| Id no. | Verbal image (EN) | Verbal image + co-text (EN) | Verbal image (orig. if not EN) | Author | Text | Genre | Line(s) | Noted by | Full comment | Sense(s) elicited | Perception flag (PF) | Metaphor | Deixis | Foregrounding (position) | Foregrounding (devices) | Size (syllables) | Size (words) | Size (characters, no spaces) | No of lines | IMAG rate of Head (approximated) | IMAG rate of Head (precise) | Thematic core |
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Id no. | Verbal image (EN) | Verbal image + co-text (EN) | Verbal image (orig. if not EN) | Author | Text | Genre | Line(s) | Noted by | Full comment | Sense(s) elicited | Perception flag (PF) | Metaphor | Deixis | Foregrounding (position) | Foregrounding (devices) | Size (syllables) | Size (words) | Size (characters, no spaces) | No of lines | IMAG rate of Head (approximated) | IMAG rate of Head (precise) | Thematic core |
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| 001 | the banner at daybreak is flapping | In the upward air where their eyes turn, / Where [the banner at daybreak is flapping] | Whitman, Walt | Song of the Banner at Daybreak | Poetry | 7 | Pavese ([1930] 2020: 106) | I mean the figure of the banner that moves in the wind, incessant image which expresses, as can be seen, freedom, joy, other thoughts that rise on the world | visual; auditory | PF (eyes) | (the) | (title) | (repetition) | 9 | 6 | 29 | 1 | 6 | 5,969 | O2 | ||
| 002 | these faces in the crowd | The apparition of [these faces in the crowd]: / petals on a wet, black bough | Pound, Ezra | In a Station of the Metro | Poetry | 1 | Frye (1957: 123) | In Pound’s famous blackboard example of such a metaphor, the two-line poem “In a Station of the Metro”, the images of the faces in the crowd and the petals on the black bough are juxtaposed with no predicate of any kind connecting them. Predication belongs to assertion and descriptive meaning, not to the literal structure of poetry. | visual | PF (apparition) | FACES ARE PETALS | (these) | 5 | 5 | 20 | 1 | 6,4 | 6,414 | B1 | |||
| 003 | petals on a wet, black bough | The apparition of these faces in the crowd: / [petals on a wet, black bough] | Pound, Ezra | In a Station of the Metro | Poetry | 2 | Frye (1957: 123) | In Pound’s famous blackboard example of such a metaphor, the two-line poem “In a Station of the Metro”, the images of the faces in the crowd and the petals on the black bough are juxtaposed with no predicate of any kind connecting them. Predication belongs to assertion and descriptive meaning, not to the literal structure of poetry. | visual; haptic; olfactory | PF (apparition) | FACES ARE PETALS | 7 | 6 | 23 | 1 | 6,6 | 6,647 | L3 | ||||
| 004 | a pearl on forehead white | Come back again the outlines of our faces / So feeble, that [a pearl on forehead white] / Comes not less speedily unto our eyes | tornan d’i nostri visi le postille / debili sì, che [perla in bianca fronte] / non vien men forte a le nostre pupille | Alighieri, Dante | Paradise, Canto III | Poetry | 14 | Arnehim (1974: 79) | Whereas subdivision is one of the prerequisites of sight, similarity can make things invisible like a pearl on a white forehead - 'perla in bianca fronte' - to use Dante's image. | visual | PF (eyes) | FACES ARE PEARLS | 6 | 4 | 19 | 1 | 6,7 | 6,657 | B5 | |||
| 005 | [a boat with the yellow sail / that dyed yellow the sea underneath] | there passed [a boat with the yellow sail / that dyed yellow the sea underneath] | una barca con la vela gialla, / che di giallo tingeva il mare sotto | Saba, Umberto | In riva al mare | Poetry | 17-18 | Mengaldo (1978: xxviii) | To make just an example, I find very intriguing the similarity between the emblematic image of the 'boat with the yellow sail / that dyed yellow the sea underneath' [Saba], vehicle of the idea of death, and a similar figure in Erlebnis (1892) by Hofmannsthal | visual | SAIL IS BRUSH | (stanza-initial) | (repetition) | 21 | 13 | 53 | 2 | 6,8 | 6,823 | M4 | ||
| 006 | each rising step has little flutings like the stairs in a cathedral turret. When the fireworks rocket bursts it makes fantastic designs that look as if they have dropped back on to the building | Chambord has only one stairway, a double one, for coming down and going up without seeing each other: everything is arranged to serve the mysteries of war and love. The building blossoms out on each floor; [each rising step has little flutings like the stairs in a cathedral turret. When the fireworks rocket bursts it makes fantastic designs that look as if they have dropped back on to the building]: chimneys square or round, embellished with marble fetiches, like the dolls I saw pulled out of excavations in Athens. | les degrés s'élèvent accompagnés de petites cannelures comme des marches dans les tourelles d'une cathédrale. La fusée, en éclatant, forme des dessins fantastiques qui semblent avoir retombé sur l'édifice | Chateaubriand, Francois René | Vie de Rancé, Book II | Prose (Fiction) | Riffaterre (1981: 111) | On now to the images: one is the startling metaphor of architectural pyrotechnics-rising stairs become a rocket soaring to its zenith, exploding, falling back on to the roof, where the ornamentation preserves the fleeting fiery designs. | visual; auditory | PF (look as if; like) | BUILDING IS FIREWORK | 32 | 176 | 6,8 | 6,839 | H1-K1 | ||||||
| 007 | monks, rosary in hand, droning their psalms as the bee drones, coming home to the hive bearing booty. | des moines, le rosaire à la main, bourdonnant leurs psaumes comme l'abeille bourdonne en rentrant à la ruche avec son butin | de Lamártine, Alphonse | Harmonies poetiques et religieuses | Prose (Fiction) | Riffaterre (1981: 116) | Within this context the passage below, exemplifying the type of image I want to discuss, makes its appearance as a climax, a spiritual variant on the sensual-bliss paradigm leading up to it | visual; auditory | PF (comme = as) | MONKS ARE BEES | 22 | 103 | 6,9 | 6,933 | S2-L2 | |||||||
| 008 | a jewel hung in ghastly night | my soul’s imaginary sight / presents thy shadow to my sightless view, / which like [a jewel hung in ghastly night] / makes black night beauteous and her old face new | Shakespeare, William | Sonnet 27 | Poetry | 11 | Serpieri (1995: 442) | Behind this image there is the Elizabethan belief that certain precious stones could be seen in the dark because they emitted their own light | visual | PF (sightless view; like) | SHADOW IS JEWEL | 8 | 6 | 24 | 1 | 6,6 | 6,588 | B5 | ||||
| 009 | A Rainbow in the sky | My heart leaps up when I behold / [A Rainbow in the sky]: / So was it when my life began; / So is it now I am a Man | Wordsworth, William | My Heart Leaps Up | Poetry | 2 | Hiraga (2005: 118) | ‘A Rainbow in the sky’ is the only concrete image in the poem | visual | PF (behold) | (text-initial) | 7 | 5 | 16 | 1 | 6,9 | 6,857 | O4.3 | ||||
| 010 | Unrespited, unpitied, unrepreevd | for ever sunk / Under yon boyling Ocean, wrapt in Chains; / There to converse with everlasting groans, / [Unrespited, unpitied, unrepreevd] | Milton, John | Paradise Lost, Book II | Poetry | 185 | Twose (2008: 89) | In (9), line 185 can be viewed as an abbreviation of the structure unrespited and unpitied and unrepreevd. Each successive coordination further underlines the horror of the imagined future punishments awaiting the fallen angels should they rebel again. The string forms a single complex image consisting of three parts, semantically: the lack of relief, the lack of (offered) pity, the lack of forgiveness. | visual | (list of three; parallelism; negation) | 10 | 3 | 30 | 1 | E4-G2 |