The English take great pride in expressing anger through beautiful speeches that make the person to whom the anger is directed feel worse than if they had simply been yelled at. But we can also share the feeling by painting a picture or writing a poem about anger. These symbol systems tell us something about anger which merely talking about it cannot. Feelings and emotions only seem irrational because language does not help to make them conceivable. The natural form of language does not reflect the natural form of feeling.
Language only names very general kinds of inner experience.
It has an intricate dynamic pattern with possible combinations and new emergent phenomena. As Langer tells us, imagination is the oldest typically human mental trait- older even than what we call logical reasoning. As the common source for dreams and social acts of all kinds, imagination is still a very important part of how our minds work. But here is the really neat thing. Although imagination is what we need to create the arts, the arts also create the imagination, by giving us new things to think.