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Shelley’s Imagery in His Poetry



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GONG Xiao-hui

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DOI:10.17265/1539-8080/2015.07.004

Southwest University, Chongqing, China

“Imagery” is a most frequently used poetic technique, which helps the poet to achieve desired poetic effect and to produce aesthetic pleasure. With no difference from other poets, Shelley’s imagery has both typical features of British Romantic poetry and unique characteristic of his own. His imagery can be divided into four groups, namely, nature imagery, Italian imagery, mentalistic imagery, and reflective imagery according to their respective features. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s nature imagery often combines description of the external world with expression of the inner world. He often displays the process of recreating or transforming the natural scene in his poems, thus allowing the reader to see the workings of their mind. His “Italian imagery” including the images of Italian land and architecture exerts much influence on Shelley’s poetry, which can be seen from his letters and poems. His “Mentalistic imagery” finds expression in preface to Prometheus Unbound, in which Shelley announces that the imagery which he has employed can be found in many instances to have been drawn from the operations of the human mind. His “Reflexive imagery” recurrent throughout Shelley’s poetry, draws much attention from literary critics. A close study of Shelley’s imagery is helpful for us to appreciate his poetry and to recognize the beauty of his poetic imagination and also necessary for us to evaluate this poet both as a man and as an artist.

Imagery, nature imagery, Italian imagery, mentalistic imagery, reflexive imagery