Definition of "artifice" []

• An artful or crafty expedient; a stratagem. See Synonyms at wile. (noun)
• Subtle but base deception; trickery. (noun)
• Cleverness or skill; ingenuity. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "But thinking through the poem's artifice is only one way into it, and on the poem's own terms it is not necessarily a better path than the one pointed to by the rhetorical question of the"
• "This declaration of artifice is to the point because it both invests in the power of representation and recognizes its limitations."
• "Maybe so, but I think there's also a sense in which readers of fantastic fiction become attuned to these irrationalities, such that when realist writers do introduce them as purportedly naturalistic events, the artifice is obvious."