The sublime: from antiquity to the present

320 Pages·2012·12.154 MB·English

by  Costelloe, Timothy M

The Sublime

From Antiquity to the Present
This volume offers readers a unique and comprehensive overview of theoretical per-
spectives 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, viz., Dutch literature, early modern America,
the environment, religion, British Romanticism, the fine arts, and architecture. Each
chapter both is accessible for nonspecialists and offers an original contribution to its
respective field of inquiry.
Timothy M. Costelloe is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of William
& Mary. He is the author of Aesthetics and Morals in the Philosophy of David
Hume (2008) and The British Aesthetic Tradition: From Shaftesbury to Wittgenstein
(Cambridge, forthcoming).

The Sublime

From Antiquity to the Present
Edited by
TiMOTHy M. COSTELLOE
College of William & Mary
cambridge university press
Cambridge, New york, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,
Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press
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www.cambridge.org
information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521143677
© Cambridge University Press 2012
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2012
Printed in the United States of America
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data
The sublime : from antiquity to the present / [edited by] Timothy M. Costelloe,
College of William & Mary.
p. cm.
includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-521-19437-2 (hardback) – ISBN 978-0-521-14367-7 (paperback)
1. Sublime, The. i. Costelloe, Timothy M.
BH301.S7S833 2012
111′.85–dc23 2011047623
ISBN 978-0-521-19437-2 Hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-14367-7 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs
for external or third-party internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not
guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
For Sarah and Andrew

Contents

List of Illustrations page ix
Contributors xi
Acknowledgments xiii
The Sublime: A Short introduction to a Long History 1
Timothy M. Costelloe
PART ONE. PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY OF THE SUBLIME
1 Longinus and the Ancient Sublime 11
Malcolm Heath
2 . . . And the Beautiful? Revisiting Edmund Burke’s “Double Aesthetics” 24
Rodolphe Gasché
3 The Moral Source of the Kantian Sublime 37
Melissa McBay Merritt
4 imagination and internal Sense: The Sublime in Shaftesbury, Reid,
Addison, and Reynolds 50
Timothy M. Costelloe
5 The Associative Sublime: Gerard, Kames, Alison, and Stewart 64
Rachel Zuckert
6 The “Prehistory” of the Sublime in Early Modern France: An
interdisciplinary Perspective 77
Éva Madeleine Martin
7 The German Sublime After Kant 102
Paul Guyer
8 The Postmodern Sublime: Presentation and its Limits 118
David B. Johnson
PART TWO. DISCIPLINARY AND OTHER PERSPECTIVES
9 The “Subtler” Sublime in Modern Dutch Aesthetics 135
John R. J. Eyck
10 The First American Sublime 147
Chandos Michael Brown
vii
viii Contents
11 The Environmental Sublime 171
Emily Brady
12 Religion and the Sublime 183
Andrew Chignell and Matthew C. Halteman
13 The British Romantic Sublime 203
Adam Potkay
14 The Sublime and the Fine Arts 217
Theodore Gracyk
15 Architecture and the Sublime 230
Richard A. Etlin
Bibliography 275
Index 295