Entertainment / Literature / Willing Suspension Of Disbelief: Temporarily and willingly setting aside our beliefs about reality in order to enjoy the make-believe of a play, a poem, film, or a story. Perfectly intelligent readers can enjoy tall-tales about Pecos Bill roping a whirlwind, or vampires invading a small town in Maine, or frightening alternative histories in which Hitler wins World War II, without being 'gullible' or 'childish.' To do so, however, the audience members must set aside their sense of 'what's real' for the duration of the play, or the movie, or the book. Samuel Coleridge coined the English phrase in Chapter 14 of Biographia Literaria to describe the way a reader is implicitly 'asked' to set aside his notions of reality and accept the dramatic conventions of the theater and stage or other fictional work. Coleridge writes: . . . My endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith (quoted in Cuddon, page 1044).
Search Google for Willing Suspension Of Disbelief:
Suspension Verb Synonyms: debarring, disbarment, exclusion, elimination, rejection, expulsion, ejection, eviction, deprivation, denial
MORE
Willing Noun Synonyms: agreeable, acquiescent, compliant, amenable, consenting, assenting, passive, complaisant, docile, ready, well-disposed, happy, content, pleased, delighted, enthusiastic, avid, eager, zealous, game
MORE
Technology / Motorcycle / Plunger Suspension: In the 1930’s the “plunger” motorcycle frame suspension began to replace the rigid frames of earlier bikes. This was designed so the rear axle would move up and down two vertical posts to absorb MORE
Entertainment / Football / Playoffs: The post-season tournament that determines the NFL champion. MORE
Entertainment / Ice Hockey / Playoff Beard: A playoff beard is the superstitious practice of a national hockey league (nhl) player not shaving his beard during the stanley cup playoffs. MORE