Concretizing the Modernist Thinking: Imagery as a Linguistic Tool in Selected Works of Robert Frost and Wilfred Owen

Abstract

This paper is a comparative examination of the representation of modernist sensibilities through specific imagery types in some selected poems by Robert Frost and Wilfred Owen. Drawing on Suminto Sayuti’s insights on sensory imagery as the conceptual-analytical framework, the paper explores the types of imagery deployed by the poets as a linguistic tool and how this typology constructs and re-echoes the thematic preoccupations. Anchored in the modernist poetic tradition of imagism, the findings reveal four modernist sensibilities: (i) World War I trauma, (ii) death, (iii) solitude, and (iv) pastoral nature. These are concretized through the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic imagery in the poems. The paper argues that the sense-based imagery enables a concrete and economical mode of interpretation, facilitating readers’ cognitive engagement with abstract ideas. By foregrounding imagery as a core stylistic and interpretive device, this paper contributes to the existing scholarship on Frost and Owen’s poetry and extends the critical discussions of modernist poetic language.