Trinity

Sensory Figures in Selected Poems February 27, 2009

One of the most prevalent types of figure in both “Blackberrying” and “Starry Night” was sensory description.  “Starry Night” was prefaced with a Vincent van Gogh quote, clearly linking the poem to the painting of the same name. This connection made it obvious why all of Sexton’s sensory description was visual imagery, because the poem was in many ways a textual representation of the visual abstraction of the painting and the author’s reaction to it.  In contrast, “Blackberrying” relates an actual event, and as a result Plath employs language of all five senses to fully express her experience through the medium of the written word.