ABSTRACT
Cartesian dualism revolutionized not only man's perception of himself in the world, but it also placed an unprecedented emphasis on an individual's subjectivity in approaching the natural world. This chapter establishes the basic terms of the socio-historical and medical-scientific discussions about the imagination that occurred before romanticism's fascination with its potential for genius and inspired creativity. It clarifies what some early modern physicians thought were the imagination's most important operations and suggests how many of these operations related to a popular construction of knowledge on the imagination that later appears in the content of early novels. The chapter argues that the medical investigation of the imagination raised issues that related to the role of the author's creative prowess in making a novel. It examines how physicians characterized the imagination's functional operations.
