An extended metaphor, also known as a conceit or sustained metaphor, is the use of a single metaphor or analogy at length in a work of literature. It differs from a mere metaphor in its length, and in having more than one single point of contact between the object described (the so-called tenor) and the comparison used to describe it (the vehicle). These implications are repeatedly emphasized, discovered, rediscovered, and progressed in new ways. Helen Gardner, in her study of the metaphysical poets, observed that "a conceit is a comparison whose ingenuity is more striking than its justness" and that "a comparison becomes a conceit when we are made to concede likeness while being strongly conscious of unlikeness."

The paradoxical pain and pleasure of lovesickness is often described using oxymoron, for instance uniting peace and war, burning and freezing, and so forth. But images which were novel in the sonnets of Petrarch, in his innovative exploration of human feelings, became clichés in the poetry of later imitators. Romeo uses hackneyed Petrarchan conceits when describing his love for Rosaline as "bright smoke, cold fire, sick health".

William Shakespeare

120px|thumbnail|right|Original printing of [[Sonnet 18]]

In Sonnet 18 the speaker offers an extended metaphor which compares his love to Summer. Shakespeare also makes use of extended metaphors in Romeo and Juliet, most notably in the balcony scene where Romeo offers an extended metaphor comparing Juliet to the sun.

:It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

:Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

:Who is already sick and pale with grief,

:That thou her maid art far more fair than she:

:Be not her maid, since she is envious;

:Her vestal livery is but sick and green

:And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

Metaphysical conceit

The metaphysical conceit is often imaginative, exploring specific parts of an experience. A frequently cited example is found in John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", in which a couple faced with absence from each other is likened to the legs of a compass. is often cited and held sway until the early twentieth century, when poets like T. S. Eliot re-evaluated the English poetry of the seventeenth century. Well-known poets employing this type of conceit include John Donne, Andrew Marvell, and George Herbert.

Qualities (grounds) that we associate with cats (vehicle), color, rubbing, muzzling, licking, slipping, leaping, curling, sleeping, are used to describe the fog (tenor).

See also

  • Allegory
  • Literary technique
  • Stylistic device

References

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