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Question

Difficulty: HardExtended Metaphors and Conceits

Since thou art gone, my heart is made a prism,
Through which thy single beam of love must pass;
No longer white, but split by sorrow's schism,
It scatters hues upon the darkened grass.
The red of anger, violet of despair,
And yellow hope that fades as soon as born,
Are flung in wild confusion through the air,
From that clear light that once did me adorn.
Yet though these varied passions paint the day,
They show but parts of what was whole before;
Oh, gather up thy scattered beams, I pray,
And make me white and single-souled once more.

In the poem, how does the development of the prism conceit throughout the poem convey the speaker's emotional trajectory?

  1. A
    It details the poet's personal interest in early modern optical science, reflecting a historical conflict between the writer's rational intellect and their emotional life.
  2. B
    It presents a series of separate, unrelated comparisons of individual colors to distinct emotions, failing to connect these individual hues back to the overarching concept of the prism's refraction.
  3. C
    It maintains a static tone of bitter resentment, showing that the speaker intends to remain permanently divided and colorful rather than ever returning to a state of unified love.
  4. It traces the speaker's journey from a state of unified, harmonious love to a fragmented and chaotic grief, concluding with a plea for emotional restoration and reunion.Answer
  5. E
    It employs a strict rhyme scheme, iambic pentameter, and personification to catalog the speaker's feelings, thereby proving that the poem contains traditional poetic devices.

Answer

It traces the speaker's journey from a state of unified, harmonious love to a fragmented and chaotic grief, concluding with a plea for emotional restoration and reunion.
The correct option accurately identifies the progression of the prism conceit, which mirrors the speaker's emotional movement from unified love to split grief, ending with a plea to reunite and restore wholeness.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the vehicle of the conceit (the prism) and its literal function (refracting white light into component colors).
The prism represents the speaker's heart after separation, and the refracted colors represent the division of unified love into chaotic emotions (anger, despair, fading hope).
This establishes the basic tenor-vehicle relationship of the extended metaphor.
2
Track the progression of the conceit from the octave (describing the split colors) to the sestet (evaluating their incompleteness).
The speaker recognizes that the varied passions are only fragments of a prior whole ('They show but parts of what was whole before').
This shows how the conceit develops the theme of emotional fragmentation.
3
Evaluate the resolution of the conceit in the final couplet.
The speaker pleads for the beloved to return, which would recombine the scattered colored rays back into the unified white light of single-souled love.
This connects the progression of the conceit directly to the poem's thematic resolution.

Key Concept

Analyzing how an extended metaphor or conceit develops a poem's central theme by tracing its progression and tenor-vehicle relationships.
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Topics

Extended Metaphors and Conceits

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