The "Philosophical Enquiry" is a study of the relationship between strong feelings and forms of art, that considers the inspired persuasiveness of certain kinds of writing alongside experience of the natural landscape, and is gradually being recognized as an important work of aesthetic theory. This eloquent and sometimes erotic book was long considered to be a piece of Burke's juvenilia, published when he was only 28. But it is a precursor of his later political writings, and clearly deals with a fashionable topic of intellectual preoccupation in the 18th-century. This work is also one of the first major works in European literature on the sublime, a subject that was later to fascinate thinkers from Kant and Coleridge in the 18th-century, to contemporary philosophers and literary critics. Adam Phillips has also edited Charles Lamb's "Selected Prose" and Walter Pater's "The Renaissance", as well as writing a study of his own entitled "Winnicott.
"
Edited with an introduction and notes by James T. Boulton.
'One of the greatest essays ever written on art.'– The Guardian
Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful is one of the most important works of aesthetics ever published. Whilst many writers have taken up their pen to write of "the beautiful", Burke’s subject here was the quality he uniquely distinguished as "the sublime"―an all-consuming force beyond beauty that compelled terror as much as rapture in all who beheld it. It was an analysis that would go on to inspire some of the leading thinkers of the age, including Immanuel Kant and Denis Diderot. The Routledge Classics edition presents the authoritative text of the first critical edition of Burke’s essay ever published, including a substantial critical and historical commentary.
Edmund Burke (1729–1797). A politician, philosopher and orator, Burke lived during a turbulent time in world history, which saw revolutions in America and France that inspired his most famous work, Reflections on the Revolution in France.
About the Author
Edmund Burke (1729-1797). A politician, philosopher and orator, Burke lived during a turbulent time in world history which saw revolutions in France (which appalled him) and America (which he welcomed). His most famous work is Reflections on the Revolution in France.
The "Philosophical Enquiry" is a study of the relationship between strong feelings and forms of art, that considers the inspired persuasiveness of certain kinds of writing alongside experience of the natural landscape, and is gradually being recognized as an important work of aesthetic theory. This eloquent and sometimes erotic book was long considered to be a piece of Burke's juvenilia, published when he was only 28. But it is a precursor of his later political writings, and clearly deals with a fashionable topic of intellectual preoccupation in the 18th-century. This work is also one of the first major works in European literature on the sublime, a subject that was later to fascinate thinkers from Kant and Coleridge in the 18th-century, to contemporary philosophers and literary critics. Adam Phillips has also edited Charles Lamb's "Selected Prose" and Walter Pater's "The Renaissance", as well as writing a study of his own entitled "Winnicott.
"
Edited with an introduction and notes by James T. Boulton.
'One of the greatest essays ever written on art.'– The Guardian
Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful is one of the most important works of aesthetics ever published. Whilst many writers have taken up their pen to write of "the beautiful", Burke’s subject here was the quality he uniquely distinguished as "the sublime"―an all-consuming force beyond beauty that compelled terror as much as rapture in all who beheld it. It was an analysis that would go on to inspire some of the leading thinkers of the age, including Immanuel Kant and Denis Diderot. The Routledge Classics edition presents the authoritative text of the first critical edition of Burke’s essay ever published, including a substantial critical and historical commentary.
Edmund Burke (1729–1797). A politician, philosopher and orator, Burke lived during a turbulent time in world history, which saw revolutions in America and France that inspired his most famous work, Reflections on the Revolution in France.
About the Author
Edmund Burke (1729-1797). A politician, philosopher and orator, Burke lived during a turbulent time in world history which saw revolutions in France (which appalled him) and America (which he welcomed). His most famous work is Reflections on the Revolution in France.