Extended Metaphor, Utilized by Anne Bradstreet and Robert Frost

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The extended metaphors used by Anne Bradstreet and Robert Frost are inferred by continual metaphors within their poems. The poem “The Author to Her Book” by Bradstreet and Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” are comparable extended metaphors with similarities between the authors and the speakers. While Bradstreet viewed her works of art with flaws as a child, Frost used “diverged” roads to relate to choices in life. These poems share a similar idea that their themes deal with the lives’ of the speakers. In each poem the author and speaker are comparable through their extended metaphors, different styles of tone, and additional literary devices.
In the poems “The Author to Her Book” by Bradstreet and “The Road Not Taken” by Frost, the themes share a similarity of their speakers’ lives. While Bradstreet focused on the speaker’s writing, Frost based his poem on the speaker’s choices in life. The main focus of “The Author to Her Book” is the writing referred to as her “Book” in the title and the speaker as the “Author”. The narrator’s work of literature are compared to a child through several metaphors. Bradstreet began with “Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain”(Bradstreet) to show how the speaker compared the literature as her “offspring” that she gave “birth” or actually wrote and like a helpless child, stayed with her to be cared for. Therefore the speaker would continually review her writings flaws or “ill-formed” behavior. Anne Bradstreet focused her poem on writing literature through the speaker’s perspective of the countless imperfections. Robert Frost’s theme of “The Road Not Taken” is vaguely similar with the speaker’s life as the main focus. The speaker goes on with his life till h...

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...oices that approach in life for his extended metaphor throughout his poem. The lives’ of the speakers are evident in each poem whether there are faults or decidable opportunities for that speaker. Along with the continued use of the metaphors to create the extended metaphors, there were also several uses of personification and imagery. The speakers and authors had different yet comparable themes. As extended metaphors they shared slightly similar themes of life from Anne Bradstreet’s idea of flaws in writing during one's life and Robert Frost’s theme of deciding which path to take in life.

Works Cited

Citations
"Biography of Anne Bradstreet." PoemHunter.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. .
"Robert Frost." : The Poetry Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. .

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