Are emotions, feelings, sentiments not the stuff of literature? That is where they project their 'inner logic' of aesthetic transmutation; there, beyond the instrument of language that they command. This collection explores how the lyrical virtualities of life-experience and the elegiac style in literature share a common core, lifting the human significance of life from abysmal vitality to esoteric heights, from abysmal grief to a serene reconciliation with destiny. The 'elegiac sequence' in the play of emotions, feelings, sentiments brings together life and literary creativity in its transformatory power. With papers by A. Giuculescu, John McGraw, R. Ellis, A. Carillo Canán, B. Watson, S. Bindeman, R.J. Wilson, L. Kimmel, B. Prochaska, T. Raczka, Chr. Eykman, J.S. Smith, G. Scheper, S. Feshbach, I. Vayl, H. Rudnick and others.

Let us revive the true sense of fine arts: enchantment! In the conceptualised, commercialised, artificial approach to fine arts, we forgot its authentic experiential sense. It lies at the imaginative heart of all arts there to be retrieved by the creative recipient as the very 'truth of it all'.

Merleau-Ponty's categories of the visible and the invisible are investigated afresh and with originality in this penetrating collection of literary and philosophical inquiries. Going beyond the traditional and current references to the mental and the sensory, mind and body, perceptual content and the abstract ideas conveyed in language, etc., these studies range from the `hidden spheres of reality', to the play of the visible and the invisible left as traces in works of human genius, the origins of intellect and language, the real and the imaginary in literature, and the `hidden realities' in the philosophy of the everyday world. These literary and philosophical probings collectively reveal the role of this disjoined/conjoined pairing in the ontopoietic establishment of reality, that is, in the manifestation of the logos of life. In tandem they bring to light the hidden play of the visible and the invisible in the emergence of our vital, societal, intimate, intellectual, and creative involvements.

Striking toward peace and harmony the human being is ceasely torn apart in personal, social, national life by wars, feuds, inequities and intimate personal conflicts for which there seems to be no respite. Does the human condition in interaction with others imply a constant adversity? Or, is this conflict owing to an interior or external factor of evil governing our attitudes and conduct toward the other person? To what criteria should I refer for appreciation, judgment, direction concerning my attitudes and my actions as they bear on the well-being of others? At the roots of these questions lies human experience which ought to be appropriately clarified before entering into speculative abstractions of the ethical theories and precepts. Literature, which in its very gist, dwells upon disentangling in multiple perspective the peripeteia of our life-experience offers us a unique field of source-material for moral and ethical investigations. Literature brings preeminently to light the Moral Sentiment which pervades our life with others -- our existence tout court. Being modulated through the course of our experiences the Moral Sentiment sustains the very sense of literature and of personal human life (Tymieniecka).

"Does the World exist?" There would be no reason to resurrect this question of modernity from its historical oblivion were it not for the fact that recent evolution in science and technology, impregnating culture, makes us wonder about the nature of reality, of the world we are living in, and of our status as living beings within it. Thus great metaphysical subjacent queries are forcefully revived, calling for new investigations to proceed in the light of the innumerable novel insights of science. This collection presents a wealth of material toward an elaboration of a new metaphysical groundwork of the ontopoiesis/ phenomenology of life sought to effect such investigations. The classic postulates of the metaphysics of reality, those of necessity and certainty here find a new formulation. Away from sclerotized ontological and cognitive assumptions and congenial with the views of contemporary science, the understanding of reality, of our world of life, and of ourselves within it is to be sought in the existential/ontopoietic ciphering of life (Tymieniecka).

What essentially is a garden? Is it a small plot of land that we put aside to cultivate our favorite vegetables or to grow flowers for our personal enjoyment? Or is it a symbol, a mirror, a reflection of our human passions? The topic of the present volume is the mysterious ways in which Imaginatio Creatix plays within the human ingrowness in natural life, transposing dreams, nostalgias, and enchantments.

Formerly CIP. Selected papers from the ninth annual Conference of the International Society of Phenomenology, Fine Arts and Aesthetics.