Imagery

Imagery: Vivid sensory language that makes a scene felt through sight, sound, smell, taste or touch.

Imagery is how a writer hands the scene to the reader's senses rather than their intellect; strong imagery usually works several senses, not just sight.

Imagery examples

• "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness."

  — To Autumn, John Keats

• "The jar was round upon the ground / And tall and of a port in air."

  — Anecdote of the Jar, Wallace Stevens

• "The brine stung his split lip before he even saw the water."

  — original example

• "In Perfume, Patrick Süskind builds eighteenth-century Paris almost entirely out of described smells."

  — Perfume, Patrick Süskind

Want a full walkthrough? Read our long-form guide: Imagery examples, explained.

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