AnyBook4Less.com	Find the Best Price on the Web Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money Keyword AuthorISBN

Title: Edmund Burke: A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful by J.T. Boulton, Edmund Burke ISBN: 0-268-00085-9 Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1968 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00

Your Country USA Canada United Kingdom Australia Austria Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands Switzerland Currency AutoUSD CAD GBP EUR AUD CHF Delivery Only cheapest delivery All delivery options Include Used Books Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Burke's Sublime and Beautiful
Comment: The categories of the sublime and the beautiful seem, on first contemplation, an 18th-century distinction with little meaning for our own time. I read this book while preparing a course on J.S. Bach's "Goldberg" Variations and Beethoven's "Diabelli" Variations. The idea was to find a way of talking about the difference between the two pieces. At first brush, the Bach is "beautiful", the Beethoven "sublime", but only a little thought leads to a more complicated view. Both pieces have aspects of both qualities. Nevertheless, my students found the question a fascinating one.

Of course, the book goes well beyond the characteristics of the two qualities. It focusses on the interesting question of how human nature leads us to experience the two qualities. To me much of Burke's discussion of this point seems quite contemporary.

Burke's preference for the sublime over the beautiful reflects his time at the beginning of the Romantic period in literature, and anticipates Goethe's (and Beethoven's) celebration of the individual and direct appeal to the emotions. His essentialist views of the beautiful as a feminine characteristic seem gratuitous.

I wonder what Burke would have found to say about, say, the Goldberg, with its formality and artifice. These characteristics would seem to place the piece in the beautiful rather than the sublime. But the piece is clearly not merely a frill, nor is it at all sentimental.

Burke's book is well argued and challenging to the modern reader. Give it a try!