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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
Explanation and Analysis—Ghostly Asia:
Towards the end of Act 1, Panthea describes Asia's place of exile to Prometheus, utilizing a variety of language to portray her as a ghostly figure. Shelley utilizes natural imagery to this effect:
Deeply in truth; but the Eastern star looks white,
And Asia waits in that far Indian vale
The scene of her sad exile—rugged once
And desolate and frozen like this ravine;
But now invested with fair flowers and herbs,
And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow
Among the woods and waters, from the ether
Of her transforming presence—which would fade
If it were mingled not with thine.
She lives in a vale that is "haunted" by "sweet airs and sounds" of her presence; and she, like those sounds, is comprised of an intangible ether. She, like a ghost, seems to fade away, stuck between reality and a realm of spirits. This ephemerality is tied to the imprisonment of her husband, whom she languishes without.
Shelley uses nature to drive this point home, situating this scene at the transition point between winter and spring. Asia’s place of exile was once “rugged” and “frozen,” but now teems with life and “fair flowers and herbs.” While she once was a wraith of sorts, forced to wander in her place of exile, away from her husband, a new morning dawns—one that might see Prometheus freed. Thus Asia begins to transition from a wintry, ghost-like state to something more tangible.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—A New Beginning:
At the beginning of Act 2, Scene 1, Asia personifies spring, addressing it as a "child of many winds." The description of the joy of Spring that follows is intended as a form of imagery, paralleling her emotional state:
O Spring!
O child of many winds! As suddenly
Thou comest as the memory of a dream,
Which now is sad because it hath been sweet;
Like genius, or like joy which riseth up
As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds
The desert of our life …
This is the season, this the day, the hour;
At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine …
Too long desired, too long delaying, come!
While Asia had once lost hope, now she believes a new beginning is on the horizon—one that ends with her reuniting with her husband.
The concept of Spring as a new beginning emerges as a motif, representing hope throughout the poem. Take this comment in Act 1 from Panthea, who remarks on the uplifting voices sent to aid Prometheus:
Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather,
Like flocks of clouds in spring’s delightful weather,
Thronging in the blue air!
The troop of spirits and spring both represent the happy prospect of Prometheus's freedom, and perhaps a new beginning for humanity.
Related Themes:
Act 2, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—A New Beginning:
At the beginning of Act 2, Scene 1, Asia personifies spring, addressing it as a "child of many winds." The description of the joy of Spring that follows is intended as a form of imagery, paralleling her emotional state:
O Spring!
O child of many winds! As suddenly
Thou comest as the memory of a dream,
Which now is sad because it hath been sweet;
Like genius, or like joy which riseth up
As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds
The desert of our life …
This is the season, this the day, the hour;
At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine …
Too long desired, too long delaying, come!
While Asia had once lost hope, now she believes a new beginning is on the horizon—one that ends with her reuniting with her husband.
The concept of Spring as a new beginning emerges as a motif, representing hope throughout the poem. Take this comment in Act 1 from Panthea, who remarks on the uplifting voices sent to aid Prometheus:
Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather,
Like flocks of clouds in spring’s delightful weather,
Thronging in the blue air!
The troop of spirits and spring both represent the happy prospect of Prometheus's freedom, and perhaps a new beginning for humanity.
Related Themes:
Act 2, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Young Men:
In the following scene from Act 2, Scene 3, Panthea describes the entrance into the Demogorgon's realm to Asia. According to Panthea, the entrance is surrounded by an "oracular vapor," which, as the name suggests, might contain something about the truth of the world or the future. Using metaphor and imagery, Shelley describes the many "young men" who seek these truths:
Hither the sound has borne us—to the realm
Of Demogorgon, and the mighty portal,
Like a volcano’s meteor-breathing chasm,
Whence the oracular vapour is hurled up
Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth,
And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy,
That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain
To deep intoxication; and uplift,
Like Maenads who cry loud, Evoe! Evoe!
The voice which is contagion to the world.
In this passage, the "lonely men" drink "oracular" vapors that are likened, through metaphor, to the concepts of "truth, virtue, love, genius, [and] joy." The image of these men wandering parallels the image of learned men from the Romantic period, striving to achieve these laudable things but facing the limitations and darkness of the world around them. These Romantic young intellectuals wish to know the future, but become "lonely" in their pursuit of knowledge—a loneliness that causes them to spurn the hedonistic, everyday pleasures of the world of the living.
Related Themes:
