the use of imagery in Shakespear`s plays

Understanding William Shakespeare 's Works

Through The Use Of Imagery

Table of Contents

Title Page .1

Imagery .3

Romeo and Juliet .4

Julius Caesar .5

Macbeth .6

Antony and Cleopatra .8

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Understanding William Shakespeare 's Works Through The Use Of Imagery

This author believes that the ability to understand and appreciate the true meaning of a literary piece hinges mainly on one 's skill to fill in the missing pieces and to connect the dots . Ways

to understand a piece may be done either internally or externally . To internally understand something requires separating the piece into fragments and building the same piece by combining these fragments and treating them like one big jigsaw puzzle . On the other hand , to externally analyze a piece necessitates the use of external factors which helped the author write his work . This includes the author 's background and the economic and political situations he faced during his time . Externally understanding a piece , however , can prove to be difficult especially when there is dearth of information about the writer or his time

Imagery

Thus , scholars have devised a means to internally comprehend works of art by understanding the author 's use of imagery . Imagery refers to the use of mental images evoked through figurative languages employed by the author which may be intentionally or unintentionally done (Webster 's New Encyclopedic Dictionary , def . 2 3 . These imageries can be any language i .e . figures of speech like similes , metaphors personification , etc . which appeals to the audience ' sense of sight touch , smell , hearing , and taste to help the latter create a picture in their heads ( Imagery ' Wikipedia , par . 1 . Likewise , imageries are like clues found in the language itself which helps one to understand not only the literary piece , but also the background of the author and the time the piece was written ( Spurgeon ' Wikipedia , par . 4

This , henceforth , centers on William Shakespeare 's use of imagery in several of his Tragedy plays - particularly , Romeo and Juliet Julius Caesar , Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra . It is necessary to emphasize however , that the use of recurrent images is prevalent in Shakespeare 's tragedies to raise , develop , sustain and repeat emotions from the audience (Spurgeon , n /a

Romeo and Juliet

The prevailing imageries in this play are light and fate . Spurgeon commented that the use of light dominated Romeo and Juliet as light is found in every form and manifestation possible i .e . the sun , moon stars , fire , lightning , the flash of gunpowder , and the reflected light of beauty and of love (50 ' Likewise , its opposite , is depicted visibly through the use of `night , darkness , clouds , rain , mist and smoke (ibid

For example in several portions of the play , Shakespeare uses light to show and impart to the audience Romeo 's feelings towards Juliet . Thus in Act I , Scene V , Lines 43-49 , Romeo likens Juliet 's beauty with the sun

O , she doth teach the torches to burn bright

It seems she hangs upon the...