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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).
John Donne's poetry represented a shift from classical forms to more personal poetry. Donne is noted for his poetic metre , which was structured with changing and jagged rhythms that closely resemble casual speech (it was for this that the more classical-minded Ben Jonson commented that "Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging").
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 is ten lines total, split into two stanzas of five lines. The poem deals with the theme of isolation, particularly the isolation of an individual soul in relation to the larger world. Whitman uses a central extended metaphor in which the spider in the poem represents the speaker's soul. [4]
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.
Achsah Guibbory highlights "A Valediction" as an example of both the fear of death that "haunts" Donne's love poetry and his celebration of sex as something sacred; the opening draws an analogy between the lovers' parting and death, while, later on, the poem frames sex in religious overtones, noting that if the lovers were "to tell the layetie ...
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] Metaphors can be implied and extended throughout pieces of literature.