Abstract

The discussion about imagination and fancy in XVIIIth century Spain was influ-enced by the national tradition as well as by other European countries. The termsfantasía, imaginación, imaginativaand caprichoand their various meanings in thedictionaries and literature of the Spanish Enlightenment are systematicallyanalysed. The term fancy, for example, can refer to an innate faculty of the soul or apersonal characteristic, to human creativity or to works of art. Other interesting aspects are the physiological explanations of fancy, the relationship between fancyand madness or melancholy, the theories of female fancy and the influence of thematernal imagination on the unborn child, and also the assumption that fancy canhave an epistemological function. Typical of the Spanish discussion is a higher ap-preciation of fancy as a creative faculty independent of reason and rules. Goya’sCapricho 43(›El sueno de la razón produce monstruos‹) is a famous example ofthis concept.