Wolfgang Iser's standard work demonstrates historically and systematically how the fictive and the imaginary function as constitutive conditions of literature. In the background lies the question of the extent to which the fictive and the imaginary are characteristics of anthropological dispositions, through which an insight into the human need for fiction can be gained. Wolfgang Iser understands literature as a mirror of anthropological equipment. In this book, he provides a foundational understanding of this perspective, which cannot be derived solely from cultural anthropology or philosophical anthropology.