Imagination in Ancient Aesthetics

Anne Sheppard (Royal Holloway University of London)

Session chair: Fiona Leigh (UCL)

ABSTRACT

Imagination in Ancient Aesthetics

I shall consider two contrasting ways in which the concept of imagination (phantasia in Greek) is used in ancient aesthetics.  My contrast is to some extent derived from modern uses of the concept and comparison with those uses is, I believe, instructive.  

A.   Imagination as visualisation.
In On the Sublime 15.1, Longinus connects imagination with visualisation by the writer and the recreation of such visualisation in the audience.  This way of talking about visualisation is very common in classical literary criticism and is closely linked to the concept of vividness (enargeia in Greek) and to discussions of literary and artistic realism.  Ancient critics describe the effects of such visualisation primarily in terms of emotion, as we can see both from Longinus and from some examples of the use of the terms phantasia and enargeia to comment on literature and art, in particular a passage from Plutarch, On the Fame of the Athenians, commenting on Thucydides.  While the connections between visualisation, vividness and realism can be found in some modern discussions of imagination, particularly in literary contexts, modern critics and philosophers tend to describe the benefits of this use of ‘imagination’ in terms of understanding rather than emotion.   

B.    Imagination as capable of reaching beyond our everyday experience.
It is often said that the notion of ‘creative imagination’ is a legacy of the Romantic Movement.  Philosophically, Kant’s discussion of imagination in the Critique of Judgement has been fundamental to much later thinking about art’s power to conjure up an image that points beyond itself.  This use of ‘imagination’ is connected with  allegory and symbolism in art, not with realism. The beginnings of these ideas in both ancient and medieval thought have been traced by a number of scholars.  I accept the standard view that this use of ‘imagination’ is not common in ancient aesthetics.  The passage of Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana often appealed to as indicating the beginnings of such an idea is of interest, but less significant, in my view, than has sometimes been claimed.  A brief consideration of the meaning of  phantasia and its significance in the philosophies of both Plato and Aristotle makes clear why the notion of imagination as creative is so rare in ancient thought.  In the Platonic tradition artistic creativity is associated with inspiration rather than imagination.  However, there is a ‘minority view’, also ultimately derived from Plato, which puts imagination and inspiration together, often in connection with prophecy rather than the arts.  In Neoplatonism, Plotinus’ view that there are two ‘image-making powers’, developed in Ennead 4.3.30-31, opens the way to a more generous view of the imagination; this is developed to a limited extent by some of his successors, notably Iamblichus.  It is interesting to note that this development took place at a time when allegorical interpretation of poetry was flourishing and the writing of extended ‘deliberate allegory’ was just beginning.