Iamb (imbus):
A metrical foot which consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. [see Foot]
For examples:
I wan/dered lone/ly as/ a cloud
That floats/ on high/ o'er vales/ and hills,
(Wordsworth: "Daffodils")
"Who hath/ not seen/ thee oft/ amid/thy store?"
(Keats: "To Autumn")
Image:
"Picture in words". It is a replica produced in the mind of the reader by sense perception. For example, the sentence, "The black cat is now in the dark room" reflects in our mind a picture of an animal which is not a dog or a tiger or a lion or any other animal but the small animal which is named as cat. We also understand that its colour is black. This picture of the black animal reflected in our mind is an image in this sentence.
Images appeal to human senses and the process deepens readers' understanding of literature.
Images may be classified according to the various senses which we use to perceive things: ocular images, auditory images, olfactory images, gustatory images, tactile images, kinaesthetic images and organic images. They are discussed below:
Ocular images that appeal to the sense of sight.
"Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house, as your pearl in your foul oyster."
(Shakespeare : As You Like It, Act V; Scene IV)
As we read these words we visualize the miser, a poor house and the pearl in oyster.
Auditory images involve the sense of hearing.
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bopm; Hedge crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
(Keats: "To Autumn")
The "wailful choir", the "loud bleat", the "whistles" and the "twitter" appeal to the sense of hearing of a person who identifies them by their respective sounds.
Olfactory images involve the sense of smelling.
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
(Shakespeare: Hamlet, Act I, Scene IV)
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies...
(Keats; "To Autumn")
The "rotten" thing and the "fume ofp oppies" appeal to our sense of Gustatory images appeal to the sense of taste.
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
(Keats: "To Autumn")
The fruit juice suggested in these lines appeals to the sense of taste.
Tactile images appeal to the sense of touch.
"O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,"
(Keats: "Ode to a Nightingale"'
The coldness of the wine appeals to our sense of touch. Words or phrases suggesting heat, coldness, etching etc. appeal to the sense of touch.
There are two other types of images which, though do not appeal to our senses, they appeal to our feelings:
Kinaesthetic images create sensation on nerves.
"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains"
(Keats: "Ode to a Nightingale")
The "aches" create sensation on human nerves.
Organic images create feelings of hunger, thirst, weariness, etc.
"I will drink /Life to the lees:" (Tennyson: "Ulysses")
Images may be literal. For instance, the 'fume of poppies", the twitter", the "loud bleat" etc. are literal since they exactly mean what they are. However, images may also be figurative. Similes, metaphors, symbols, metonymy, synecdoche, etc. are often used to create images. For example, "rotten" (see Olfactory images) end "drink" (see Organic images) are metaphors.
