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Conceit Tactile

Metaphysics
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A conceit that appeals to the sense of touch, employing imagery of texture, temperature, sensation, or physical contact to embody metaphysical concepts or express spiritual states through bodily sensation. Touch becomes meaning.

Detailed Definition
Tactile conceits ground abstract metaphysical ideas in bodily experience, suggesting that spiritual truth can be felt as well as understood. Rather than appealing only to intellect or sight, these conceits engage readers' full embodied presence, implying that metaphysical understanding involves the whole person including body and senses.
Example
Example in poetry:
John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” uses tactile imagery of warmth and light; Emily Dickinson’s “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” uses the tactile sensation of drumming and numbness; George Herbert’s “The Flower” uses the tactile sense of blooming and withering; Sylvia Plath’s “Tulips” uses the tactile contrast of bandages and red petals; T.S. Eliot’s “Prufrock” uses the tactile image of arms “braceleted and white and bare”; Robert Frost’s “Birches” uses the tactile sensation of climbing and bending trees.
Additional Notes
Conceit Tactile grounds abstraction in touch—Donne’s “The Ecstasy” describes souls seeing through eyes but communicating through touch, using tactile conceit to affirm body as necessary medium for spirit.
Also Known As
Tactile Conceit Haptic Imagery Touch-Based Metaphor
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