The Sublime
From Antiquity to the Present

This volume offers readers a unique and comprehensive overview of different theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives on 'the sublime'.

Timothy M. Costelloe (Edited by)

9780521194372, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 August 2012

316 pages, 36 b/w illus.
26 x 18.4 x 1.4 cm, 0.81 kg

'Costelloe has put together this wide-ranging book of essays on the sublime in an attempt to demonstrate that the concept is not dead that there is still merit in treating it both theoretically and in its relevance to the present day.' Cressida Ryan, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

This volume offers readers a unique and comprehensive overview of theoretical perspectives on 'the sublime', the singular aesthetic response elicited by phenomena that move viewers by transcending and overwhelming them. The book consists of an editor's introduction and fifteen chapters written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Part One examines philosophical approaches advanced historically to account for the phenomenon, beginning with Longinus, moving through eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers in Britain, France and Germany and concluding with developments in contemporary continental philosophy. Part Two explores the sublime with respect to particular disciplines and areas of study, including Dutch literature, early modern America, the environment, religion, British Romanticism, the fine arts and architecture. Each chapter is both accessible for non-specialists and offers an original contribution to its respective field of inquiry.

'The sublime'. A short introduction to a long history Timothy M. Costelloe
Part I. Philosophical History of the Sublime: 1. Longinus and the ancient sublime Malcolm Heath
2. … And the beautiful? Revisiting Edmund Burke's 'double aesthetics' Rodolphe Gasché
3. The moral source of the Kantian sublime Melissa Meritt
4. Imagination and internal sense: the sublime in Shaftesbury, Reid, Addison, and Reynolds Timothy M. Costelloe
5. The associative sublime: Kames, Gerrard, Alison, and Stewart Rachel Zuckert
6. The 'prehistory' of the sublime in early modern France: an interdisciplinary perspective Éva Madeleine Martin
7. The post-Kantian German sublime Paul Guyer
8. The postmodern sublime: presentation and its limits David B. Johnson
Part II. Disciplinary and Other Perspectives: 9. The 'subtler sublime': in modern Dutch aesthetics John R. J. Eyck
10. The first American sublime Chandos Michael Brown
11. The environmental sublime Emily Brady
12. Religion and the sublime Andrew Chignell and Matthew C. Halteman
13. The British romantic sublime Adam Potkay
14. The sublime and the fine arts Theodore Gracyk
15. Architecture and the sublime Richard Etlin.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Philosophy: aesthetics [HPN], Western philosophy: Medieval & Renaissance, c 500 to c 1600 [HPCB], History of Western philosophy [HPC], Philosophy [HP], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Literary theory [DSA]