is enigmatic origin of the work as a structure and indissociable unity—and as an object for structuralist criticism—is, according to Kant, “the first thing to which we must pay attention.” 17 According to Rousset also. From his first page on, he links “the nature of the literary fact,” always insuffi- ciently examined, to the “role in art of imagination, that fundamental activity” about which “uncertainties and oppositions abound.” This notion of an imagination that produces metaphor—that is, everything in language except the verb to be—remains for critics what certain philo- sophers today call a naively utilized operative concept. To surmount this technical ingenuousness is to reflect the operative concept as a thematic concept. This seems to be one of Rousset’s projects. To grasp the operation of creative imaginat