Conceit (novel)

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Conceit
Conceit-paperback-cover.jpg
Cover of paperback
Author Mary Novik
Cover artist Pierre-Narcisse Guérin
C. S. Richardson (design)
Country Canada
Language English
Genre Novel
Publisher Doubleday Canada
Publication date
2007
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback) and e-book
Pages402
ISBN 978-0-385-66206-2
OCLC 192053178

Conceit is a novel by the Canadian author Mary Novik, published in 2007 by Doubleday Canada.

Contents

Set in 17th century London, Conceit is the story of Pegge Donne, [1] the daughter of the metaphysical poet John Donne, a contemporary of Shakespeare. Other fictional characters based on historical people [2] are Donne's wife Ann More, the diarist Samuel Pepys, the fisherman Izaak Walton and, appearing briefly, Christopher Wren. Both old and new St Paul's Cathedral (of which Donne was Dean, 1621-1631) and the Great Fire of London 1666 feature in the novel, which has been praised for bringing London vividly to life. [3] [4] The story is told from the point of view of several characters, including Pegge and her parents Ann and John Donne. Featured in the narrative are Donne's love poems, his Devotions, and his sermons—in particular, Death's Duel, a sermon the moribund Donne preached to Charles I. The novel also draws upon Izaak Walton's 1640 biography, more myth than history, The Life of Dr John Donne, leading Donne scholar Jeanne Shami to call Conceit a "great novel based on a poor one." [4]

After the clandestine marriage to Ann More that ruined his career, John Donne reportedly said, "John Donne. Ann Donne. Undone." [5] In Novik's novel, Pegge obsesses about their love affair. Piecing together the story she finds in her father's love poems, she identifies with her mother and invents a fiction about their lives. When her father tries to place his two sons in careers and arrange marriages for his five daughters, Pegge defies him, seeking a passion to equal his.

Title

The title of Novik's novel, Conceit, alludes to both the vanity of her fictionalized John Donne and the conceit, a literary device used by the metaphysical poets. The metaphysical conceit is a far-fetched comparison, as when Donne, in his poem "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", compares two separated lovers to a geometry compass with its legs roaming apart. [6] Several critics, including Edward O'Connor [1] and Gudrun Will, have pointed out that Novik's novel is itself a conceit, "in the best literary sense of the word". [7] The cover art is taken from Pierre-Narcisse Guérin's work, Jeune fille en buste .

Response

Conceit was chosen as a Book of the Year by both The Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire. Canada Reads named Conceit one of the Top 40 Essential Canadian Novels of the Decade.

Awards and nominations

YearAwardCategoryResultRef
2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize Longlisted
2008 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize Won

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Donne</span> English poet and cleric (1572–1631)

John Donne was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London (1621–1631). He is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His poetical works are noted for their metaphorical and sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs and satires. He is also known for his sermons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Izaak Walton</span> 17th-century English author and biographer

Izaak Walton was an English writer. Best known as the author of The Compleat Angler, he also wrote a number of short biographies including one of his friend John Donne. They have been collected under the title of Walton's Lives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Herbert</span> English poet, orator and Anglican priest (1593–1633)

George Herbert was an English poet, orator, and priest of the Church of England. His poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognised as "one of the foremost British devotional lyricists." He was born in Wales into an artistic and wealthy family and largely raised in England. He received a good education that led to his admission to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1609. He went there with the intention of becoming a priest, but he became the University's Public Orator and attracted the attention of King James I. He sat in the Parliament of England in 1624 and briefly in 1625.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metaphysical poets</span> Term used to describe a loose group of British lyric poets of the 17th century

The term Metaphysical poets was coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of 17th-century English poets whose work was characterised by the inventive use of conceits, and by a greater emphasis on the spoken rather than lyrical quality of their verse. These poets were not formally affiliated and few were highly regarded until 20th century attention established their importance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Carew</span> English poet

Thomas Carew was an English poet, among the 'Cavalier' group of Caroline poets.

Richard Crashaw was an English poet, teacher, High Church Anglican cleric and Roman Catholic convert, who was one of the major metaphysical poets in 17th-century English literature.

An extended metaphor, also known as a conceit or sustained metaphor, is the use of a single metaphor or analogy at length in a work of literature. It differs from a mere metaphor in its length, and in having more than one single point of contact between the object described and the comparison used to describe it. These implications are repeatedly emphasized, discovered, rediscovered, and progressed in new ways.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry King (poet)</span> English poet

Henry King was an English poet who served as Bishop of Chichester.

Western literature, also known as European literature, is the literature written in the context of Western culture in the languages of Europe, and is shaped by the periods in which they were conceived, with each period containing prominent western authors, poets, and pieces of literature.

Sir Herbert John Clifford Grierson, FBA was a Scottish literary scholar, editor, and literary critic.

<i>Holy Sonnets</i> Series of 19 poems by John Donne

The Holy Sonnets—also known as the Divine Meditations or Divine Sonnets—are a series of nineteen poems by the English poet John Donne (1572–1631). The sonnets were first published in 1633—two years after Donne's death. They are written predominantly in the style and form prescribed by Renaissance Italian poet Petrarch (1304–1374) in which the sonnet consisted of two quatrains and a sestet. However, several rhythmic and structural patterns as well as the inclusion of couplets are elements influenced by the sonnet form developed by English poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Canonization</span> Poem by John Donne

"The Canonization" is a poem by English metaphysical poet John Donne. First published in 1633, the poem is viewed as exemplifying Donne's wit and irony. It is addressed to one friend from another, but concerns itself with the complexities of romantic love: the speaker presents love as so all-consuming that lovers forgo other pursuits to spend time together. In this sense, love is asceticism, a major conceit in the poem. The poem's title serves a dual purpose: while the speaker argues that his love will canonise him into a kind of sainthood, the poem itself functions as a canonisation of the pair of lovers.

John Marriot and his son Richard Marriot were prominent London publishers and booksellers in the seventeenth century. For a portion of their careers, the 1645–57 period, they were partners in a family business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning</span> Poem by John Donne

"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" is a metaphysical poem by John Donne. Written in 1611 or 1612 for his wife Anne before he left on a trip to Continental Europe, "A Valediction" is a 36-line love poem that was first published in the 1633 collection Songs and Sonnets, two years after Donne's death. Based on the theme of two lovers about to part for an extended time, the poem is notable for its use of conceits and ingenious analogies to describe the couple's relationship; critics have thematically linked it to several of his other works, including "A Valediction: of my Name, in the Window", Meditation III from the Holy Sonnets and "A Valediction: of Weeping".

Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes is a prose work by the English metaphysical poet and cleric in the Church of England John Donne, published in 1624. It covers death, rebirth and the early modern concept of sickness as a visit from God, reflecting internal sinfulness. The Devotions were written in December 1623 as Donne recovered from a serious but unknown illness – believed to be relapsing fever or typhus. Having come close to death, he described the illness he had suffered from and his thoughts throughout his recovery with "near super-human speed and concentration". Registered by 9 January, and published soon after, the Devotions is one of only seven works attributed to Donne which were printed during his lifetime.

"Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed", originally spelled "To His Mistris Going to Bed", is a poem written by the metaphysical poet John Donne.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Mary Novik is a Canadian novelist.

John Donne the Younger (1604–1662) was an English clergyman and writer.

"The Flea" is an erotic metaphysical poem by John Donne (1572–1631). The exact date of its composition is unknown, but it is probable that Donne wrote this poem in the 1590s when he was a young law student at Lincoln's Inn, before he became a respected religious figure as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral. The poem uses the conceit of a flea, which has sucked blood from the male speaker and his female lover, to serve as an extended metaphor for the relationship between them. The speaker tries to convince a lady to sleep with him, arguing that if their blood mingling in the flea is innocent, then sexual mingling would also be innocent. His argument hinges on the belief that bodily fluids mix during sexual intercourse.

References

  1. 1 2 Edward O'Connor. "The Poet and His Headstrong Daughter", The Fiddlehead, No. 238 (Winter 2009), pp. 98-100
  2. Holly Faith Nelson. "Milton and Poetry, 1603-1660", The Year's Work in English Studies, Vol. 88, No. 1 (2009)
  3. Jim Bartley. "Mary Novik's Conceit: A Magnificent Novel of 17th-century London", The Globe and Mail, September 8, 2007, pp. D1, 8, 25
  4. 1 2 Jeanne Shami. Review of Conceit, Wascana Review, Vol. 41, Nos. 1 & 2 (2006), pp. 131-138
  5. Achsah Guibbory, editor. The Cambridge Companion to John Donne. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 10
  6. Peter Childs & Roger Fowler, editors. The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2006, p. 141
  7. Gudrun Will. "17th-century immersion: Donne & Daughter", Vancouver Review, No. 15 (Fall 2007), p. 25.