Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

IMAGERY

“Image” (from Lat. imago, “representation,” “likeness,” or “imitation,” as in “picture,” “apparition,” “vision,” “echo,” and “figure of speech”) designates the object or mental picture produced in artificial representation. “Imagery” commonly indicates both the object produced in the act of image-making (the image or mental picture itself represented), and the particular act of representation linked to the production of the image (e.g., the art of painting, sculpture, or poetic expression). Images are frequently identified according to the sense to which they appeal — though typically visual and auditory, and also organized according to the social, cultural, and discursive formations in which they are employed — artistic, literary, religious, psychological, political, and domestic, among others.

Prior to the 18th century, image and imagery were not normally applied to literature, but to things that were by definition pictorial — paintings or sculptures. Only in the 19th century, under the influence of Samuel Coleridge and his discussion of imagination — though also of course subsequently in psychoanalytic discourse and in various philosophies of language — do we see a direct association develop between the words image and imagery and metaphors and similes. The essence of imagination resides in its ability to create something apparently distinct by means of association and modification, thus lending itself to the associative powers of metaphor and simile. By the middle of the 19th century, therefore, the words image and imagery are regularly used as comprehensive synonyms for similes and metaphors. In literature and literary criticism especially, imagery comes to refer to all language that demonstrates graphic representation of a mental picture, with a general focus upon pictorial expressions and the figurative elements of metaphor and simile used to articulate abstractions.

The critical study of imagery generally seeks to demonstrate how patterns of images express a particular concept or abstraction. In psychoanalytic examination, e.g., the analyst will seek out a singular or continuous motif among various dream images in order to uncover the disturbances buried deep down in the unconscious (Freud) or collective unconscious (Jung). Similarly, the literary critic will engage a series of images in order to unveil the theme of a given literary work, as well as describe the imaginative world through which the text is produced. For example, the desperate and clashing images of a past and present River Thames in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land contribute to the thematic continuity of the text whereby Eliot paints a picture of the waste and decay of human morality between the two world wars.

Images abound in the biblical literature; and certainly the study of images, including the close reading of metaphors and similes, elicits a better understanding of the various themes and perceptions of the world contained in the specific writings of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. Understood according to the definition of likeness or copy, imagery manifests itself in the representation of the gods of the nations — the idol or graven image — as well as in the description of humanity created in the image of the gods. But more importantly, biblical texts witness to an abundance of images metaphorically employed to elucidate a particular understanding or perception of the divine and its relation to humanity. The messenger of the Lord appears to Moses “in a flame of fire out of a bush, . . . yet the bush was not consumed” (Exod. 3:2); this image or mental picture of divine manifestation clearly portrays the power and inviolability of the Hebrew God. Ezekiel’s vision of the Lord likewise employs images that communicate divine splendor and majesty: “Like the bow in a cloud on a rainy day, such was the appearance of the splendor all around” (Ezek. 1:28). In the Christian Scriptures also, such images as Mark’s descending dove or the Johannine “bread from heaven” serve as metaphors to illuminate the divinely sanctioned appearance and ministry of Jesus. Studies of imagery, especially as occur in the literary-critical approaches to the Bible, have become an important part of biblical studies.

Bibliography. S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, 8th rev. ed. (New York, 1965); N. Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, 1957); P. N. Furbank, Reflections on the Word “Image” (London, 1970); C. G. Jung, Dreams (Princeton, 1974); F. Kermode, The Romantic Image (New York, 1964); Kermode and R. Alter, eds., The Literary Guide to the Bible (Cambridge, 1987); M. S. Silk, Interaction in Poetic Imagery (London, 1974).

Michael L. Humphries

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

IMAGERY

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)