Part 1 Introduction: Orientations - the space of composition Enthusiasmos - archaic Greece and Plato's Ion. Part 2 Case studies: enthusiasm and enlightenment the fantasy crowd 1 - Power in Wordsworth's The Prelude infinite inspiration - Schelling and Holderlin the fantasy crowd 2 - Shelley's A Defence of Poerty inspiration and the romantic body - Nietzsche - HD surrelism, inspiration and the mediations of chance in Andre Breton Octavio Paz and Renga - the dispersal of inspiration? contradictory passion - inspiration in Blanchot's The Space of Literature (1955) dictation by heart - Derrida's Che Cos'e la Poesia? and Celan's notion of the Atemwende.