the colour imagery in the poem
Answers
Explanation:
There are reasons for thinking that normal people differ in the extent to which they use colour imagery and in the degree to which they are attracted by colours of different parts of the spectrum. Painters show a great range of differences from individual to individual in their capacity to use contrasts and harmonies of colour in a creative way. There are also popular beliefs that our liking for different colours is affected by the temporary state of mood, dark and drab colours being preferred in times of relative depression. Furthermore it may well be the case that our habits of using colour imagery, our preferred range of colours, and even our actual abilities to handle problems of colour may show changes from childhood on to later ages.
Considerations of such a kind suggested an enquiry into the use of colour by poets, in the first place to discover whether there were material differences between individuals, and consistencies within individuals; in the second place to see whether any idiosyncrasies in the use of colour imagery could be related to other features of personality. What is here reported is a provisional report on the early stages of this enquiry. The method adopted consisted in reading a volume of the works of one of the poets, either from the beginning or, in the case of a voluminous writer such as Tennyson, from an arbitrarily chosen page. Every colour adjective or noun or even verbal form encountered from that page on was then noted, until a total of 100 colour references had been accumulated. In some cases a second sample was taken as a check on the first.