Suspension of disbelief

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a philosopher and writer known for his influence on English literature, coined the turn-of-phrase and elaborated upon it.

Suspension of disbelief is the avoidance—often described as willing—of critical thinking and logic in understanding something that is unreal or impossible in reality, such as something in a work of speculative fiction, in order to believe it for the sake of enjoying its narrative.[1] Historically, the concept originates in the Greco-Roman principles of theatre, wherein the audience ignores the unreality of fiction to experience catharsis from the actions and experiences of characters.[2]

The phrase was coined and elaborated upon by the English poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his 1817 work Biographia Literaria: "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith".[3]

  1. ^ "suspend disbelief (phrase)". Oxford Dictionaries (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2018. OCLC 656668849. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018. Retrieved 29 July 2018.
  2. ^ Safire, William (7 October 2007). "William Safire - On Language". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  3. ^ "Suspension of disbelief". Oxford Reference. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 30 October 2023.