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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
Act 1, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Bright Particular Star:
At the beginning of All’s Well That Ends Well, Helen reveals her sense of inadequacy; she feels she cannot win Bertram's love. She expresses this hopeless desire through a metaphor:
’Twere all one
That I should love a bright particular starAnd think to wed it, he is so above me
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—An Old Courtier:
In Act 1, Scene 1, Parolles uses two similes, and employs visual and tactile imagery to criticize the concept of virginity. He states, teasing Helen, that:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of
fashion, richly suited but unsuitable [...]And your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears: it looks ill, it eats dryly.
Related Themes:
Act 1, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Presumptuous Suit:
Tearfully confessing her love for Bertram to his mother the Countess, Helen employs a metaphor of water, and visual and tactile imagery. On her knees before the Countess, Helen pleads:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Be not offended, for it hurts not him
That he is loved of me. I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit,
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him,
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope,
Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love
And lack not to lose still.
Related Themes:
Act 4, Scene 5
Explanation and Analysis—Herbs and Salads:
In Act 4, Scene 5, Lafew and the Fool use metaphor, imagery, and allusion to discuss Helen’s remarkable qualities. The conversation goes as follows:
Unlock with LitCharts A+LAFEW: ’Twas a good lady, ’twas a good lady. We may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb.
FOOL: Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the salad, or rather the herb of grace.
LAFEW: They are not herbs, you knave. They are nose-herbs.
FOOL: I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir. I have not much skill in grass.
Related Themes:
Act 5, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis— Fortune's Butt'ring:
When the Fool encounters Parolles delivering a letter in Act 5, Shakespeare makes his distaste for Parolles’s stench apparent through the use of the sensory language of smell, personification, and idiom:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Truly, Fortune’s displeasure is but sluttish if it smell so strongly as thou speak’st of. I will henceforth eat no fish of Fortune’s butt’ring. Prithee, allow the wind.
Related Themes:
