Conceit in English Literature

Conceit is now one of the most important literary figures used properly by the different writers. Especially the meta-physical poets immensely use conceits in their writings. It is an elaborate, extended, and striking comparison between two dissimilar things. It is such kind of comparison whose ingenuity is more important than its justness. It surprises its readers by its intellectual quality. The love poets of the sixteenth century employed conceits in their sonnets. However, conceit was particularly associated by the Metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century. These poets derived the elements of comparison from all sources of knowledge including philosophy, science, geography, and religion. Conceit is a fanciful image especially elaborated or startled with analogy. It can be used for various purposes such as glorifying, satiring, describing, making parody, and so on. For example, we see the satirized manner of such conceits, Shelly rather made parody by saying “Mistress” eyes are nothing like the sun, Choral is far more red than her lips red. In John Donne’s and Andrew Marvell’s poems, there are full of intellectual conceits. This conceits are extended or starling or dramatic between objects which are apparently dissimilar

Metaphysical conceit is the conceit on subjects which exist beyond the physical world. In other words, it is a type of conceit which deals with abstract or philosophical subjects. But in reality, conceit which has the following features is called metaphysical conceit:
a) Physical love leading to spiritual union or religious devotion as theme.
b) Argumentative presentation of emotion.
c) An analysis of the most delicate shade of psychological experience.
d) A fusion of emotion and intellect which is also called the unification of sensibilities.

In John Donne’s “The Good Morrow”, the speaker asks:
“Where can we find two better hemispheres


Without Sharp North, without declining West?”
The idea is that the lovers together make one world, each being a hemisphere. But unlike the real hemispheres, the lovers’ have no limitation- their love has no decay and destruction. Thus, this is an example of Metaphysical conceit.

Objective Correlative in English Literature

The sentence “He is Meer Zafar” evokes in the mind of readers a sense that “He” is a betrayer. It is because betrayal is associated with the name of Meer Zafar who betrayed Nawab Siraj-Ud-Daula in the historic “Fight of Polashi” in 1757 in Bangladesh. “Meer Zafar” is, here, an objective correlative for betrayal. So objective correlative is an image which suggests a particular emotion associated with it. The poet’s function is to find a dramatic situation that would externalize his own emotions and thus give them universal stature, which is best expressed by the term “Objective Correlative”. It means “a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion, such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.” According to G.S. Fraser, Objective Correlative of an emotion would be something actually there corresponding to our feelings that would arouse similar feelings in most constituted people. The responses of the poet should be responses of a defined situation, which may be complex. Here, the point, most noteworthy, is that the poet does not directly express emotion. So we can surmise that, “Objective Correlative”, a term used by T.S. Eliot in his critical essay “Hamlet and His Problems”, has now gained a tremendous critical currency and importance. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” demonstrates the view best. Waste Land is an objective correlative for spiritual death, rose is for love, and nightingale’s song is for suppressed agony.

Couplet/ Heroic Couplet in English Literature

A couplet consists of two lines of poetry next to each other. These lines rhyme together and usually have the same metre. A closed couplet is one which is grammatically complete and has a meaning complete within itself. Let’s take the following lines from Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock”.

“Favors to none, to all she smiles extends;

Oft she rejects, but never once offends.”

Here, the last word of the first line and the last word of the second line have similar sounds “ends”. These lines are iambic pentameter lines. However, the couplet may be in all forms of meter. However, heroic couplets are such kind of couplets of iambic pentameter which rhyme in pair such as: aa, bb, cc, and so on. For example:

“But when/ to mis/ chief mor/ tals bend/ their will

How soon/ they find/ fit ins/ truments/ of il:”

Each of these lines consists of five iambic feet. In other words, each line consists of five pair of syllables and in each pair the first syllable is unstressed and the second syllable is stressed. Such five feet arranged in a verse line are called iambic pentameter. When two such iambic pentameter lines end with similar sounds as in these lines, they are called heroic couplet. Pope and Dryden are masters of this.

The following lines from Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” are also a good example of couplet:

“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learned to dance.”

The Victorian Spirit/ Pre-Raphaelites in English

The Victorian age is named after Queen Victoria who reigned over England from 1837 to 1901. It should be noticed that though Queen Victoria came to power in 1837, the Victorian period began in 1832, five years before the accession of Queen Victoria, because the literary feature of the age became obvious after 1832.

The twelve years, from 1848 to 1860, of this age is called the Age of the Pre-Raphaelites because the artists of that time followed the art forms used before the period of Raphael, the Italian artist. D.G. Rossetti, W.H. Hunt, and J. Millais formed this group and later on Christine Rossetti, W. Morris, and A. Swinburne joined them. Originally, it was a movement for the painters but eventually these ideals took the shape of a literary movement. Medievalism, symbolism, sensuousness, truthfulness, and simplicity are the main features of the Pre-Raphaelites. The poetry of the Pre-Raphaelite school is marked with a spirit of revolt, love of the middle age, picture of beauty, love of the supernaturalism, love of the music and melody and so on. Theme of spiritual glory is one of the most important elements in the Pre-Raphaelites. Browning presents the spiritual perfection of art through his poetry whereas Rossetti is an important poet of sensuousness and pictorial reality.

The period from 1880 to 1901 is called the age of Aestheticism and Decadence because there was a fall and decay of the Victorian spirit and standard in those years. In reaction against the Victorian moral obsession it was held that art should have its end in itself which lies in its beauty and formal perfection. The major works of the Victorian Age/Spirit are Tennyson’s “In Memoriam”, Browning’s “Men and Women”, Charles Dickens’ “David Copperfield”, William Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair”, Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species”, and so on.

Renaissance Period in English Literature

Mohamad II, the Sultan of the Ottoman Turks and a crusader, defeated the Christians in 1453 and occupied Constantinople, the then capital of the Byzantine Empire and the centre of classical learning. After the defeat the Christian scholars fled to different parts of Europe where they spread their knowledge. Thus ancient learning started reviving. This revival of the classical knowledge is called Renaissance.

So Renaissance means rebirth or regeneration or revival. This Renaissance was meant for a revival of ancient classical mythology, literature, and culture as well as reawakening of the human mind. After the long sleep of the dark middle ages, the conception of Renaissance comes forth as a wonder. It was the glory and the beauty of the human body and the world of nature. It was, as if mankind, it were the human revival from a long sleep and looking at the glory of nature with astonishment. During this period the beauty of humanity, of women, of nature, of art and of literature was being perceived newly.

Actually Renaissance began in Italy as early as the fourteenth century with the words of Petrarch and others’. Its influence reached England with its vast importance as the last years of the fifteenth century and the opening years of the sixteenth. After this influence Father of English literature Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Kyd, Ben Jonson, and many other poets, writers, and scientists started to create their vast type of creation.