Is there a name for this phenomenon (concept? device?)?
I feel like there should be a TV tropes page at least.
Okay so I always thought of it as something like "the non-representation of great works" Well, what it IS is the power of suggestion, but I'm looking for something more specific than that.
What it is is when in a book/movie/whatever there's this important Thing- a painting or a song or a work of writing or something like that. Whatever this Thing is- it is fictional, it does not exist outside of the text. And while characters might talk about it, describe it, have it be important to the plot, the Thing itself is never actually represented. And in it's non-represenation that disbelief is suspended- so that the reader can let themselves believe the Thing is really as great as all that.
