In his classic work on creativity, Arthur Koestler recounts the following:

In this story, we might expect the Marquis, upon finding his wife in the arms of another, to react in quite a different way. We might expect anger, jealousy, rage, violence even. But, as Koestler describes, we get something unexpected:

In his 1964 book, the name of which gives this chapter its title, Koestler explores the process that gives rise to imagination and creativity. The story of the Marquis involves two incompatible frames of reference: those of the celibate priest and of lovers. Yet, in the story, the two frames become interconnected; they become linked despite providing otherwise incommensurable, and even conflicting, contexts. The humour arises precisely because the otherwise clashing frames intersect and inform one another. Koestler argues that this illustrates the process at the heart of the creative act. Creativity arises when an idea intersects in this way with two frames of experience. This process he refers to as ‘bisociation': two distinct frames become linked or integrated in order to create novel meaning.

The commonplace view of creativity is that it is performed by an elite, rather than everyman: it arises from a superior intellect. The literary brilliance of Shakespeare, for instance, or the intellectual feats of Einstein are borne from minds that are somehow removed from the quotidian, arising among the peerless few, hewn from other-worldly material.