What Is a Metaphysical Conceit? | Definition & Examples

Metaphysical conceits strictly defined can be traced back to a group of seventeenth century poets in England. They include famous writers such as John Donne, Andrew Marvel, George Herbert, and Richard Crashaw, who explored topics relating to love, religion, and philosophy. These poets are varied in terms of the style and specific themes of poetry that they wrote about. 

However, one thing they had in common was the metaphysical conceit. Also, metaphysical conceits did not end with the so-called metaphysical poets. Emily Dickinson, an American poet who wrote in the nineteenth century frequently used metaphysical conceits, as well as certain modern poets. 

What exactly is a metaphysical conceit? Here is a definition of the term below: 

A metaphysical conceit is an elaborate and extended metaphor or analogy in poetry that compares things that are widely different from each other to reveal their paradoxical similarities. 

The most famous metaphysical poet was John Donne. He wrote about love, religion, and philosophy. Let’s look at an extract from one of his poems, namely, “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” (published in 1633):  

Our two souls therefore, which are one,

   Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

   Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so

   As stiff twin compasses are two;

Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show

   To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,

   Yet when the other far doth roam,

It leans and hearkens after it,

   And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

   Like th' other foot, obliquely run;

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

   And makes me end where I begun.

In the extract provided here, John Donne makes use of two conceits. The first is a brief one, and the second is longer and more elaborate. Before we elaborate, we must first give a background to the poem. The poem is describing two lovers saying goodbye to each other for a brief period of time. 

The first conceit is a single stanza and describes two lovers apart from each other as being part of a whole. The comparison being made is with “gold to airy thinness beat”. It is a compact analogy. The lovers together are a single nugget of gold; apart, they are gold stretched thin across a wider space or distance but still unified. 

The second conceit is much longer and elaborate. John Donne compares him and his beloved to the two hands in a seventeenth century compass (the drafting instrument). The idea is similar to the analogy spelled out in the comparison with the gold. For a drafting compass to work, one foot has to be fixed at the center of the paper, wood, or whatever material is being drawn upon.

The other foot has chalk, graphite, or other drawing material attached to it and is turned to make a circle. Donne compares his lover to the “fixed foot,” and it is implicit that he is “the other [that] far doth roam.” The analogy is completed in the last stanza by a summary that describes his lover’s faithfulness (or “firmness”) as the the operating mechanism of the analogy. 

This is achieved in the last two lines: “Thy firmness makes my circle just / And makes me end where I begun.” The poet is describing the compass being closed and the two feet being drawn together as he and his beloved reuniting after he returns from his trip.

Portrait of John Donne by Isaac Oliver.

1. John Donne and his ugly conceits

One of the main qualities of a conceit is its far-fetched nature. Metaphysical conceits are difficult to pull off. They typically involve comparing things that are vastly different from each other using frequently ugly comparisons in a shocking way.

A good example of this is John Donne's Sonnet 14. Donne, apart from writing love poems, was also a devout Roman Catholic and wrote several religious lyrics. The following poem, “Sonnet 14,”  is also called “Batter my heart, three-person’d God” (published in 1633). The main conceit established in the last six lines of the sonnet (or the sestet) can be described as bordering on the verge of the sacrilegious:  

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

The poem is written in the form of a traditional sonnet with iambic pentameter and fourteen lines. It is somewhat ironic. In the previous poem by John Donne — “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” —  the poet focuses on the theme of love and uses an analogy that one does not typically associate with love or romance: a compass. In fact, a compass is as unromantic as it gets and fits well with the tendency of conceits to be ugly and shocking. In “Sonnet 14,” he does the opposite. 

The theme is religious; however, the poet uses a poetic form one typically associates with love poetry, the sonnet. The poem describes his relationship with the “three-personed God” as a complicated love triangle between him, God, and the devil. Donne is describing the difficulty of the intellect coming to terms with religious or Christian concepts such as the Holy Trinity, the virgin birth of Christ, and faith in general. 

This is what he means when he says “Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend / But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.” Reason is useless in the face of these unscientific concepts. As a result, Donne is asking God to wrestle against his reason. In the process, his soul is compared first to a town under the control of the devil that God should put under siege.

The second metaphysical conceit is what is called a paradox. This means that on the surface, it makes no sense; however, when you look deeper into the idea, it reveals profound wisdom. Donne explains to God "I, / Except you enthrall me, never shall be free." Enthrall in this context means to be enslaved.

Here, John is describing remaining loyal to the commandments of God as necessary violence to protect man from sin and eternal damnation, which would be an even worse prison. In other words, it refers to the love triangle, where Donne’s soul is “betroth'd unto your enemy,” which would be Satan. Donne is asking to be physically ripped or ravished from the arms of the devil to be saved.  In short, he is asking to be sexually assaulted by God.

Here is another poem where the analogy is based on geography, like in "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning."

comparing his lover to a map or globe. The poem in question is "The Good-Morrow" (published in 1633):

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

Donne is describing his reflection in the eyes of his beloved (and vice versa) to two worlds (or "hemispheres") united in perfection. In fact, he says that it is superior to other worlds in that it has no "sharp north" or "declining west." Despite the unlikely and awkward comparison between a lover's face and a map or globe, the last three lines of the poem culminate in expressing the concept of eternal or immortal love in beautiful and poetic language.

2. Andrew Marvell: The Definition of Love

Another famous metaphysical poem is Andrew Marvell’s “The Definition of Love.” It is a poem about doomed love, that is, love that can never be consummated for whatever reason. It is much like Donne’s poem, where Geography is invoked. The extended metaphor at times gets as ugly as Donne’s, especially when it compares love to oblique and parallel lines.

Again, this is a typical conceit in that it makes a far-fetched and "ugly" comparison. Comparing you and your lover to two parallel lines drawn on a piece of paper is a rather unsexy metaphor. Here is an extract from the poem that focuses on the last two stanzas:

As lines, so loves oblique may well

Themselves in every angle greet;

But ours so truly parallel,

Though infinite, can never meet.

Therefore the love which us doth bind,

But Fate so enviously debars,

Is the conjunction of the mind,

And opposition of the stars.

In the first stanza from the extract, the love between the pair is compared to parallel lines that “though infinite, can never meet.” Marvell then expands the comparison to something cosmic, where the mutual love (or “the conjunction of the mind”) between the two is opposed by stars. In short, the two are literally star-crossed lovers.

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3. Emily Dickinson’s use of the metaphysical conceit

Metaphysical conceits did not end with the metaphysical poets. Emily Dickinson is well-known for her use of the literary device. A good example of this — and what may well be Dickinson’s most famous poem — is “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” (published in 1863): 

Because I could not stop for Death – 

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.

The above is the first stanza of the poem. It introduces a metaphor, which is extended throughout the six stanzas of the poem: comparing death to a gentlemanly coachman. The analogy is deftly used and stretched out. For example, in Stanza 3, the poet makes subtle reference to the various stages of human life and death: 

We passed the School, where Children strove

At Recess – in the Ring –

We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –

We passed the Setting Sun –

References to the school and children carries the subtext of childhood. The “Fields of Gazing Grain” suggest middle age or autumn of man’s years. Lastly, the setting sun likely represents the final stage or rather the process of dying. 

She then proceeds in the next stanza to compare the grave to a dwelling for the dead or a “House that seemed / A swelling of the ground” in the last stanza. In short, the entire poem is an analogy, where death the coachman drives the persona through the various stages of life and death onward to eternal life beyond the grave.

The second poem from Emily Dickinson is "Fame is a Fickle Food" (published in 1924):

Fame is a fickle food

Upon a shifting plate

Whose table once a

Guest but not

The second time is set.

Whose crumbs the crows inspect

And with ironic caw

Flap past it to the Farmer's Corn –

Men eat of it and die.

The metaphysical conceit here consists of an analogy between fame and food. It is a classical conceit in that it focuses on comparing two things that are widely different from each other. The point being made is that fame is something that cannot be relied upon (or fickle) and can even be poisonous. In the first stanza, the poet focuses on the unreliability of fame by comparing it to a meal to which a guest is invited once, never to be invited again. This is what is meant by "not / the second time is set."

The second stanza of the poem suggests that fame is poisonous. Dickinson portrays the crows in the stanza as having the intuition to know that the food of fame is unnatural and poisonous. Men, on the other hand, are portrayed as too naive or foolish to discern the danger in the last line. They eat the food of fame "and die."

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Cite this EminentEdit article

Antoine, M. (2025, August 10). What Is a Metaphysical Conceit? | Definition & Examples. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/metaphysical-conceit