The Sublime: A Reader in British Eighteenth-Century Aesthetic TheoryAndrew Ashfield, Peter de Bolla This collection of texts on the Sublime provides the historical context for the foundation and discussion of one of the most important aesthetic debates of the Enlightenment. The significance of the Sublime in the eighteenth century ranged across a number of fields - literary criticism, empirical psychology, political economy, connoisseurship, landscape design and aesthetics, painting and the fine arts, and moral philosophy - and has continued to animate aesthetic and theoretical debates to this day. However, the unavailability of many of the crucial texts of the founding tradition has resulted in a conception of the Sublime often limited to the definitions of its most famous theorist Edmund Burke. Andrew Ashfield and Peter de Bolla's anthology, which includes an introduction and notes to each entry, offers students and scholars ready access to a much deeper and more complex tradition of writings on the Sublime, many of them never before printed in modern editions. |
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Results 1-5 of 71
Page viii
... human nature (1739-40) 35. Hugh Blair, from A critical dissertation on the poems of Ossian (1763) 36. HughBlair,fromLecturesonrhetoricandbelieslettres(1783) 37. Henry Home, Lord Karnes, from Elements of criticism (1765) 38. Adam Smith ...
... human nature (1739-40) 35. Hugh Blair, from A critical dissertation on the poems of Ossian (1763) 36. HughBlair,fromLecturesonrhetoricandbelieslettres(1783) 37. Henry Home, Lord Karnes, from Elements of criticism (1765) 38. Adam Smith ...
Page xii
... human nature, which at its furthest extreme threatens to dissolve and dissipate the human in a technology that has the potential to overmaster all sense of being. This question, the problematic of the aesthetic, was known to the period ...
... human nature, which at its furthest extreme threatens to dissolve and dissipate the human in a technology that has the potential to overmaster all sense of being. This question, the problematic of the aesthetic, was known to the period ...
Page xiv
... human experience and human nature, and that by necessity the aesthetic cannot, therefore, be understood as a separate realm. This alternative suggests that the aesthetic is constantly called back to other forms of understanding and ...
... human experience and human nature, and that by necessity the aesthetic cannot, therefore, be understood as a separate realm. This alternative suggests that the aesthetic is constantly called back to other forms of understanding and ...
Page xvi
... human ratiocination, controlled by human agency and are deliberately constructed in order to account for human nature, but it does not necessarily follow that they are equally so delimited. The discourse on the sublime, then, should be ...
... human ratiocination, controlled by human agency and are deliberately constructed in order to account for human nature, but it does not necessarily follow that they are equally so delimited. The discourse on the sublime, then, should be ...
Page xviii
... human race, like scouts gone abroad on the discovery of fertile lands, having the world open before them, are presented at every step with the appearance of novelty. They enter on every new ground with expectation and joy: They engage ...
... human race, like scouts gone abroad on the discovery of fertile lands, having the world open before them, are presented at every step with the appearance of novelty. They enter on every new ground with expectation and joy: They engage ...
Contents
ix | |
xi | |
xxvii | |
Rhapsody to rhetoric | ii |
Irish Perspectives | 127 |
The Aberdonian Enlightenment | 157 |
Edinburgh and Glasgow | 195 |
From the Picturesque to the Political | 263 |
Sources and further reading | 307 |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam Smith admiration aesthetic agreeable appears arises astonishment attention awful beauty called cause character circumstances common conception consider contemplation degree delight Demosthenes discourse distinct divine Edmund Burke eighteenth-century elegance elevation emotion enthusiasm epic poetry exalted example excellence excite expression fancy feel figures French revolution genius give grand grandeur heart heavens Hence Homer horror human ideas Iliad images imagination imitation infinite kind language lofty Longinian Longinus magnificent mankind manner means ment Milton mind moral mountains nature never noble objects observe original Ossian pain painting Palemon Paradise Lost passion pathetic perfection picturesque pleasing pleasure poet poetry present principles produce qualities raise reading activity reason render Richard Payne Knight scenes Scottish enlighten sensation sense sensible sentiments soul species spirit sublime affect surprise taste terrible terror Theocles things thought tion tradition tropes tropological vast Virgil virtue wonder words writing