Metaphors in Poetry

It is a commonplace of elementary-school studies that a metaphor is "a figure of speech, an implied analogy in which one thing is imaginatively compared to or identified with another, dissimilar thing" (Morner and Rausch 131). But as Morner and Rausch explain, metaphors are not necessarily isolated to specific comparisons. Rather, a metaphor may be extended, or "sustained throughout the work and function[] as a controlling image" (132). Although each of the poems under consideration in this research uses isolated metaphors, each also makes use of extended metaphor to achieve poetic effect.

Rausch and Morner cite as an example of an extended metaphor Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," which narrates the story of a carriage ride as an extended metaphor for "our journey through life--childhood, maturity, death" (132). The images encountered during the journey are organized around a meditation of and acquiescence in the inevitability of death. The figure of

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on the other. Equally, (human) life as life is deceptive because temporary--and oh, by the way, unattractive natural processes, such as maggot-eaten brains, are often manifest, not concealed, making life sometimes unattractive. Yes, spring will eventually die, and it will rise again as the cycle returns; thus it is "apparent that there is no death." But because only apparent, it signifies nothing. Human life has a terminal point and will not regenerate but instead will decay. Thus: "I know what I know" and "Life in itself / Is nothing." A bitter idea of the transitory, hence possibly meaningless experience of life is backed up by the selection of seasonal images that for the most part do not celebrate regeneration but point out sources of seasonal discomfort. Thus the leaves open "stickily," not gloriously or colorfully. The sun is "hot," not warming. The crocus has "spikes," not blooms. To be sure, the earth smells good, but "apparent" = not true; the earth is also the site of the graves "under ground," where human decay takes place. The statement that (human) life is nothing is backed up by two metaphors, one comparing it to an empty cup (a void), another comparing it to a flight of uncarpeted stairs (a hollow sound). The soun
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Millay's Spring, Stop Death, Connecticut Stevens's, XI IX, XII XIII, Wallace Stevens, Morner Rausch, Immortality Insight, , Rausch Morner, extended metaphor, human experience, human life, unattractive natural processes, blackbird stands, thirteen looking, looking blackbird, wallace stevens, flight uncarpeted, / beauty, edna st vincent, thirteen looking blackbird, dickinson's poem,
Approximate Word count = 1721
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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