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conceit

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | Date: 2008

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.

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The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press

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conceit
The Oxford Pocket Thesaurus of Current English conceit • noun   1. the winner full of conceit synonyms : pride, arrogance, vanity, self-admiration ... boasting, swagger, vainglory.   2. exchanging clever conceits synonyms : witticism, quip, bon mot , pleasantry, epigram ... Read more
conceit
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology conceit †conception, thought; personal opinion XIV; fanciful opinion, etc., fancy XV; for self-conceit XVII. f. CONCEIVE on the analogy of the pairs deceive ... which the Eng. word was prob. designed to represent. Hence conceit vb. XVI. conceited XVI. f. vb. or sb.; see -ED 2 . Read more
conceit
The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English ... wind's singing is a prime romantic conceit. ∎  an artistic effect or device: the director's brilliant conceit was to film this tale in black and ... notion: he is alarmed by the widespread conceit that he spent most of the 1980s drunk ... Read more
self-conceit
The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English self-con·ceit • n. another term for self-congratulation . DERIVATIVES: self-con·ceit·ed adj. Read more
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The Oxford Pocket Thesaurus of Current English ... self-absorption, self-love, narcissism, vanity, conceit, pride, self-esteem, self-importance ... humbleness.   USAGE NOTES   conceit, egotism, narcissism, solipsism, vanity ... well-documented). There is nothing neutral about conceit , which carries strong connotations of ... Read more

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