ABSTRACT
From at least as early as Plato’s censure of dramatic poetry for the transformations it causes in the character of its reciter, theoretical conceptions of the imagination have contributed to speculation over our encounters with works of art (Halliwell, 2002, p.74–75). However, recent philosophy of mind and psychology have developed models of the imagination—as well as of kindred phenomena of pretense, make-believe, and simulation—that offer much greater explanatory power than provided by those earlier incarnations. These new approaches have come to be especially fruitful in elucidating the nature of our responses to literature.
