ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on existing literature on figurative language, but it also breaks new ground in that it explores how and why images are invoked through the spoken and written word, and how they are deployed by both writer and reader to generate new meaning. It considers the classical notion of ut pictura poeisis and also explores the function of imagery in fugue. G. Bruns explores modern poetry and the idea of language, looking at the keystone role that poetic language has. Metaphor and simile has been the staple of much teaching of poetry, often to the extent of filleting the poem for such devices and then assuming the meaning and nature of the poem has been revealed. Imagery in poetry and poetics is a well-trodden field. This is the level of figurative language—of metaphor, symbol, simile and metonymy—that is, fundamental not only to poetry but also to some kinds of prose and to other kinds of written language.
