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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 81
Page vii
... thoughts (1721) 7. Jonathan Richardson, the elder, from An essay on the theory of painting (1725) 8. Thomas Stackhouse, from Reflections on the nature and property of languages (London 1731) 9. Hildebrand Jacob, from The works (1735) ...
... thoughts (1721) 7. Jonathan Richardson, the elder, from An essay on the theory of painting (1725) 8. Thomas Stackhouse, from Reflections on the nature and property of languages (London 1731) 9. Hildebrand Jacob, from The works (1735) ...
Page xii
... thought about artworks is bound up with what it thought and said about the nature of human experience generally. In this sense for the period in question the aesthetic is not primarily about art but about how we are formed as subjects ...
... thought about artworks is bound up with what it thought and said about the nature of human experience generally. In this sense for the period in question the aesthetic is not primarily about art but about how we are formed as subjects ...
Page xxiii
... thoughts they are taken to convey. This leads to his perception that sublimity does not lay in the words themselves ... thought predates Blair by a very long time, but it is the renewed interest in the effects of elevated language which ...
... thoughts they are taken to convey. This leads to his perception that sublimity does not lay in the words themselves ... thought predates Blair by a very long time, but it is the renewed interest in the effects of elevated language which ...
Page xxviii
... thought. It strikes like lightning with a conquering and resistless flame. It appears beautiful either in the plain or figurative style; it admits all the ornaments of language; yet needs none of 'em; but commands and triumphs in its ...
... thought. It strikes like lightning with a conquering and resistless flame. It appears beautiful either in the plain or figurative style; it admits all the ornaments of language; yet needs none of 'em; but commands and triumphs in its ...
Page xxix
... thought to instill the greatest terror and the 'loftiness of conception' aroused in states of enthusiasm. Dennis goes on to argue that the sublime may often be without common passion but it is never without enthusiastic passion, thereby ...
... thought to instill the greatest terror and the 'loftiness of conception' aroused in states of enthusiasm. Dennis goes on to argue that the sublime may often be without common passion but it is never without enthusiastic passion, thereby ...
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