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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.
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.
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:
Unlock with LitCharts A+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.
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:
Unlock with LitCharts A+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.
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:
Unlock with LitCharts A+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.
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:
Unlock with LitCharts A+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.
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:
Unlock with LitCharts A+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.
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:
Unlock with LitCharts A+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.
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:
Unlock with LitCharts A+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.
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:
Unlock with LitCharts A+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.
