11-Image-and-Symbol-北京外国语大学-文学概论-教学课件.ppt

1、Image and SymbolImagenBroadly defined, an image is a word or a sequence of words which refers to any sensory experience. The term “image” should not be taken to imply a visual reproduction of the object referred to.nC. Day Lewisnan image “is a picture made out of words,”n“poem may itself be an image

2、 composed from a multiplicity of images.” nimagery is used to signify all the objects and qualities of sense perception referred to in a poem by literal description, by allusion, or in analogues as in similes and metaphors.nVisualnAuditoryntactile (touch)nthermal (heat or cold)nolfactory (smell)ngus

3、tatory (taste)nkinesthetic (sensations of movement) ImagerynThe pattern of related images in a poem is called “imagery.” Imagery is said to make poetry concrete, opposed to abstract. The meaning of a poem is often created or developed through its imagery. Imagism na name given to a movement in poetr

4、y, originating in 1912 and represented by Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, and others, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images. In the early period often written in the French form Imagisme. ImagistnA group of American and English poets whose poetic program was formulated abo

5、ut 1912 by Ezra Pound-in conjunction with fellow poets Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), Richard Aldington, and F. S. Flintand was inspired by the critical views of T. E. Hulme, in revolt against the careless thinking and Romantic optimism prevalent at the timeCharacteristics of imagist poemsnThe Imagists str

6、essed clarity, exactness and concreteness of detail. Their aims, briefly set out, were that: nContent should be presented directly, through specific images where possible.nEvery word should be functional, with nothing included that was not essential to the effect intended.nRhythm should be composed

7、by the musical phrase rather than the metronome. nAlso understood if not spelled out, or perhaps fully recognized at the time was the hope that poems could intensify a sense of objective reality through the immediacy of images. Ex. “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra PoundSymbolnA symbol is a specia

8、l kind of image, for it exceeds the image in the richness of its connotations. nLike images, a symbol can be an object, a sound, or a bodily sensation. It can also be a character, or an act. Symboln“In a literary sense a symbol combines a literal and sensuous quality with an abstract or suggestive a

9、spectLiterary symbols are of two broad types:nOne includes those embodying universal suggestions of meaning, as flowing water suggests time and eternity, a voyage suggests life. Such symbols are used widely (and sometimes unconsciously) in literature.nThe other type of symbol acquires its suggestive

10、ness not from qualities inherent in itself but from the way in which it is used in a given work. Thus, in Moby-Dick the voyage, the land and the ocean are objects pregnant with meanings that seem almost independent of Melvilles use of them in his story; but on the other hand, the white whale is inve

11、sted with meaningand differing meanings for different crew membersthrough the handling of materials in the novel (Source : Harmon & Holman, 507).The rose as a symbolnSimile: “O my loves like a red, red rose” nMetaphor: Winthrop Mackworth Praed: “She was our queen, our rose, our star;/And then she da

12、ncedO heaven, her dancing!” the word “rose” is used as a metaphor. Then in William Blakes poem “The Sick Rose”:nThe Sick RoseO rose, thou art sick.The Invisible wormThat flies in the nightIn the howling stormHas found out thy bedOf crimson joy,And his dark secret loveDoes thy life destroy.nBlakes ro

13、se is a roseyet it is also something more than a rose: words such as “bed,” “joy,” “love,” which do not comport literally with an actual flower, together with the sinister tone and the intensity of the feeling, press the reader to infer that the described object has a further range of suggested but

14、unspecified reference which makes it a symbol. nBlakes rose is a personal symbol. We can infer that Blake lament for a crimson rose which has been entered and sickened unto death by a dark and secret worm symbolizes the destruction wrought by furtiveness, deceit, and hypocrisy in what should be a fr

15、ank and joyous relationship of physical love.Anecdote of the JarnIn the poem, Anecdote of the Jar, Wallace Stevens explores the complex relationships between order and chaos, between art and the nature, as well as between imagination and the reality.nHere lies the wildrural Tennessee, chaotic and fo

16、rmless, which let us assume is a symbol of the world of nature, or the reality. Then the “I” of the poem places in it a round jara man-made object, which is suggestive of the world of art, and by extension, the world of imagination. What happens when the jar is standing upon a hill is almost a mirac

17、le: it controls the whole disorderly landscape, (“The wilderness rose up to it,/And sprawled around, no longer wild.”) and makes everything in order (“It made the slovenly wilderness/Surround that hill.”). The poem thus seems to be talking about the relationship between art and nature. The world of

18、naturea “wilderness”, shapeless and “slovenly”, takes shape and order from the presence of the jarthe art. That is to say, the world of art and imagination gives form and meaning to that of nature and reality; any society without art is one without order. Besides, art takes “dominion” over the natur

19、e, in the poets opinion.nHere, he actually explores the role of the power of imagination over the reality. In an age of shaky faith, Stevens saw very few certainties in this world and felt that the role of the poet is at least in part to create order, pleasure and meaning in the sordidness of realit

20、y through art. In his aesthetic philosophy, Stevens argued that after one has abandoned a belief in God, poetry is that essence which takes its place as lifes redemption. In this sense, he emphasizes the sense of loss that troubles modern people, and it gives a way out, a solutionimagination.nOn the

21、 other hand, the world of reality exists to determine the limits of art, and imagination can construct only on the basis of the world of nature, which is explained in the last three lines: “The jar was gray and bare, / it did not give of bird or bush, / Like nothing else in Tennessee.” Since art doe

22、s not have the power of reproduction as the nature, it can never replace the nature. In this sense, art is something dependent on the nature, as imagination on the reality. Therefore, Stevens deeply explores the interrelatedness of two pairs of categories: art and the nature, and by extension, imagi

23、nation and the reality.H. D. (Hilda Dolittle) and “Heat”nH. D. (18861961) was an American poet, novelist and memoirist best known for her association with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets such as Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington.n“Heat” presents the common theme of longing w

24、ithin the process of creation, and by the sense of stasis and need for release. The endurance of the moment is part of the necessary process of insight and making. The speaker asks the wind to “rend open the heat,” cut it, plough through it, so that ripe fruit can drop. The heat is a palpable force

25、that “presses up and blunts/the points of pears.” In this imagined oppression of unbearable pregnancy she prays for a deliverance from the process of gestation and ripening, though even her own metaphor acknowledges that without the force of heat the growing and ripening fruit would not assume its p

26、roper shape.QuestionsnIs “Heat” also a poem that celebrates the natural process? nIf you feel that it is essentially such a poem, that is, if the poet celebrates fruition and fulfillment, why does she call upon the wind to dissipate the fructifying forcethe heat? nIs there a real contradiction or on

27、ly an apparent one?Ann Stevenson and “The Victory”nAnne Stevenson (born 1933) is an American-British poet and writer. nIn the poem, the poet is trying to portray a mothers feelings of pain and anguish of giving birth to a child in the poem: I thought you were my victory / though you cut me like a kn

28、ife (Lines 1-2). Although she must endure such pain, it is also exciting for the mother is bringing new life into the world, which in fact feels like a victory to a new parent. However, throughout Stevensons poem denies the fact that giving birth to a child is a victory, by using words such as antag

29、onist (Line 5), bruise (Line 6) and scary (Line 13).nBy using these selections of words, Stevenson is trying to portray the negative side of childbirth. This poem contains a tone of conflict and anger. The mother feels her own blood running through the veins of the baby that lives within her, The st

30、ains of your cloud of glory.nThe opening lines of poem set a tone of conflict. This poem, at its surface, expresses a mothers thoughts on giving birth to a son. Stevenson describes the mixed feelings many mothers have upon the delivery of their first born. The final release from pregnancy and birthi

31、ng pains, coupled with the excitement of bringing a live creature into this world, at first seem a victory to the new parent. The author goes on to confute the event as a victory. Using words such as antagonist (5), bruise (6), and scary(13), she shows the darker side of childbirth. The mother has f

32、elt her own lifes blood flowing that a stranger might live The stains of your glory bled from my veins. (6-8). That she sees her own child as a stranger is evident in lines nine and ten, where the child is described as a blind thing (9) with blank insect eyes(10). The mother portrays her baby as a b

33、ug, not even human. In the last section of the poem, two questions are asked, attesting to the mothers internal conflict. Why do I have to love you?/ How have you won? (15-16). These unanswerable queries are some of the fundamental questions of human existence.nEven deeper into this poem is the hint

34、 of feminism. The author chose the sex of this baby intentionally. She used two references to a knife, indicating pain inflicted in a manner unnatural. The knife has traditionally been a mans weapon. Tiny antagonist (9) could refer to the entire male gender. Scary knot of desires (13) is a reference

35、 to the sex act, which is sometimes seen as male aggression. The child is the manifestation of this act. Hungry snarl! Small son (14), the use of an animalistic noise directly precedes the revelation of the babys gender. Once again Stevensons choice of words reminds one of male aggression. The woman

36、 in the poem seems to feel cheated in bearing a male child to the man who is indirectly responsible for her condition. Why does she have to love him? Does that sum up the plight of woman? Is it Eves curse that woman shall embrace man, though in so doing she must suffer childbirth to bring forth more

37、 men? (Or daughters who shall suffer likewise.) Is that how he has won? The Victory asks us these questions. They cannot be answered.Emily Dickinson and “I Heard a fly BuzzWhen I Died”nEmily Dickinson (1830-1886), born in Amherst, Mss. Where her grandfather had founded Amherst College. She was thoug

38、ht of as an eccentric maiden lady by her neighbors and she was known to very few readers in her life. During her lifetime, only seven of the poems were published, in various local periodicals, all of which appeared anonymously, and apparently without the poets permission or even her knowledge.Featur

39、es of Dickinsons PoetrynHer subjects were love, death, nature, immortality, beauty. Written largely in meters common to Protestant hymn books, her poems employ irregular rhythms, off- or slant rhymes(不工整韵，指元音不同或辅音不同的韵脚，如lid和lad, eyes和light), paradox, and a careful balancing of abstract Latinate and

40、concrete Anglo-Saxon words. Her lines are gnomic(格言式的) and her images kinesthetic(动感的), highly concentrated, and intensely charged with feeling. Her greatest lyrics were on the theme of death, which she typically personified as a monarch, a lord, or a kindly but irresistible lover, yet her moods var

41、ied widely, from melancholy to exuberance, grief to joy, leaden despair to spiritual intoxication.n“I Heard a Fly BuzzWhen I Died” tells a disconcerting truth: that ones death may be a most trivial event, hedged about with irrelevancies, and leading to no afterlife. But it tells that truth circuitou

42、sly(曲折地): undermining the pieties of Protestant theology by references to the last parceling out of small possessions, the uncertain and irrelevant buzzing of a blue flying, the slow loss of physical vision. No grand final words or gestures; no heavenly music or angels descending; no vision of Gods

43、eternity.QuestionsnAccording to lines 5-8, what are the expectations of the mourners gathered around this deathbed? nWhat is the effect of juxtaposing death and the trivial appearance of a buzzing fly?nThe perspective through the poem is a dying person. As the sense fails in the last stanza, the fly

44、 “With blue-uncertain Buzz,” becomes the last thing seen and heard of the world. How is this perspective of failing senses maintained in lines 15-16?William Butler Yeats and “The Second Coming”nW. B. Yeats (1865-1939), was an Irish poet and dramatist and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century l

45、iterature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, and served as its chief during its early years. In 1923, he was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as inspired poetry

46、, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation; and he was the first Irishman so honored. nYeats is generally considered to be one of the twentieth centurys key English language poets. He can be considered a Symbolist poet in that he used allusive imagery and symb

47、olic structures throughout his career. Yeats chooses words and puts them together so that in addition to a particular meaning they suggest other meanings that seem more significant. His use of symbols is usually something physical which is used both to be itself and to suggest other, perhaps immater

48、ial, timeless qualities.nUnlike other modernists who experimented with free verse, Yeats was a master of the traditional forms. The impact of modernism on his work can be seen in the increasing abandonment of the more conventionally poetic diction of his early work in favor of the more austere langu

49、age and more direct approach to his themes that increasingly characterizes the poetry and plays of his middle period.n“The Second Coming” is a poem in The Dial (November 1920) and afterwards included in his 1921 verse collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer. The poem uses Christian imagery regard

50、ing the Apocalypse and second coming as allegory to describe the atmosphere in post-war Europe. The poem is considered a major work of Modernist poetry and has been reprinted in several collections including The Norton Anthology of Modernist Poetry.nThe second coming of the title alludes to the seco