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Idioms
Definition of Imagery
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After Apple-Picking" contain imagery that engages... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines... read full definition
Book 1, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—All Was Moonlit:
In Chapter 2 of The Sword and the Stone, White uses the reader's expectations for dramatic, regal quests to create a moment of situational irony. After trying to do some amateur falconry with Kay, Wart becomes separated and gets lost in the woods. Soon, arrows fly at him from unidentified assailants. He ducks for cover, fearing for his life. Then, he sees "the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his short life." The reader, familiar with the story trope of deus ex machina, in which a hero arrives just in time to save the helpless, expects that Wart is safe at last. The beech trees shine in the moonlight, and Wart sees a knight before him:
He was mounted on an enormous white horse who stood as rapt as his master, and he carried in his right hand, with its butt mounted on the stirrup, a high, smooth, jousting lance, which stood up among the tree stumps, higher and higher, till it was outlined against the velvet sky. All was moonlit, all silver, all too beautiful to describe.
The imagery that makes the knight seem so beautiful is simple but effective. A long, confident sentence describes the knight's grand posture and appearance, its syntax following Wart's eyes as he surveys the mounted fighter. There is a sense of quiet, resting power in the scene. To the reader, this knight is as beautiful and awe-inspiring as it is to Wart. The reader has gotten exactly what they expected from this deus ex machina.
Then, the knight (who the reader eventually learns is King Pellinore) turns out to look like a stereotypical nerd from the fifties. This image is complete with "horn-rimmed spectacles, fogged by the inside of his helmet" and an overwhelming clumsiness. This archetype was used often as the butt of jokes in popular media when White was writing the novel. (The character of the nerd, then, had none of the redeeming qualities and cultural affinity that it gained in the 21st century.) So the expectations of this knight as a capable, chivalrous guardian are subverted—particularly by using the rich imagery of the description of the knight.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 18
Explanation and Analysis—Benighted Flowers:
One morning during Wart's adventures as an animal during The Sword in the Stone, at the beginning of Chapter 18, White uses some of the most imagery-rich prose in the novel to describe the beginning of spring by looking at the stars:
He lay under the great bearskin and stared out of the window at the stars of spring, no longer frosty and metallic, but as if they had been new washed and had swollen with the moisture. It was a lovely evening, without rain or cloud. The sky between the stars was of the deepest and fullest velvet. Framed in the the thick western window, Alderbaran and Betelgeuse were racing Sirius over the horizon, the hunting dog-star looking back to his master Orion, who had not yet heaved himself above the rim. In the window came also the unfolding scent of benighted flowers, for the currants, the wild cherries, the plums and the hawthorn were already in bloom, and no less than five nightingales within earshot were holding a contest of beauty among the bowery, the looming trees.
This passage contains rich and beautiful imagery yet manages to do so in prose that is altogether uncomplicated. The description of the stars makes them seem tactile and close at hand, changed by things like the passing of the seasons and weather. The proper names (Alderbaran and Betelgeuse; currants and nightingales) stick out as oddly difficult among an altogether easy passage in terms of diction. This allows the imagery to create a sense of an older, more arcane time, where things like botanical and astronomical names were more widely known. They were widely known, that is, for those with a wizard as a tutor. The imagery also gives readers a vision into Wart's mind and how his education is changing how he sees the world (and what's outside of it).
Book 2, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Punning Signs:
As armies gather outside the castle and Arthur and his enemies prepare for war in Chapter 8 of The Queen of Air and Darkness, the narrator describes the field outside using imagery:
The plain of Bedegraine was a forest of pavilions. They looked like old-fashioned bathing tents and were every colour of the rainbow. [...] There were heraldic devices worked or stamped on the sides––enormous black eagles with two heads perhaps, or wyverns, or lances, or oak trees, or punning signs which referred to the names of the owners.
The scene, and the imagery that it uses, is clear and humorously absurd in its inanity, but it is still unfamiliar to any reader's real experience. Much of the novel takes place out in the wilderness, and the unkempt wilderness of the English fields is a common backdrop for many scenes. The reader, then, can imagine the unusual and quite beautiful sight of those green fields obscured by tents in many colors. (The "bathing tents" were old-fashioned in White's lifetime: he is referring to small tents used by women in the Victorian era to ensure privacy while bathing at the beach.) White is rather unspecific in describing these tents: he only says that they are in "every colour of the rainbow." He notes some of the "heraldic devices" on the tents, even the "punning signs," but he does not describe any particular tent or heraldic device on it. This lack of specificity serves to make the tents seem even more numerous and varied.
Book 2, Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Two Naturalists:
Sir Grummore and Sir Palomides, in Chapter 9 of The Queen of Air and Darkness, have decided to dress as the Questing Beast so that King Pellinore can have something to do: hunt them. They realize that they are going to have to learn how to sound like animals, as well. This practice becomes rather funny, and the novel uses auditory imagery to heighten the moment:
The two naturalists began hooting, grunting, squawking, squealing, crowing, mooing, growling, snuffing, quacking, snarling and mewing at one another, until they were red in the face.
This pile-up of auditory imagery is full of onomatopoeias and other compelling sounds. Imagery that is presented as rich prose is more effective, and the variation of sound here in these verbs certainly elevates the moment. The sheer number of different sounds provided also makes the scene funny. Up to this point in the chapter, Grummore and Palomides had been taking the task of the beast costume with mock seriousness, asking questions as to the specifics of the costume's construction. But when they move to the sound, it is an explosion of noise and excitement. White uses not just the imagery to describe the scene but the quantity of that imagery. With this long string of noises after a calm discussion, White paints a fun picture.
Related Themes:
Book 3, Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Cold Stone of the Mullion:
In Chapter 12 of The Ill-Made Knight, Lancelot awakes in the castle at Corbin. He lay with a woman, anonymous here, but he will learn that she is Elaine. The passage depicting this scene is full of imagery:
In the morning he woke suddenly in a strange room. It was quite dark, with tapestry over the windows, and he had no headache because his constitution was good. He jumped out of bed and went to the window, to draw the curtain. He was fully aware, in the suddenness of a second, of all that had happened on the previous night—aware of the butler and of the drink and of the love-potion which had perhaps been put on it, of the message from Guenever, and of the dark, solid, cool-fired body in the bed which he had just got out of. He drew the curtain and leaned his forehead against the cold stone of the mullion. He was miserable.
These sentences are replete with visceral, rich imagery. The "tapestry over the windows" describes a very specific type of darkness in this room: the reader can see the morning light leaking through the seams, leaving colored patches on the floor, and sending rays of sunshine around rippling edges. The body is "dark, solid, cool-fired"—novel but effective descriptors of a body solid with sleep. She is like a stone pillar in the room, an undeniable fact of the situation. This stone is of a specifically different character to the "cold stone of the mullion" (the vertical pillar between two window panes). This action—leaning forward, forehead on cool rock—is totally unexpected in this personal scene yet is evocative of Lancelot's feeling of frustration and betrayal.
This passage's imagery dramatizes Lancelot's slow realization of his situation. Lancelot awakes, and immediately he is in the dark, both literally and metaphorically. He is in a strange room, unaware of his surroundings. But he is in his right mind: he has no headache. Then, he lets the light in by drawing the curtain, and, as soon as there is light in the room, "in the suddenness of a second," Lancelot understands. The darkness in his room works as a physical image that dramatizes Lancelot's thoughts.
This passage is also effective for its delicate timing. In the first few sentences, events happen fast: Lancelot wakes up, jumps up, turns around, and realizes his full situation, all in the span of a few dozen words. But after the em-dash ("aware of the butler and the drink [...] ") things happen slowly. Over long, discursive sentences, Lancelot's deception dawns on him gradually, and then he gently lays his head on the cold stone platform. We see in this intricate pacing how at first, Lancelot was frantic and jumpy and then, all in a moment, he slows while his brain processes his situation.
Related Themes:
Book 3, Chapter 22
Explanation and Analysis—As Unique:
As Lancelot is recovering in the castle and falling in love with Elaine, Uncle Dap pays a visit to the castle. Dap's description is all medieval imagery, and White uses a complicated interplay of specificity and ambiguity:
The man on the other side of the moat was Uncle Dap. He was standing with Lancelot's old charger now two years older, and all his accustomed armour neatly stowed on the saddle, as if for a kit inspection. Everything was correctly folded and strapped in the proper military place. The habergeon was rolled in a tight bundle. The helm, pauldrons, and vambraces were polished [...]. There was a smell of saddle soap, mixed with the unmistakable, personal smell of armour—as individual a smell as that which you get in the professional's shop on a golf course, and, to a knight, as exciting.
The first part of this portrait of Dap, which describes his armor and other accoutrements, is meticulously specific. The narrator notes every last item that Dap has and how neatly it is organized. But this specificity comes at the cost of legibility. Most readers likely are not familiar with a "habergeon" (a chainmail vest), a "pauldron" (shoulder armor), or a "vambrace" (wrist guard). Nor would they know what a medieval "kit inspection" tends to look like. This is a common trope in fantasy and other genres that rely on world-building: the author overwhelms the reader with specific information on a particular topic, since that will create a sense that the entire world is as specifically and intentionally detailed. White makes his medieval England seem real and fleshed-out through this plenitude of specific, unfamiliar imagery of Dap's armor.
After, though, White describes Dap's smell, which has an entirely opposite effect. White understands that smell is important to make an image in text seem real. But the scent of a knight (like all the specific armor terms described above) is not familiar to readers in the 1950s or today. To combat this problem, White describes Dap's smell not by comparing it to something that smells similar but by comparing it to something that is simply as unique as the smell of the knight. White makes an argument here that imagery does not need to be specific. The reader does not need to know what the knight actually smelled like, but merely that it was unique to each knight and exciting. The reader can and will fill in their own scent that, to them, is "as individual" and "as exciting" as the smell of the knight, having never encountered a habergeon or pauldron.
Related Themes:
Book 3, Chapter 31
Explanation and Analysis—Faint Tail:
Near the end of the long series of quests for the Holy Grail in The Ill-Made Knight, things began to seem dire for the institution of knighthood in Camelot as a whole. None had succeeded in finding the Grail, and many died in the attempt:
The faint tail of knighthood straggled in by twos and threes, then one at a time, then with intervals of days between the solitary riders. The list of dead and missing, kept by Sir Bedivere, began to settle down in to a list of dead, as the missing either returned exhausted or were confirmed dead by reliable report.
"The faint tail of knighthood" is perhaps the most striking metaphor in the novel. "Knighthood" is immediately and evocatively characterized as an old, weak, plodding animal, dragging a small and dusty tail behind it. These last few knights, "straggling in by twos and threes," make up the "tail" of the entire history and custom of knighthood. Part of the power in this metaphor is that it implicitly claims that "knighthood" at large is one coherent concept. That assumption makes these last knights, as the tail of that long tradition of chivalry and valor, even more desolate and pitiful. This figurative description of these last woeful knights in the "faint tail" sets the stage for Lancelot's return at last with the Grail, which takes place not long after this passage.
Related Themes:
Book 4, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Red, Homicidal, Terrific:
At the beginning of The Candle in the Wind, the narrator describes Agravaine, son of Arthur. "The addition of years had not been kind to Agravaine," the book begins. He and Mordred, his half brother, talk together outside the Orkney palace at Camelot, surrounded by their hawks, including a jerfalcon:
When he spoke the hawks moved slightly, so that their bells gave a whisper of sound. The bells had been brought from the Indies, regardless of expense, and the pair worn by the jer were made of silver. [...] The moment they had dawned, he was a creature from Edgar Allan Poe. You hardly liked to look at him. They were red eyes, homicidal, terrific, seeming actually to give out light. They were like rubies filled with flame. He was called the Grand Duke.
White, in this characterization with deft imagery of Agravaine, sets the tone for the fourth book of his tetralogy. The Candle in the Wind has a grave tone than the other books in the series; The Once and Future King generally grows more dark as the story progresses from Arthur's youthful hope and innocence to the tragedy and infidelity throughout the series. This description of Agravaine, just at the beginning of the fourth book, sets the tone for a darker story.
First, there is the tension, like a villain in a horror movie, that follows Agravaine around. As he speaks, the expensive birds of prey shuffle just enough so that their bells tinkle ominously. This visual imagery draws the reader into Agravaine as a character of suspense and intrigue.
Then, we see Agravaine himself, described in a characteristic White anachronism as a "creature from Edgar Allan Poe." His eyes are terrifying, in White's short but effective simile, "like rubies filled with flame." Like many of White's images, he describes Agravaine by something he is not: "You hardly liked to look at him." Agravaine is everything the reader fears, staring out with red light. White's imagery both fears the reader over Agravaine's grotesque appearance and prepares the reader for the tone of The Candle in the Wind.
Book 4, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Rising Up Stilly:
In Chapter 7 of The Candle in the Wind, Guenever waits for Lancelot to come to her room. White describes Lancelot's room as an image of medieval splendor, but in a way that also speaks to her character:
The candle flames, rising up stilly on the night air, were reflected from the golden lioncels which studded the deep blue canopy of the bed. The combs and brushes sparkled with ornaments in cut paste. A large chest of polished latoun had saints and angels enamelled in the panels. The brocaded hangings beamed on the walls in soft folds—and, on the floor, a desperate and reprehensible luxury, there was a genuine carpet. It made people shy when they walked on it, since carpets were not originally intended for mere floors. Arthur used to walk round it.
Guenever's room is hung and ornamented with many beautiful features. The candlelight reflects of the "lioncels," heraldic lions embroidered into the canopy of the bed. The chest is made of "latoun," a middle English word for "latten," a shiny alloy similar to bronze. The "brocaded" hangings refer to a decorative technique for weaving silk that makes a raised pattern. White uses these esoteric references to medieval decoration to fill in the corners of the description of Guenever's room. The imagery that White uses to describe the room is rich and luscious, adding a bit of tactile and visual luxury to bring the reader in to the room. But White also adds these antiquated details to bring a sense of unfamiliarity and exotica to a room that is still hundreds of years old.
Explanation and Analysis—Full of Scent:
Lancelot and Guenever meet again at last, and "the commander in chief" asks if he may brush the queen's hair. White describes the moment with delicate imagery:
It is like ... I don't know what. Not like silk. It is more like pouring water, only there is something cloudy about it too. The clouds are made of water, aren't they? Is it a pale mist, or a winter sea, or a waterfall, or a hayrick in the frost? Yes, it is a hayrick, deep and soft and full of scent.
This imagery is highly specific, and the reader gets to read the process as Lancelot comes up with his description of the hair. Oddly, he eschews traditionally beautiful images for hair, like silk and running water. Then he runs through any other kind of water that the hair might represent: mist, the sea, a waterfall. This series of images of water have a distinct tactile effect. Lancelot seems to feel, running his hands through the queen's hair, like the hair moves like water. The reader is thus drawn further into the scene, feeling Guenever's hair, using the familiar feeling of these types of water.
Lancelot comes to rest on a "hayrick": indeed, a big pile of hay. This is not particularly attractive as a description of hair; few women would be thrilled to be told their hair is like a pile of wet hay. But Lancelot reveals his character through his imagery, because he finds a hayrick quite beautiful: "deep and soft and full of scent." This imagery serves to characterize Lancelot more than it does Guenever.
