Abstract
Starting from the striking contrast between the imaginary (i.e. the imaginative tradition) of talking and metamorphic animals and the classical representation of animals as silent and locked up in predictable patterns of behavior, this lecture will investigate how the human imaginary of animality can become a genuine instrument of knowledge in animal studies. My contention is that a phenomenological approach to the connection between the imaginary and the real can provide a foundation for this new method, as can be shown by Portmann's and Merleau-Ponty's reflections on the appearance of animals.