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Difficulty: MediumExtended Metaphors and Conceits

Read the following seventeenth-century poem, "Huswifery" by Edward Taylor, carefully before choosing your answer:

Make me, O Lord, thy Spining Wheele compleate.
Thy Holy Worde my Distaff make for mee.
Make mine Affections thy Swift Flyers neere
And make my Soule thy holy Spoole to bee.
My Conversation make to be thy Reele
And yarn thereon spun of thy Wheele decaye.

Make me thy Loome then, knit therein this Twine:
And make thy Holy Spirit, Lord, winde quills:
Then weave the Web thyselfe. The yarn is fine.
Thine Ordinances make my Fulling Mills.
Then dy the Same in Heavenly Colours Choice,
All pinkt with Varnisht Flowers of Paradise.

In the poem, how does the speaker's extended metaphor of transforming raw fiber into finished cloth develop the poem's thematic argument?

  1. It illustrates the speaker's desire for complete spiritual transformation, framing the process of salvation as one entirely crafted and controlled by divine intervention.Answer
  2. B
    It describes the poet’s personal exhaustion with the daily chores of colonial life, expressing a desire to escape manual labor through writing.
  3. C
    It realistically details the domestic environment of a seventeenth-century home to emphasize the material hardships faced by early American settlers.
  4. D
    It catalogues early industrial machines, such as the distaff and the fulling mill, to showcase the speaker’s technical knowledge of textile production.
  5. E
    It suggests that spiritual devotion is fragmented into distinct, unconnected tasks, comparing speech to a reel and the soul to a spool.

Answer

The correct option is the one stating that the extended metaphor illustrates the speaker's desire for complete spiritual transformation, framing the process of salvation as one entirely crafted and controlled by divine intervention.
The correct option is correct because the conceit tracks the step-by-step production of fabric—from spinning raw fiber into yarn, to weaving it on a loom, to finishing and dyeing the cloth—to represent the speaker's total submission to God's grace. Each step of the process is performed by God (making the speaker His instrument), symbolizing that spiritual transformation is a unified process controlled entirely by the divine.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the literal elements of the extended metaphor in the poem.
The poem uses tools of fabric production (spinning wheel, distaff, flyers, spool, reel, loom, fulling mills) to represent the creation of cloth.
Understanding the literal details is the first step in decoding the vehicle of the conceit.
2
Connect the literal elements to their spiritual equivalents (the tenor).
The speaker asks God to perform the actions of spinning, weaving, and dyeing, using the speaker's affections, soul, conversation, and intellect as the raw materials.
This establishes the relationship between the mechanical process and the spiritual transformation.
3
Synthesize the overall thematic argument of the conceit.
By rendering the speaker as a passive instrument (the wheel, the loom) and God as the active creator (the spinner, the weaver), the conceit argues that true spiritual sanctification requires complete submission to divine will.
This connects the development of the conceit directly to the poem's primary theme.

Key Concept

An extended metaphor or conceit is a complex, far-reaching comparison that spans a large portion of or an entire poem. In Metaphysical poetry, conceits often link highly spiritual or abstract ideas with domestic, scientific, or mechanical processes, requiring readers to map multiple components of the vehicle to the tenor to understand the poem's thematic argument.
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Topics

Extended Metaphors and Conceits

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