To first understand what conceit is in the context of analysing text; conceit is used as a formula of language that unlocks the meaning of a poem.
For example, as we discussed in class, in Spenser's sonnet "Fire and Ice" the conceit can be seen in the first line "my love is like to ice, and i to fire". The conceit here is that Spenser is using the opposing forces of ice and fire as a metaphor of his and his love's desire. If we break down the line and the metaphor we can see that when it comes to desire- the strong and passionate is generally related to heat and the colour red, so he is saying that his desire for this woman is like fire- strong and unyielding. On the opposite side he says that the woman is like ice, meaning she has no desire for him, because when someone expresses no interest or opposition that person is described as cold and distant.
When we look at poetry, or a text that use metaphors and other literary devices, we need to look at language itself and first think of what we know about language itself in order to deconstruct a text.
The simpler definition of conceit is that it is just an extended metaphor. A conceit can be introduced in the beginning of a sonnet and used throughout the rest of the poem. Going back to the "Fire and Ice" sonnet, that comparison of love and those elements start in the first line and run through the whole poem. All of the sonnets that are in the critical reader have some sort of metaphor or at least simile, so conceits are very common poetry and effective at projecting more meaning into something. As Kathleen Lea (1925) stated, "to conceive of a conceit the imagination must be in a partial state of excitement". With this we can think of metaphors as not only being another way of describing something but as an elevated view of that subject. There is still a problem with conceits because they can end up being "too gay to last, or too heavy to be born" (Lea, 1925), so conceits can easily fall flat and be lost by the reader, for which the author must stay conscious of.
As seen in Shakespeare's sonnet CXXX, he uses conceit in the opposite fashion: to express contrast of the subject. This is pulled off by continuing the conceit through the whole poem and only by the last line, we know its a false conceit; "As any she belied with false compare" (Shakespeare). Metaphors and conceits are very powerful in their ways of portraying a different meaning of something, and if we go back to Elizabethan era of poetry we can see these literary devices in their prime.
