An extended metaphor, also called a conceit or sustained metaphor, is a type of figurative language used in literature. It involves using one metaphor or comparison for a long time. Unlike a simple metaphor, an extended metaphor has more than one way the subject (called the tenor) and the comparison (called the vehicle) are connected. These connections are repeatedly highlighted and developed in new ways throughout the text.

History of meaning

During the Renaissance, the word conceit (related to the word concept) meant the main idea or theme of a literary work. Over time, it came to describe a long and exaggerated metaphor often found in Renaissance poetry. Later, in the 17th century, it referred to even more complex and elaborate metaphors used in poetry of that time.

The Renaissance conceit, which was especially important in Petrarch’s Il Canzoniere, is also called the Petrarchan conceit. This type of comparison uses a large metaphor to describe human experiences, such as comparing the beloved’s gaze to the sun melting snow. In poetry, later writers often used ideas from earlier poets. For example, Shakespeare used Petrarch’s imagery in his Sonnet 130, writing, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.”

In the 17th century, poets known as metaphysical poets expanded the use of elaborate metaphors. Their conceits differ from simple comparisons because the things being compared do not clearly match. Helen Gardner, who studied these poets, noted that a conceit is a comparison that feels clever even if it is not entirely accurate. She also said that a comparison becomes a conceit when it makes readers notice differences while still seeing some similarity.

Petrarchan

The Petrarchan conceit is a type of love poem where the person being loved is described using exaggeration. For example, the lover might be compared to a ship in a storm, and the beloved might be called "a cloud of dark disdain" or the sun.

The mixed feelings of lovesickness, such as pain and pleasure, are often shown using oxymoron, which pairs opposite words, like peace and war or burning and freezing. These images were new in Petrarch's sonnets, where he explored human emotions in creative ways. However, later poets used these same ideas so often that they became common and less special. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo uses overused Petrarchan comparisons when he describes his love for Rosaline as "bright smoke, cold fire, sick health."

In Sonnet 18, the speaker uses a long metaphor to compare his love to summer. Shakespeare also uses long metaphors in Romeo and Juliet, especially in the balcony scene, where Romeo compares Juliet to the sun.

Metaphysical conceit

The metaphysical comparison is often creative, focusing on certain aspects of an experience. A common example appears in John Donne's poem "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," where a couple separated from each other is compared to the legs of a compass. Unlike earlier comparisons, the metaphysical comparison is surprising and unusual. Robert H. Ray described it as a "long, imaginative, and unusual analogy." This analogy is developed over several lines, sometimes throughout the entire poem. Poet and critic Samuel Johnson did not like this style, criticizing its use of "unrelated images" and the "discovery of hidden similarities between things that seem different." His opinion, that the comparison was a method in which "different ideas are forced together," was widely accepted until the early 1900s, when poets like T. S. Eliot reassessed seventeenth-century English poetry. Well-known poets who used this type of comparison include John Donne, Andrew Marvell, and George Herbert.

Later examples

In the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot, an extended metaphor is used. This metaphor compares the fog to a cat. Qualities like color, rubbing, muzzling, licking, slipping, leaping, curling, and sleeping, which are often linked to cats, are used to describe the fog.

In James Joyce's novel Ulysses, an extended metaphor connects characters to those in the ancient Greek story The Odyssey. Leopold Bloom is compared to Odysseus, Stephen Dedalus to Telemachus, and Molly Bloom to Penelope. Other characters also share similarities, such as the one-eyed "Cyclops" figure that Bloom meets. This connection was based on an earlier text, but many readers at the time did not notice it until T. S. Eliot explained it in an essay.