A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful

by Edmund Burke, David Womersley (Introduction), David Womersley (Noted by)

Overview

Edmund Burke was one of the foremost philosophers of the eighteenth century and wrote widely on aesthetics, politics and society. In this landmark work, he propounds his theory that the sublime and the beautiful should be regarded as distinct and wholly separate states - the first, an experience inspired by fear and awe, the second an expression of pleasure and serenity. Eloquent and profound, A Philosophical Enquiry is an involving account of our sensory, imaginative and judgmental processes and their relation to artistic appreciation. Burke's work was hugely influential on his contemporaries and also admired by later writers such as Matthew Arnold and William Wordsworth. This volume also contains several of his early political works on subjects including natural society, government and the American colonies, which illustrate his liberal, humane views.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141908113
Publisher:	Penguin UK
Publication date:	11/26/1998
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	528
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	3 Months

About the Author

Edmund Burke (1729-97) was elected as an MP in 1781. He championed the unpopular cause of Catholic emancipation and a great part of his career became dedicated to the problem of India. The French Revolution prompted one of his best-known works Reflections on the Revolution in France.
David Womersley is editor of Augustan Critical Writing, which was recently published in Penguin Classics.

David Womersley is the Thomas Warton Professor of Literature at the University of Oxford. Among his interests are Jonathan Swift (he was the general editor of the CUP edition of Swift), Daniel Defoe and Edward Gibbon, whose Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire he edited for Penguin Classics.