phantastical

While the Romantic sense of the artist's own "tortured" psyche as an important part both of innovation and of genius had not yet been developed in that period (though we retroactively animate Gesualdo according to those principles), you do already get an early form of reverence for and excitement about the new, the "curious," the "phantastical" -- and, in England, even the bizarrely "melancholic" -- which are quite important and marked antecedents of modern, post-Romantic, attitudes toward genius and innovation.

The Smart Set Matthew Guerrieri 2007

I could not name it now, but I felt part of a process whose workings were hidden to me, like the inner engine of a phantastical machine.

The Stream and The Torrent 2009

I could not name it now, but I felt part of a process whose workings were hidden to me, like the inner engine of a phantastical machine.

The Stream and The Torrent 2009

Many have taken voluminous pains to determine the state of the soul upon disunion; but men have been most phantastical in the singular contrivances of their corporal dissolution: whilst the soberest nations have rested in two ways, of simple inhumation and burning.

Hydriotaphia, or Urn-burial 2007

Experience suggests to us that we draw a parallel between the phantastical, mythological thinking of antiquity and the similar thinking of children, between the lower human races and dreams.

RECAPITULATION JANE OPPENHEIMER 1968

If anyone seeing a player acting his part on a stage should go about to strip him of his disguise and show him to the people in his true native form, would he not, think you, not only spoil the whole design of the play, but deserve himself to be pelted off with stones as a phantastical fool and one out of his wits?

In Praise of Folly c. 1466-1536 1958

In view of the fact that the political horizon was very dark and clouded at that time, the conjecture was perhaps not altogether phantastical, and for this reason the report quickly reached the ears of the king and the royal family.

The Gray Nun Nataly Von Eschstruth

These repetitions be not figuratiue but phantastical, for a figure is euer vsed to a purpose, either of beautie or of efficacie: and these last recited be to no purpose, for neither can ye say that it vrges affection, nor that it beautifieth or enforceth the sence, nor hath any other subtilitie in it, and therfore is a very foolish impertinency of speech, and not a figure.

The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

Heaven, and free passage ways of phantastical design ramify throughout all the glorious under-surface regions.

Life in a Thousand Worlds William Shuler Harris

"Gathered upon a Friday, in the hour of Jupiter when he comes to his operation, so gathered, or borne, or hung upon the neck, it mightily helps to drive away all phantastical spirits."

Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Neltje Blanchan 1891