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Emptying-out image

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

An image that conveys depletion, void, or surrender, often with mystical or existential overtones

Detailed Definition
Emptying-out image is a poetic figure depicting loss, absence, or evacuation—such as an empty room, drained vessel, or barren landscape—to convey emotional desolation, spiritual surrender, or existential void; this imagery often aligns with kenotic themes, using physical depletion as metaphor for inner transformation or the stripping away of ego.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Herbert’s “The Collar,” the speaker’s “raving” gives way to silent submission: “But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild / At every word, / Methought I heard one calling, Child!”; In “The Waste Land,” the typist’s empty room symbolizes spiritual depletion; Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo” ends with “You must change your life,” implying ego dissolution; In “Ode to a Nightingale,” Keats longs to “fade away into the forest dim,” emptying self into nature
Additional Notes
Emptying-out images depict depletion, silence, or surrender; common in mystical and postmodern poetry; avoid vagueness by anchoring in physical details (e.g., an empty cup, hollow tree); linked to kenosis and voluntary limitation
Also Known As
Void image hollow symbol depletion motif kenotic symbol Kenotic imagery
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