THE IMAGERY
The language of poetry is generally concrete. The artist may wish to give expression to a general truth, or philosophical principle, or ethereal fancy. These appear very abstract, but the artist embodies in material forms the idea he wishes to convey. The poet expresses his thought by the suggestion of material imagery, and emotion is most readily aroused by these images.
Antony, in his funeral oration after Cæsar's death, knew how to arouse his audience to fury by showing them Cæsar's wounds and holding before them Cæsar's mantle with its rents. Not always can the real object be produced for these emotional effects, but the teacher can sometimes bring into the class-room, for the benefit of young pupils, concrete material such as pictures and work in manual training. He can also call attention, at times, to the falling snow or the colour of the leaves or the sky, by asking the pupils to look out of the class-room windows. But in most cases, he has to be content with trying to recall the memory of these natural things. This shows how valuable has been the excursion of the boy into the country, and his experience on holidays by the river and in the harvest field. The nature study lesson furnishes the material for future enjoyment of poetry.
The pupils in our schools are very capable in realizing visual imagery. They can see the visual image very readily with its colour, form, and movement. They can arrange the objects in the picture with foreground, background, light, and shade.
But it is quite a different matter when they try to realize auditory imagery. In the poem Waterloo, Fourth Reader, p. 311, they can see the picture in "bright the lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men". They see the large ball-room with its glass chandeliers, the costumes of handsome ladies, the scarlet uniforms and the decorations of the officers and the nobility. But can they realize the next imagery, that of sound, "and when music arose with its voluptuous swell"? Do they hear the squeaking of one or two fiddles or do they hear the voluminous sound of regimental bands? Do they notice the varying metre from the stately iambic to the sudden "voluptuous swell" of the foot of three syllables in waltz time?
These images of sight and sound picture the gaiety and magnificence of this festive scene, in order to make more marked the contrast with the fear and pathos of the farewells. This contrast is enforced by the two auditory images:
And all went merry as a marriage bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
Can your pupils image the wedding-bells chiming from the cathedral some afternoon in June, when suddenly the ear catches the sound of a death-bell tolling from another church? Any reader who cannot realize the sounds of those two bells with their discordant effects will miss the intention of Byron.
The pupils, through the stimulation of their senses, must have experienced the luxurious effects of orchards, flower gardens, and clover fields; the odours of apple blossoms and the smell and taste of the "full-juiced apple waxing over-mellow"; the perfumes and temperatures of spring, midsummer, and winter if they are to read nature literature intelligently and feel its charm. The words must have meaning if they are to awaken the feeling that was part of the original experience.