Describe the imagery in "Fern Hill".

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Dylan Thomas/Fern Hill/imagery

Describe the imagery in “Fern Hill”.

Dylan Thomas is one of the most accomplished modern poets in English literary domain. As an original poet of great power and beauty, he has shown his extra-ordinary creative power in his poems. His images were most carefully ordered in a patterned sequence and his major theme was the unity of all life, the continuing process of life and death and new life, which linked the generations to each other. He has presented us one of his remarkable and popular poems “Fern Hill” made by his exquisite artistic temperament through using several images. “Fern Hill” was the name of a farmhouse that belonged to the poet’s aunt Annie Zones. The poet used to pass his summer vacation there in his boyhood. His memory came back when he became an adult. The poet evokes his joys, mysteries, wonders of childhood in his poem “Fern Hill” through a series of image.

Dylan Thomas attached great importance to the use of imagery and an understanding of his imagery is essential for an understanding of his poetry. As he was a poet both of the sea and the woods, the sense and sights of the countryside, the various objects and phenomena of nature – are the most important sources of imagery in his poetry. Imagery of pain, diseases, decay and death as well as sexual imagery are also frequent.

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The poet’s golden and sunlit child was happy in the song filled house. The house was actually ugly but to the transforming vision of the boy, it seemed to be “lilting” sweet and pleasant. This is a synonymousthetic imagery. We use ‘the lilting’ in connection with the music. But the poet Dylan Thomas uses it as an epithet for an ugly house. In the third stanza of this poem, we find another example of synonymousthetic imagery. The poet says that “The tunes from the chimneys” – the sight of the columns of smoke coming out of the chimneys was ...

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