Questions.
1. The following men are all American poets except .
A. E. E. Cummings
B. William Carlos Williams
C. Langston Hughes
D. D.H. Lawrence
2. The following people are all imagist poets except .
A. Ezra Pound
B. William Carlos Williams
C. Amy Lowell
D. William Blake
3. Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the .
A. 1910s and 1920s
B. 1920s and 1930s
C. 1930s and 1940s
D. 1940s and 1950s
4. Which of the following characteristics is NOT true of the Imagist poetry ?
A. Imagist poetry focuses on a particular object or image as the primary subject of the poem.
B. Imagist poetry is typically written in traditional forms with the complex rhyming structures.
C. Imagist poetry is noted particularly for clear and concise language.
D. Imagist poetry shows the influence of classical Chinese and Japanese poetry.
5. The lines “The sky was green wine held up in the sun, The moon was a golden petal between.” is an example of .
A. visual image
B. auditory image
C. gustatory image
D. olfactory image
●Term Explanation.
1. Harlem Renaissance.
2. Imagism.
Key:
●Blank-filling.
1. realistic, literal, imagination
●True / False Questions
1. T
2. T
●Multiple-choice Questions.
1. D
2. D
3. B
4. B
5. A
●Term Explanation.
1. Harlem Renaissance.
Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the “New Negro Movement”. It is a burst of literary achievement by black playwrights, poets and novelists who presented new insights into the American experience and prepared the way for the emergence of numerous Black writers after mid-twentieth century.
2. Imagism.
An English and American Poetry movement that flourished between 1908 and 1917. The Imagists used precise, clearly presented images in their works. They also used common, everyday speech and aimed for conciseness, concrete imagery, and the creation of new rhythms. Participants in the Imagist movement included Ezra Pound, H. D., and Amy Lowell, among others.