Practice question · Multiple choice
Quevedo ends a sonnet with "polvo serán, mas polvo enamorado", they will be dust, but dust in love. What makes the line a conceit rather than an image?
Hints
- A conceit yokes together things that do not belong together.
- Dust is what remains when a body is gone; being in love requires a person.
Show the answer
D. Two incompatible ideas are forced into a single term that holds both
Why
Because "dust in love" forces two incompatible ideas into one term. Dust is what is left when the person is gone; love requires the person. The line does not compare, it fuses, and the whole argument about love surviving death is carried by a conjunction and an adjective.
Practise Poetic Traditions II: the Sonnet and the Golden Age
The app has 3 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Literature I is free to start.
More questions on Poetic Traditions II: the Sonnet and the Golden Age
- Shakespeare’s 1609 quarto collects the sonnets in one sequence. Estimate how many it contains.
- The English sonnet uses more distinct rhyme sounds than the Italian because English has fewer rhyming words…
- The Golden Age split between culteranismo and conceptismo divided poets over difficulty. If both styles…
- Complete the account of the Golden Age quarrel.
- Arrange the movements of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 in the order they occur.
- Which are true of the volta?
- The Italian sonnet’s turn at line 9 and the English sonnet’s turn at line 13 make available the same kinds of…