For early modern authors, the meaning of invention lay between the classical world\'s omnipresent notion of imitation and what would later become Romantic ideals of genius and originality.
Yet a great conceptual richness lay in this intermediate position, capturin.
In that sense, their era was a transitional phase, smoothing the passage from the classical notion of poetry as imitation to the understanding of literature as the product of the author\'s creative imagination and original thought.
For early modern authors, the meaning of invention lay between the classical world\'s omnipresent notion of imitation and what would later become Romantic ideals of genius and originality