Imagery - Definition and Overview

Imagery--words that create a picture. Edgar Allan Poe was a master of imagery. In "The Fall of the House of Usher," for example, such pictures of a "black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling," create images in the mind of trepidation and gloom.

Such images can be created by using figures of speech such as similes, metaphors, personification, and assonance.