Abstract

The discussion about imagination and fancy in XVIIIth century Spain was influenced by the national tradition as well as by other European countries. The terms fantasía, imaginación, imaginativa and capricho and their various meanings in the dictionaries and literature of the Spanish Enlightenment are systematically analysed. The term fancy, for example, can refer to an innate faculty of the soul or a personal characteristic, to human creativity or to works of art. Other interesting aspects are the physiological explanations of fancy, the relationship between fancy and madness or melancholy, the theories of female fancy and the influence of the maternal imagination on the unborn child, and also the assumption that fancy can have an epistemological function. Typical of the Spanish discussion is a higher appreciation of fancy as a creative faculty independent of reason and rules. Goya's Capricho 43 is a famous example of this concept.