ABSTRACT

In "Eighteenth Century British Aesthetics", editor Dabney Townsend has brought together the work of such well-known writers as John Dryden, Joshua Reynolds, David Hume, and Samuel Johnson with the more obscure works of aestheticians such as Uvedale Price, Daniel Webb, John Baillie, and James Harris, whose work is difficult to find, but is nonetheless important, informative, and interesting. These twenty-two selections, accompanied by Dabney Townsend's historical essay on the development of eighteenth century aesthetics, make the history of aesthetics accessible to both students and specialists alike.

chapter Chapter 1|21 pages

“Introduction” to Charles du Fresnoy, De Arte Graphica

De Arte Graphica Preface of the Translator, with a Parallel, of Poetry and Painting 1695

chapter Chapter 2|16 pages

A Large Account of the Taste in Poetry, and the Causes of the Degeneracy of It 1702

To the Honorable George Granville, Esq;.

chapter Chapter 4|30 pages

The Spectator 1712

No. 409, 411–421 The Pleasures of the Imagination

chapter Chapter 5|27 pages

Reflections Upon Laughter 1725

chapter Chapter 6|26 pages

Three Treatises 1744

chapter Chapter 7|13 pages

An Essay on the Sublime 1744

chapter Chapter 8|4 pages

The Rambler 1751

chapter Chapter 10|21 pages

Of the Delicacy of Taste and Passion 1741

chapter Chapter 12|17 pages

An Essay on Taste 1759

chapter Chapter 15|22 pages

Elements of Criticism 1762

chapter Chapter 16|23 pages

The Idler 1759

chapter Chapter 18|31 pages

Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres 1783

chapter Chapter 20|9 pages

Three Essays 1791