Invention and imagination in sixteenth-century english literature

Abstract

This article discusses the all-important concepts of invention and imagination within the literary terminology of sixteenth-century England, viewing the former as a concept in transition associated with the rhetorical notion of ‘finding’ within a topical system as well as with ideas on the imagination, and connecting the latter with theories on the workings of the human mind. The conceptual discussion revolves around a selection of extracts taken from early modern dictionaries, works on rhetoric, and poetics, poems, and plays.