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"O Captain! My Captain!" is an extended metaphor poem written by Walt Whitman in 1865 about the death of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln. Well received upon publication, the poem was Whitman's first to be anthologized and the most popular during his lifetime.
Extended metaphor (aka sustained metaphor): the exploitation of a single metaphor or analogy at length through multiple linked tenors and vehicles throughout a poem. [5] Allegory: an extended metaphor in which the characters, places, and objects in a narrative carry figurative meaning. Often, the meaning of an allegory is religious, moral, or ...
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).
Scholars have noted that the form of the poem follows the content: the wavelike quality of the long-then-short lines parallels the narrative thread of the poem. The extended metaphor of "crossing the bar" represents travelling serenely and securely from life into death. The Pilot is a metaphor for God, whom the speaker hopes to meet face to face.
The poet Abraham Cowley, in whose biography Samuel Johnson first named and described Metaphysical poetry. The term Metaphysical poets was coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of 17th-century English poets whose work was characterised by the inventive use of conceits, and by a greater emphasis on the spoken rather than lyrical quality of their verse.
Freya Stark alludes to the poem in the title of "A Peak in Darien" (London, 1976). Vladimir Nabokov refers to the poem in his novel Pale Fire when the fictional poet John Shade mentions a newspaper headline that attributes a recent Boston Red Sox victory to "Chapman's Homer" (i.e. to a home run by a player named Chapman).
For most poets—even the plain-speaking Herbert—metaphor is the fundamental means of communicating complexity succinctly. Some metaphors become so widely used that they are widely recognised symbols and these can be identified by using a specialist dictionary. Allegorical verse uses an extended metaphor to provide the framework for the whole ...
Mlokhim-Bukh (Old Yiddish epic poem based on the Biblical Books of Kings) Book of Dede Korkut (Oghuz Turks) Le Morte d'Arthur (Middle English) Morgante (Italian) by Luigi Pulci (1485), with elements typical of the mock-heroic genre; The Wallace by Blind Harry (Scots chivalric poem) Troy Book by John Lydgate, about the Trojan war (Middle English)