This document provides a glossary of traditional symbols found in Western literature, organized by subject. It lists common images used as symbols and their possible significance in areas such as the yearly cycle, daily cycle, directions, colors, weather, celestial bodies, numbers, topography, animal life, human environment/tools and fire. For each entry it provides a short description of the symbolic meaning or meanings associated with the image.
This document provides a glossary of traditional symbols found in Western literature, organized by subject. It lists common images used as symbols and their possible significance in areas such as the yearly cycle, daily cycle, directions, colors, weather, celestial bodies, numbers, topography, animal life, human environment/tools and fire. For each entry it provides a short description of the symbolic meaning or meanings associated with the image.
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a glossary of traditional symbols in western literature 2018
This document provides a glossary of traditional symbols found in Western literature, organized by subject. It lists common images used as symbols and their possible significance in areas such as the yearly cycle, daily cycle, directions, colors, weather, celestial bodies, numbers, topography, animal life, human environment/tools and fire. For each entry it provides a short description of the symbolic meaning or meanings associated with the image.
This document provides a glossary of traditional symbols found in Western literature, organized by subject. It lists common images used as symbols and their possible significance in areas such as the yearly cycle, daily cycle, directions, colors, weather, celestial bodies, numbers, topography, animal life, human environment/tools and fire. For each entry it provides a short description of the symbolic meaning or meanings associated with the image.
Glossary of Traditional Symbols in Western Literature
Subject Image Possible Areas of Significance
Spring Birth, youth, fertility, rejuvenation Summer Maturity, vigor, accomplishment Yearly Cycle Autumn Fruition, fulfillment, aging, preparation for death Winter Death, emptiness
Subject Image Possible Areas of Significance
Dawn Birth, enlightenment, deliverance from fear, new beginning Morning Youth, optimism Afternoon Maturity, vigor, accomplishment Daily Cycle Sunset Death, moral glory Twilight Death, departure, mystery Night Death, the unknown, frightening, desolate, erotic
Subject Image Possible Areas of Significance
Up Toward spiritual, intellectual, heaven Down Toward material, carnal, hell Direction East Toward one’s origin, beginnings South Toward sensuality, freedom from restraint, lush antiquity West Toward death, adventure, Manifest Destiny, expansion North Toward wilderness, purity, moral repressiveness
Subject Image Possible Areas of Significance
White Purity, innocence, spirituality, holiness, peace, hope, wisdom Black Sorrow, evil, death, depression, judgment, evaluation, law, loneliness Gray Mediocrity, sickliness, industrialization, aging Red Sexual passion, anger, healthy spontaneity, energy, life, blood, love, anger, bravery, strength, excitement Green Youth, vigor, the natural, harmony, balance, growth, nature, gentleness, reliability, calmness, Colors rebirth, jealousy, envy Yellow Sickliness, weakness, decay, fear Purple Royalty, riches, spirituality, magic, inner-awareness, reformation, purification, trust, faith Blue Coolness, calmness, idealism, truth, self-reliance, integrity, nobility, intellect Orange Physical vitality, pride, enthusiasm, ambition, mentality, endurance Brown Tradition, organization, solidarity, conventional ideas, earth, country, reliability Pink childish innocence, or a characters child-like personality.
Subject Image Possible Areas of Significance
Light Reason, knowledge Wind The power of Nature, inspiration, power Storm clouds The hostility of Nature Rain Transformation, restoration, baptism, cleansing, gloom, promise/covenant, fertility Weather Snow Cessation of life, transformation, purity Fog Uncertainty, mystery, obscurity Sky Freedom Water Quenching of thirst, death by drowning, purification, baptism Ice Rigidity, death, compulsive symmetry
Subject Image Possible Areas of Significance
Sun Reason, enlightenment, success, elemental energy, life Celestial Moon Mystery, the imagination Bodies Stars The immutable laws of the universe Comets and Unnaturalness, portents of disaster Meteors Subject Image Possible Areas of Significance 1 The Undivided Oneness of God / God the Father; the Godhead / denotes unity and commencement, especially of the creation. 2 the two natures of Christ; both the Divine and the material / denotes difference / also denotes division and this occurs in the sense of being double-minded etc. in speech 3 the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, the three Magi and their gifts / denotes completeness in the sense of three lines to a figure 4 The number of order in the universe is 4—the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water; the four seasons; the four points of the compass; the four phases of the Moon (new, half-moon waxing, full, half-moon waning) Numbers As the sum of two, a feminine number, and three, a masculine number, five is important in many 5 cultures. It is a symbol for man. On a figure of a man, a line joining head to out- stretched arms and legs forms a pentagram, and also there are five human senses. Muslims pray five times a day and there are five pillars of piety in Islam. 6 According to the Bible, God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Denotes the Human Number. Man was created on the sixth day /Six represents balance, love, health and also luck, as it is the winning throw at dice. 7 Seven is a sacred number, representing the union of divinity (number three) and earth (number four). Each of the four phases of the moon lasts seven days and there are seven days in the week. 9 Nine is the sacred number; three multiplied by itself to give eternity, completion, and fulfilment.
Subject Image Possible Areas of Significance
Spring (water) Mysterious source of energy or inspiration Earth Source of life, gross materiality Ocean The ungovernable, the infinite, the unfathomable Forest Natural chaos, evil, mystery, freedom, spontaneity Topography Mountain Obstacle, mystical illumination, purity Desert Sterility, impotence Running water Life, purity, fertility River Journey, fertility, voyage Cave Lust, history, protection, ignorance Cliff Crucial situation, inaccessibility
Home, house A family, an inhabitant, a mother’s body City, town Rationality, order, restraint, anonymity, human fulfillment Windows/Doors Freedom. Windows symbolize passage, where light, air, sounds, knowledge, objects etc., may pass through, coming and going. The soul has a window, the mind. Both symbolic entrances into new worlds Human’s Road / path The course of human life, journey, decisions, Environment Hearth Security, hospitality, warmth, family and Tools Knife Violence Candle Illumination, the “fire of life,” passion, brevity Ship Vehicle for transformation Theatrical stage The human condition, men’s “role playing,” actors on the stage as a metaphor for life. Consumes, warms, and illuminates, but can also bring pain and death; thus, its symbolic meaning varies FIRE wildly, depending upon the context of its use / Fire can also be seem as a force of purification
The Name Poimandrēs Author(s) : Ralph Marcus Source: Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Jan., 1949), Pp. 40-43 Published By: The University of Chicago Press Accessed: 08-02-2020 21:31 UTC