Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Before Imagination: Embodied Thought from Montaigne to Rousseau

Before Imagination: Embodied Thought from Montaigne to Rousseau

Lyons, John D.

Hardcover

Literary Criticism

ISBN10: 0804751102
ISBN13: 9780804751100
Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr
Published: Aug 12 2005
Pages: 304
Weight: 1.16
Height: 1.08 Width: 6.36 Depth: 9.26
Language: English

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.

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