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Conceit Extension

Metaphysics
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The sustained and elaborate development of a single metaphorical comparison throughout an entire poem or substantial passage, allowing exploration of multiple facets and implications of the base metaphor.

Detailed Definition
Extended conceits create coherence and intellectual satisfaction, developing the logical implications of opening comparisons with systematic thoroughness. This technique transforms initial metaphors into comprehensive philosophical arguments, where pursuing the metaphor's logic leads inevitably toward profound truths about love, divinity, or mortality.
Example
Example in poetry:
John Donne extends the compass conceit throughout “A Valediction” to explain lovers’ unity; Emily Dickinson extends the bird metaphor across “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”; George Herbert extends the flower metaphor in “The Flower” to cover spiritual death and rebirth; Sylvia Plath extends the Nazi-Jew metaphor throughout “Daddy”; T.S. Eliot extends the wasteland metaphor across multiple sections of “The Waste Land”; Robert Frost extends the road metaphor throughout “The Road Not Taken.”
Additional Notes
Conceit Extension develops a single metaphor through multiple stanzas or variations—Donne’s compass conceit in “A Valediction” elaborates geometric properties (fixity, circularity) to prove love’s resilience, showing how extension deepens philosophical argument.
Also Known As
Extended Conceit Prolonged Metaphor Sustained Analogy
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