A PPTX for introducing imagery in high school ELA. This particular lesson is also an introduction to Transcendentalism. For a course called "Through the Len with American Literature." In this course, students alternated between writing traditional essays and creating photographs to address a prompt. PPTX require the presenters to be experts, as most slides are images only.

1. IMAGERY
Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be
only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image
will be much more powerful than he could ever be.
Marshall McLuhan

2. Imagery
◦ The use of vivid or figurative
language to represent objects,
actions, or ideas.
◦ The use of expressive or evocative
images in art, literature, or music.
◦ A group or body of related images,
as in a painting or poem.

3. Imagery
Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms:
● imagery, a rather vague critical term
covering those uses of language in a
literary work that evoke
sense‐impressions by literal or
figurative reference to perceptible
or ‘concrete’ objects, scenes, actions,
or states, as distinct from the
language of abstract argument or
exposition.

4. Sight

5. Sight

6. Sight as Imagery

7. Sight as imagery

8. Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms:
● The imagery of a literary work thus
comprises the set of images that it uses;
these need not be mental ‘pictures’,
but may appeal to senses other than
sight. The term has often been applied
particularly to the figurative language
used in a work, especially to its
metaphors and similes. Images
suggesting further meanings and
associations in ways that go beyond the
fairly simple identifications of metaphor
and simile are often called symbols.

9. Sound

10. Sound

11. Sound as Imagery

12. Taste

13. Taste as Imagery

14. Taste as Imagery

15. Taste as Imagery

16. Taste as Imagery

17. Taste as Imagery?

18. Touch

19. Touch as Imagery

20. Touch as Imagery

21. Touch as Imagery?

22. Touch?

23. Smell

24. Smell

25. Smell as Imagery

26. Smell as Imagery

27. Who were the masters
of Imagery?
Poets of all generations of course, and then came…

28. The Transcendentalists
Who?

29. Transcendentalists
● New Englanders mostly

30. Transcendentalists
● New Englanders mostly
● Love of nature

31. Transcendentalists
● New Englanders mostly
● Love of nature
● Rebelling against industrialism

32. Transcendentalists
● New Englanders mostly
● Love of nature
● Rebelling against industrialism
● Followed the Age of Enlightenment

33. Transcendentalists
● New Englanders mostly
● Love of nature
● Rebelling against industrialism
● Followed the Age of Enlightenment
● Well educated

34. Transcendentalists
● New Englanders mostly
● Love of nature
● Rebelling against industrialism
● Followed the Age of Enlightenment
● Well educated
● Well to do

35. Transcendentalists
● New Englanders mostly
● Love of nature
● Rebelling against industrialism
● Followed the Age of Enlightenment
● Well educated
● Well to do
● Looking for a “new” approach to religion
and spirituality

36. Transcendentalists
● New Englanders mostly
● Love of nature
● Rebelling against industrialism
● Followed the Age of Enlightenment
● Well educated
● Well to do
● Looking for a “new” approach to religion
and spirituality
● Just before the (un)Civil War

37. Transcendentalists
● New Englanders mostly
● Love of nature
● Rebelling against industrialism
● Followed the Age of Enlightenment
● Well educated
● Well to do
● Looking for a “new” approach to religion and
spirituality
● Just before the (un)Civil War
● Wanted to create a distinctively American
style of literature

38. Who were these guys?
Glad you asked

39. Whitman
Whitman never became
wealthy, but worked until his
death in 1892.
He cared for an invalid brother
and widowed mother.
Lived simply.
Believed in the power of man,
essential goodness, beauty
and truth. He believed
individuals deserved freedom
to express themselves
artistically because they are
part of God.
He was one of the first to
teach the divinity of man.

40. Whitman’s home
now then

41. Whitman sounds a little
crazy
Is there anyone else?

42. Ralph Waldo
Emerson
Lived 1803-1882
Most famous work: Nature, a
collection of essays published
anonymously at first.
Core Beliefs: individualism,
non-conformity, harmony
between man and nature
Proponent of abolition
Spoke out against cruelty to
Native Americans
Believed in a “God Immanent”
(God is in everything and
God is everything.)

44. Emerson
Emphasized the spiritual
“inner self.”
Studied a variety of
philosophers and spiritual
guides, including Confucius,
Plato, St. Augustine, Sir
Francis Bacon, and Samuel
Taylor Coleridge.
His work continues to
influence writers, artists,
philosophers, and
contemporary culture.

46. Walt Whitman
1819-1892
Self taught after becoming a
printer’s apprentice.
Teacher in a one room
schoolhouse from ages 17 to
24.
Became a journalist at 24
Used poetry to express his
philosophies.
In 1855 he published Leaves
of Grass, with 12 untitled
poems.

48. Whitman
Continued to refine, edit, and
add to the publication until
1882.
Worked in New Orleans in
1848 and became a key
abolitionist upon his return to
New York.
Worked with the wounded
during the (un)Civil War and
eventually worked for the
Department of the Interior.
He was fired when the
Secretary of the Interior
learned Whitman was the
author of Leaves of Grass.

53. Enough of Emerson
He’s everywhere!

54. Henry David Thoreau
You ain’t seen nothing yet.

55. Thoreau
1817-1862
Thoreau made nature
his religion.
“…one of his first
memories was of
staying awake at
night "looking through
the stars to see if I
could see God behind
them." One might say
he never stopped
looking into nature for
ultimate Truth.”

56. Thoreau
At 28, he decided to
leave civilization and
commune with
Nature.
He moved to a small
cabin on Walden Pond
(Massachusetts), on
land owned by Ralph
Waldo Emerson.
He lived off the land
(mostly) for over two
years, and wrote his
most famous work:
Walden; or Life in the
Woods.

57. Thoreau
His book didn’t sell at
first, so for nine years
he rewrote it while
working as a surveyor
and a pencil maker.
He became a lecturer
as well, speaking
mostly about his time
at Walden.
He also lectured
against slavery and
for civil disobediences
when the cause was
just.

58. Thoreau
He died of
tuberculosis at 44.
His work has never
been out of print, and
continues to be a
standard course of
study in disciplines far
outside the literary
world.

61. So now what do we do?
There must be a catch

62. HOMEWORK
● Read a selection from Whitman or Thoreau
● Write an explanation/analysis of the
written work
● Create the image using photographs and
photo manipulation
● Prepare a presentation for the class on
your literature and image

63. God will see that you do not want
society…