Kinesthesia Examples

The word "kinesthetic" has to do with motion and physical movement. Kinesthesia is imagery in a text that describes or depicts movement. This imagery helps us to "see" the movement of persons or things in the text, and often creates a sense of movement in the text.

From "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold (describing the ebb and flow of the waves on the beach):

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

As their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

From "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth (describing the movement of the daffodils):

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

From A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (describing the movement of a carriage through the streets):

With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to asickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged.