Seminar read and analyze it. What Is Imagery? Learn About the Types of Imagery in Poetry With Examples

Seminar 7
Read and analyze it.
What Is Imagery? Learn About the 7 Types of Imagery in Poetry With Examples
Written by MasterClass
Last updated: Sep 1, 2022 • 7 min read
If you’ve practiced or studied creative writing, chances are you’ve encountered the expression “paint a picture with words.” In poetry and literature, this is known as imagery: the use of figurative language to evoke a sensory experience in the reader. When a poet uses descriptive language well, they play to the reader’s senses, providing them with sights, tastes, smells, sounds, internal and external feelings, and even internal emotion. The sensory details in imagery bring works to life.

What Is Imagery in Poetry?
In poetry, imagery is a vivid and vibrant form of description that appeals to readers’ senses and imagination. Despite the word’s connotation, “imagery” is not focused solely on visual representations or mental images—it refers to the full spectrum of sensory experiences, including internal emotions and physical sensations.
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How Is Imagery Used in Poetry?
Imagery allows the reader to clearly see, touch, taste, smell, and hear what is happening—and in some cases even empathize with the poet or their subject. Whether it’s the classical sonnets of Shakespeare or the searing social commentary from poets in the African diaspora like Langston Hughes, imagery beautifies and intensifies the poetic work.
7 Types of Imagery in Poetry
There are seven main types of imagery in poetry. Poets create imagery by using figures of speech like simile (a direct comparison between two things); metaphor (comparison between two unrelated things that share common characteristics); personification (giving human attributes to nonhuman things); and onomatopoeia (a word that mimics the natural sound of a thing).
Here are the seven types of imagery in poetry, with examples.

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  Visual imagery. In this form of poetic imagery, the poet appeals to the reader’s sense of sight by describing something the speaker or narrator of the poem sees. It may include colors, brightness, shapes, sizes, and patterns. To provide readers with visual imagery, poets often use metaphor, simile, or personification in their description. William Wordsworth’s classic 1804 poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is a good example:
  

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
In this poem, inspired by a walk Wordsworth took with his sister, the poet uses simile to compare his lonely wandering to the aimless flight of a cloud. Additionally, he personifies the daffodils, which dance as if a group of revelrous humans.

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