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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.
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).
The poetry depends on extended, elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than speak. For example, the grand speeches in Titus Andronicus , in the view of some critics, often hold up the action, while the verse in The Two Gentlemen of Verona has been described as stilted.
As a characteristic of speech and writing, metaphors can serve the poetic imagination. This allows Sylvia Plath, in her poem "Cut", to compare the blood issuing from her cut thumb to the running of a million soldiers, "redcoats, every one"; and enabling Robert Frost, in "The Road Not Taken", to compare a life to a journey. [29] [30] [31]
An extended metaphor is a metaphor that is continued over multiple sentences. [21] [22] Example: "The sky steps out of her daywear/Slips into her shot-silk evening dress./An entourage of bats whirr and swing at her hem, ...She's tried on every item in her wardrobe." Dilys Rose [23] Onomatopoeia is a word designed to be an imitation of a sound. [24]
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 ...
The poem uses the conceit of a flea, which has sucked blood from the male speaker and his female lover, to serve as an extended metaphor for the relationship between them. The speaker tries to convince a lady to sleep with him, arguing that if their blood mingling in the flea is innocent, then sexual mingling would also be innocent.
Like allegorical stories, allegorical poetry has two meanings – a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. Some unique specimens of allegory can be found in the following works: Edmund Spenser – The Faerie Queene: The several knights in the poem actually stand for several virtues. [27]