Eighteenth Century British Aesthetics

This volume re-examines traditional interpretations of the rise of modern aesthetics in eighteenth-century Britain and Germany. It provides a new account that connects aesthetic experience with morality, science, and political society. In doing so, it challenges long-standing teleological narratives that emphasize disinterestedness and the separation of aesthetics from moral, cognitive, and political interests. The chapters are divided into three thematic parts. The chapters in Part I demonstrate the heteronomy of eighteenth-century British aesthetics. They chart the evolution of aesthetic concepts and discuss the ethical and political significance of the aesthetic theories of several key figures: namely, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, David Hume, and Adam Smith. Part II explores the ways in which eighteenth-century German, and German-oriented, thinkers examine aesthetic experience and moral concerns, and relate to the work of their British counterparts. The chapters here cover the work of Kant, Moses Mendelssohn, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, and Madame de Staël. Finally, Part III explores the interrelation of science, aesthetics, and a new model of society in the work of Goethe, Johann Wilhelm Ritter, Friedrich Hölderlin, and William Hazlitt, among others. This volume develops unique discussions of the rise of aesthetic autonomy in the eighteenth century. In bringing together well-known scholars working on British and German eighteenth-century aesthetics, philosophy, and literature, it will appeal to scholars and advanced students in a range of disciplines who are interested in this topic. The Introduction and Chapters 2, 10, and 12 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Zsolt Komáromy’s Figures of Memory: From the Muses to Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics effects a rapprochement between memory studies and eighteenth-century British aesthetics. It argues that the assessment of memory in the history of aesthetics and criticism has been determined by the ideological import of the creative imagination, based on the dichotomies of imitative versus creative or reproductive versus productive mental and artistic procedures. The legacy of such an opposition can still be felt in the way the literary relevance of memory is based on either viewing it as a representational (reproductive, imitative) power that is a counterterm to the creative sense of the imagination, or as a constructive (productive, creative) power that is assimilated by the creative imagination. The notion of memory, however, harbors problems that unsettle such dichotomies. This book does the timely work of employing insights offered by memory studies in reconsidering memory in the history of aesthetics: it suggests that memory’s literary relevance is explained precisely by the problems that make it resistant to the reproductive-productive opposition. These problems are explored through various “figures” representing senses of memory, such as the Muses, or metaphors for memory in philosophical and critical discourse. Tracing figures of memory from the Muses through Plato and Descartes to works by Pope, Addison, Gerard and Kames, Komáromy reveals an undercurrent of thought in eighteenth-century British aesthetics that questions memory’s nominal opposition to the imagination , and that exploits memory’s simultaneously reproductive and constructive nature in the emerging theory of the imagination. By thus claiming that the tradition of memory’s literary relevance is not marginalized but in fact perpetuated in eighteenth-century British critical thought, Figures of Memory gives a powerful new perspective on the history of memory in aesthetics and criticism. A theoretical work with claims for historical generalization, Figures of Memory will appeal to those interested in the history of aesthetics and criticism, in memory studies, in literary theory, to students of literature and memory, of literature and psychology, and to scholars of the eighteenth century with theoretical interests.

Taste and Experience in Eighteenth Century Aesthetics acknowledges theories of taste, beauty, the fine arts, genius, expression, the sublime and the picturesque in their own right, distinct from later theories of an exclusively aesthetic kind of experience. By drawing on a wealth of thinkers, including several marginalised philosophers, Dabney Townsend presents a novel reading of the century to challenge our understanding of art and move towards a unique way of thinking about aesthetics. Speaking of a proto-aesthetic, Townsend surveys theories of taste and beauty arising from the empiricist shift in philosophy. A proto-aesthetic was shaped by the philosophers who followed Locke and accepted that theories of taste and beauty must be products of experience alone. Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Alexander Gerard and Thomas Reid were among the most important advocates, joined by others who re-thought traditional topics. Featuring chapters tracing its philosophical principles, issues raised by the subjectivity of the empiricist approach and the more academic proto-aesthetic formed toward the end of the century, Townsend argues that Lockean empiricism laid the foundations for what we now call aesthetics.

In "Eighteenth Century British Aesthetics", editor Dabney Townsend has brought together the work of such well-known writers as John Dryden, Joshua Reynolds, David Hume, and Samuel Johnson with the more obscure works of aestheticians such as Uvedale Price, Daniel Webb, John Baillie, and James Harris, whose work is difficult to find, but is nonetheless important, informative, and interesting. These twenty-two selections, accompanied by Dabney Townsend's historical essay on the development of eighteenth century aesthetics, make the history of aesthetics accessible to both students and specialists alike.

The Seventh Sense is the definitive study of the aesthetic theory of the great eighteenth-century philosopher Francis Hutcheson, arguably the founder of the modern discipline of aesthetics, and one of the most important figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. This new edition brings Peter Kivy's seminal work back into print, substantially expanded by the addition of seven essays, which deal primarily with Hutcheson's relation to other thinkers, and his influence on eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century aesthetics. Part I of The Seventh Sense presents a detailed analysis of Hutcheson's aesthetic theory. Part II traces the considerable influence of Hutcheson's theory up to the early years of the nineteenth century. Part III is a new and substantial addition to the original work, collecting Peter Kivy's essays on this topic since the first edition appeared, which deal primarily with Hutcheson, David Hume, and Thomas Reid. Philosophers of art, historians of philosophy, and historians working on eighteenth-century European art and culture will find this new edition an invaluable resource.

Offers a comprehensive account of British aesthetics from the early eighteenth century to the late twentieth century in Britain and beyond.