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conceit
(redirected from Literary conceit)

   Also found in: Encyclopedia, Wikipedia 0.01 sec.

conceit

In literature, an elaborate and, sometimes, far-fetched image, which extends a metaphor into as many layers of meaning as it will bear.

Conceits thrive on relating apparently impossible objects or emotions. Shakespeare's Richard II attempts to compare his prison cell with the world. John Donne compares an icy garden to his frozen feelings after a separation from his lover.

Conceit also refers to an artistic device which has become so widely used it is conventional; using blurred or out-of-focus filming techniques to denote a memory sequence is a conceit; referring to a pool of water as a mirror can be traced through literature back to Greek mythology, and is known as a literary conceit.


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``A Love Song for Bobby Long'' seems more like a literary conceit than something that feels organic, despite its gritty Southern ambience.
His columns depend on the literary conceit that the Bush team listens to him and needs his advice on how to get pragmatic now that a bad idea has gone to hell.
Structurally, Watson sets time spinning-lunging forward here and two-stepping backward there-but such fragmentation does not come across merely as a literary conceit.
 
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