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Hyperbole
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 4, scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Lear's Replacement Crown:
The nail in the coffin of Lear’s madness is his recreation of his kingly crown in the weeds and plants available to him out on the heath, where he wanders in his banishment. In Act 4, Scene 4, Cordelia offers the audience a useful description of this replacement adornment, calling upon both visual and auditory imagery:
Alack, 'tis he. Why he was met even now
As mad as the vexed sea, singing aloud,
Crowned with rank fumier and furrow-weeds,
With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
in our sustaining corn.—A century send forth.
Search every acre in the high-grown field,
And bring him to our eye.
What can man's wisdom
In the restoring his bereavèd sense?
He that helps him take all my outward worth.
Related Themes:
Act 5, scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Lear's Howl:
Few playwrights craft tragedies as affecting and emotional as Shakespeare, and he employed this skill to its fullest extent in the haunting closing sequences of King Lear. In Act 5, Scene 3, as Lear himself confronts the body of his daughter Cordelia, Shakespeare treats the audience to a particularly devastating speech that makes use of auditory imagery:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones!
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so
That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone forever.
