Before Imagination

Embodied Thought from Montaigne to Rousseau

Bibliographic Data

ID9296447
AuthorsJohn Lyons (0000-0001-6224-7744, corresponding author), John D Lyons
Year2005
Publication date2005-08-12
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueBefore Imagination (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherStanford University Press (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1515/9780804767576
OpenAlexW4206933653
Open LibraryOL46596262M
ISBN9780804767576
LanguageEN
Citations received19

Before imagination became the transcendent and creative faculty promoted by the Romantics, it was for something quite different. Not reserved to a privileged few, imagination was instead considered a universal ability that each person could direct in practical ways. To imagine something meant to form in the mind a replica of a thing—its taste, its sound, and other physical attributes. At the end of the Renaissance, there was a movement to encourage individuals to develop their ability to imagine vividly. Within their private mental space, a space of embodied, sensual thought, they could meditate, pray, or philosophize. Gradually, confidence in the self-directed imagination fell out of favor and was replaced by the belief that the few—an elite of writers and teachers—should control the imagination of the many. This book seeks to understand what imagination meant in early modern Europe, particularly in early modern France, before the Romantic era gave the term its modern meaning. The author explores the themes surrounding early modern notions of imagination (including hostility to imagination) through the writings of such figures as Descartes, Montaigne, François de Sales, Pascal, the Marquise de Sévigné, Madame de Lafayette, and Fénelon

Aesthetics · Art · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Literature · Romance · French Literature and Criticism · Historical and Literary Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · 16th century · 17th century · 18th century · french · French literature · French literature, history and criticism · French Philosophy · History and criticism · Imagination (Philosophy) · Imagination in literature

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