A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics: 121 (Wiley Companions to the Ancient World) - Hardcover

Destrée, Pierre; Murray, Penelope

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1444337645 ISBN 13: 9781444337648

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015

Synopsis

The first of its kind, A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics presents a synoptic view of the arts, which crosses traditional boundaries and explores the aesthetic experience of the ancients across a range of media―oral, aural, visual, and literary.

• Investigates the many ways in which the arts were experienced and conceptualized in the ancient world
• Explores the aesthetic experience of the ancients across a range of media, treating literary, oral, aural, and visual arts together in a single volume
• Presents an integrated perspective on the major themes of ancient aesthetics which challenges traditional demarcations
• Raises questions about the similarities and differences between ancient and modern ways of thinking about the place of art in society

About this title

About the Author

THE EDITORS

Pierre Destrée is Associate Researcher at the FNRS and Associate Professor at the University of Louvain, Belgium, where he teaches ancient philosophy. He is the author of a French translation of Aristotle's Poetics (2014) and editor of Plato and the Poets (with F.G. Herrmann, 2011), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths (with C. Collobert and F. Gonzalez, 2012), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Politics (with M. Deslauriers, 2013), and What Is Up to Us? Causality and Responsibility in Ancient Philosophy (with R. Salles and M. Zingano, 2014).

Penelope Murray was Senior Lecturer and a founding member of the Department of Classics at the University of Warwick, UK, before retiring in 2008. She continues to work on early Greek poetry and poetics, on philosophical responses to Athenian song-culture, especially the views of Plato, and on ancient literary criticism. Her publications include Genius: The History of an Idea (Blackwell, 1989), Plato on Poetry (1996), Classical Literary Criticism (2000), and Music and the Muses: The Culture of Mousike in the Classical Athenian City (edited with P. Wilson, 2004).

From the Back Cover

A COMPANION TO ANCIENT AESTHETICS

EDITED BY PIERRE DESTRÉE AND PENELOPE MURRAY

A companion to ancient aesthetics responds to, and reflects on, the arts in the ancient world. the history of western thinking about such matters goes back to the greeks, when the arts, in one form or another, were a central feature of public life, evaluated and discussed long before alexander baumgarten published his Aesthetica in 1750 and established aesthetics as a distinct philosophical discipline. greek speculations on the nature of artistic experience have profoundly shaped our culture, and this volume explores the many ways in which the arts were experienced and conceptualized in the ancient world.

The contributors take a broad view in their discussions, moving away from analysis of the classical antecedents of eighteenth-century aesthetics to discuss ancient aesthetics as a subject in its own right. the first of its kind, the volume presents a synoptic view of the arts, which crosses traditional boundaries and explores the aesthetic experience of the ancients across a range of media oral, aural, visual, and literary. the essays present an integrated perspective on the major themes of ancient aesthetics that challenges traditional demarcations and raises questions about the similarities and differences between ancient and modern ways of thinking about the place of art in society.

From the Inside Flap

A COMPANION TO ANCIENT AESTHETICS

EDITED BY PIERRE DESTRÉE AND PENELOPE MURRAY

A companion to ancient aesthetics responds to, and reflects on, the arts in the ancient world. the history of western thinking about such matters goes back to the greeks, when the arts, in one form or another, were a central feature of public life, evaluated and discussed long before alexander baumgarten published his Aesthetica in 1750 and established aesthetics as a distinct philosophical discipline. greek speculations on the nature of artistic experience have profoundly shaped our culture, and this volume explores the many ways in which the arts were experienced and conceptualized in the ancient world.

The contributors take a broad view in their discussions, moving away from analysis of the classical antecedents of eighteenth-century aesthetics to discuss ancient aesthetics as a subject in its own right. the first of its kind, the volume presents a synoptic view of the arts, which crosses traditional boundaries and explores the aesthetic experience of the ancients across a range of media – oral, aural, visual, and literary. the essays present an integrated perspective on the major themes of ancient aesthetics that challenges traditional demarcations and raises questions about the similarities and differences between ancient and modern ways of thinking about the place of art in society.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1444337645
• ISBN 13: 9781444337648
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 552