Conceited Metaphors

As best I can recall, a word in today's title recalls an earlier subject: making up words.

"Conceit" is some kind of parallel formation from "deceit" -- as if a "conception" of something true is the opposite of a "deception" of something false. You can see the cracked logic right away, can't you? But logic rarely puts a word in the dictionary -- usage does.

And in the case of a so-called "metaphorical conceit," usage is often the problem. (I know I'm careening all over the place today, but ... well, it's that kind of a Monday! Windy, that is.)

Another earlier post pointed you, dear readers, to the sonnets of Shakespeare as models of English form. And we can return to him as the model for the metaphorical conceit. Basically, the idea is to take a single metaphor and then keep running with it to the end of the poem (or nearly there, anyway).

Let's say I compare metaphorically (no "like" or "as" -- remember?) my love's heart to a bird's wings beating. Then I compare her voice to a bird's chirping, then her touch to a feather's, etc.

And then maybe I can sum up with some idea of the fragility of love compared to a bird's fragile body, something like that. (Hey, maybe I've got something there ... !?)

The trick to a successful conceit goes back to what I've been saying all along: you've got to think it through first, apply some logic to its structure and some taste to its execution, and then set it aside for awhile before deciding on how well you did.

What prompted this is an effort by a columnist in a newspaper recently (I won't say which one) that made one of the worst attempts at a metaphorical conceit I've ever read (in prose, at least).

This writer seemed to think the very notion of a metaphorical conceit was somehow whimsical and kind of artificial -- but that didn't stop him (or her) from threading it through the first five or six paragraphs of the column. As if to say, "I'm so clever, but I don't need to take what I've done seriously!"

You do need to take it seriously, even if your tone is "tongue-in-cheek!" Because you're communicating, and that's never something to fool around with.

That goes double for those of us who write in the hardest form of creative writing there is. Even though we appear to do it for no practical reason at all.

Especially so -- because whatever value it possesses lives within what we've created.