In this Book

buy this book Buy This Book in Print
summary
Originally published in 1995. In The Beautiful, Novel, and Strange, Ronald Paulson fills a lacuna in studies of aesthetics at its point of origin in England in the 1700s. He shows how aesthetics took off not only from British empiricism but also from such forms of religious heterodoxy as deism. The third earl of Shaftesbury, the founder of aesthetics, replaced the Christian God of rewards and punishments with beauty—worship of God, with a taste for a work of art. William Hogarth, reacting against Shaftesbury's "disinterestedness," replaced his Platonic abstractions with an aesthetics centered on the human body, gendered female, and based on an epistemology of curiosity, pursuit, and seduction. Paulson shows Hogarth creating, first in practice and then in theory, a middle area between the Beautiful and the Sublime by adapting Joseph Addison's category (in the Spectator) of the Novel, Uncommon, and Strange.Paulson retrieves an aesthetics that had strong support during the eighteenth century but has been obscured both by the more dominant academic discourse of Shaftesbury (and later Sir Joshua Reynolds) and by current trends in art and literary history. Arguing that the two traditions comprised not only painterly but also literary theory and practice, Paulson explores the innovations of Henry Fielding, John Cleland, Laurence Sterne, and Oliver Goldsmith, which followed and complemented the practice in the visual arts of Hogarth and his followers.

Table of Contents

Download PDF Download Full Book Download EPUB Download Full EPUB
  1. Cover
  2. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. New Copyright
  2. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Frontispiece
  2. p. ii
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Halftitle
  2. p. i
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Title Page
  2. p. iii
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Copyright
  2. p. iv
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Dedication
  2. p. v
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Contents
  2. pp. vi-viii
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Preface
  2. pp. ix-xix
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Half Title 1
  2. p. xxi
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 1. Aesthetics and Deism
  2. pp. 1-22
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 2. Shaftesburian Disinterestedness
  2. pp. 23-47
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 3. Addison's Aesthetics of the Novel
  2. pp. 48-75
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 4. The Conversation Piece: Politeness and Subversion
  2. pp. 76-97
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 5. The "Great Creation": Fielding
  2. pp. 98-135
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 6. Aesthetics and Erotics: Cleland, Fielding, and Sterne
  2. pp. 136-175
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 7. The Strange, Trivial, and Infantile: Books for Children
  2. pp. 176-197
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 8. From Novel to Strange to "Sublime"
  2. pp. 198-224
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 9. From Novel to Picturesque
  2. pp. 225-242
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. 10. The Novelizing of Hogarth
  2. pp. 243-266
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Illustrations
  2. p. 267
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 1
  2. p. 268
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 2
  2. p. 269
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 3
  2. p. 270
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 4
  2. p. 271
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 5
  2. p. 272
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 6
  2. p. 273
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 7
  2. p. 274
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 8
  2. p. 274
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 9
  2. p. 275
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 10
  2. p. 276
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 11
  2. p. 277
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 12
  2. p. 278
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 13
  2. p. 279
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 14
  2. p. 280
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 15
  2. p. 281
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 16
  2. p. 282
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 17
  2. p. 283
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 18
  2. p. 284
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 19
  2. p. 285
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 20
  2. p. 286
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 21
  2. p. 287
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 22
  2. p. 289
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 23
  2. p. 290
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 24
  2. p. 291
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 25
  2. p. 292
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 26
  2. p. 293
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 27
  2. p. 294
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 28
  2. p. 295
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 29
  2. p. 296
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 30
  2. p. 297
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 31
  2. p. 298
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 32
  2. p. 299
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 33
  2. p. 300
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 34
  2. p. 301
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 35
  2. p. 302
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 36
  2. p. 303
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 37
  2. p. 304
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 38
  2. p. 305
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 39
  2. p. 306
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 40
  2. p. 307
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 41
  2. p. 308
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Photo 42
  2. p. 309
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Notes
  2. pp. 311-355
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. p. 357
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 359-369
  3. open access
    • HTML icon View
    • PDF icon Download
Back To Top