German idealism’s inward turn elevated imagination and made the artist a prophetic seer

Evidence

If true reality is located in our consciousness, then this bestows a central importance on the imagination. Coleridge’s poetic practice famously begins from an appreciation of the importance of imagination, a vital force with the power to transform objects and transfigure the mundane. Even in its simpler form, the imagination is “a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM.” The result of this quasi-divine elevation of ego and imagination is that the Romantic artist becomes a prophetic genius, a seer for his community. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 88

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays down the philosophical roots of the Romantic artist-as-seer, the tradition of writerly authority that post-9/11 novelists tap into.
• XREF: This Romantic artist-as-prophet conception is the frame within which the reader’s two novels claim (or refuse) authority to speak on Islamophobia.