thumb|upright|[[Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a philosopher and poet 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. 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.
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".
Origin
The phrase first appeared in English poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, where he suggested that if an author could infuse a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a story with implausible elements, the reader would willingly suspend judgement concerning the implausibility of the narrative. Coleridge was interested in returning fantastic elements to poetry and developed the concept to support how a modern, enlightened audience would continue to enjoy such types of literature. Coleridge observed that his work, such as his contributions to the Lyrical Ballads, his collaboration with William Wordsworth, essentially involved attempting to explain supernatural characters and events in plausible terms so that implausible characters and events of the imagination can seem to be truthful and present a greater contrast between fiction and reality. Coleridge also referred to this concept as "poetic faith", citing the concept as a feeling analogous to the supernatural, which stimulates the mind's faculties regardless of the irrationality of what is being understood.
Coleridge recalled: