Talk:Conceit

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[edit] Another example?

Because I do not comprehend.

[edit] Problem with this page

The following does not fit with my interpretation of what a conceit in cinema (or television) is:

a conceit is a device used in order to make a story more accessible to the audience. A simple example of this is the film Speed. In Speed, Sandra Bullock's character is a workaholic that cannot slow her life down. She is also stuck on a bus that she can not slow down (or it will explode). Since the audience, obviously, has never been in such a bus, the film-goers cannot directly sympathize with the protagonist (Bullock's character). The conceit, however, enables the audience to do so because most people have had a job, friend, lover or hobby that he or she has become obsessive or otherwise spent too much time on. As the audience has struggled with a too-fast life, so can they sympathize with a character stuck on a too-fast bus.

I always thought of a conceit as being one of the many unrealistic elements in films that the viewer just accepts when they go along for the ride and watch any movie. Examples include: victim in a horror movie never just phones the police or gets in a car and gets out of there but goes upstairs or into the basement to investigate an odd sound. A conceit in pantomime is that the hero never notices the villain creeping up behind him, even though the audience sees this. OK these are not the best examples but shouldn't the article be changed to better reflect what a conceit is. If someone could come up with some better examples that would be great too. MinorEdit July 4, 2005 22:16 (UTC)

That's what I've always tought a conceit to be, too. I don't think this article is correct. I'd change it myself were I able to articulate it well; I want to link to this article in another one, but with this inaccurate entry it won't make sense.

[edit] Article rewritten

The article as it stood on September 17, 2005 read like this:

In literary terms, a conceit describes a flaw of logic or reason in the story or premise that is willingly ignored by the audience in order to allow them to enjoy the story. One of the conceits of Superman comics, television programs and movies is that, despite Superman being disguised only by spectacles, different clothing and a slightly different hairstyle when in the guise of Clark Kent, characters such as Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen who have met both Kent and Superman do not notice the physical resemblance.

Though the term "conceit" is occasionally used to refer to something like this, it is not the principal literary meaning, and I have rewritten the article according to its usage in poetics. Feel free to make adjustments or to comment in this space. Chick Bowen 15:42, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about films, so I won't comment on that above. Others should to and vice versa. Talking plainly from the literature aspect, I do beleive the current is right.

Citing other refferences randomly from typing "conceit" on Google, here are two definitions from the first page:

1. Sources: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05.

  Retrieved from online atricle: http://www.bartleby.com/65/co/conceit.html
 

conceit : in literature, fanciful or unusual image in which apparently dissimilar things are shown to have a relationship. The Elizabethan poets were fond of Petrarchan conceits, which were conventional comparisons, imitated from the love songs of Petrarch, in which the beloved was compared to a flower, a garden, or the like. The device was also used by the metaphysical poets, who fashioned conceits that were witty, complex, intellectual, and often startling, e.g., John Donne’s comparison of two souls with two bullets in “The Dissolution.” Samuel Johnson disapproved of such strained metaphors, declaring that in the conceit “the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.” Such modern poets as Emily Dickinson and T. S. Eliot have used conceits.

2. Sources: Silva Rhetoricae, © 1996-2003, Gideon O. Burton, Brigham Young University

  Retrieved from online atricle: http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Figures/C/conceit.htm

conceit : An extended metaphor. Popular during the Renaissance and typical of John Donne or John Milton. Unlike allegory, which tends to have one-to-one correspondences, a conceit typically takes one subject and explores the metaphoric possibilities in the qualities associated with that subject.

I also noticed the concept of "conceit" have also been used in various fields, not just literature and films. Maybe it'll be better to define this word from different spheres of usage.