When explaining the word "image", the British Dictionary of Modern Review Terms also lamented: "This is a flexible and confusing term. Any sensible effect caused by literary language, any touching language, metaphor and symbol can be called image. When a concept is summed up as everything, it has no meaning. " The concept of "image" needs to be sorted out and standardized theoretically. The concept of image, widely used in literature and art, psychology, linguistics and other disciplines, mainly has four meanings:
(1) Psychological image, that is, the image in the psychological sense, is generally translated as "representation" in domestic psychological circles, which refers to various perceptual images formed on the basis of perception and presented in the mind. Psychological image is the basis of literary creation and valuable, but it is not a literary image, let alone a literary image.
(2) Inner image, that is, the advanced intentional design image conceived by human beings to achieve a certain purpose, is manifested as the inner image or inner image formed by artistic conception in literary creation.
(3) Generalized image is the general name of all artistic images or linguistic images appearing in literary works, which is basically equivalent to the concept of "artistic image" or "literary image", referred to as "image" for short.
(4) Conceptual images and advanced aesthetic images are "ideographic images" which are created under the guidance of some rational concepts and abstract thinking with the aim of expressing philosophical concepts, taking symbolism or absurdity as the basic characteristics, and have the characteristics of solving and polysemy, so as to reach the ideal state of human aesthetics. ③