For Aristotle, phantasia is a capacity for mental imagery. In poetry, it is the core faculty of creation. The poet uses phantasia to invent new images, metaphors, and worlds. This imaginative power allows poetry to go beyond mere reality, representing the possible and the impossible. Phantasia is the engine of lyric invention, enabling poets to bridge the gap between perception and language, creating vivid mental pictures.

Phantasia is the Greek term for imagination or the faculty of forming images in the mind. In Aristotle's philosophy, it is the capacity to produce mental images, a necessary bridge between perception and thought. It is a psychic power that can represent things that are not present. In poetry, phantasia is the core faculty of creation. The poet uses it to invent new images, metaphors, and worlds, drawing on the power of the mind to go beyond mere reality. The poetic image is a product of phantasia. This concept highlights the poet's role as an image-maker, emphasizing the imagination as a vital, active power that can shape the world through language. It is the engine of lyric invention and metaphor.