Poetry

By Shusterman, Richard M.

Though poetry today seems a relatively marginal topic in philosophy, it was crucial for philosophy’s own initial self-definition. In ancient Greece, poetry was revered as the authoritative expression ...

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (1729–81)

By Townsend, Dabney

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing occupies a central place in eighteenth-century European belles-lettres. He was a significant religious and theological thinker whose work puzzled his contemporaries and still provokes debate. ...

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (1729–81)

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Romanticism, German

Because Romanticism has many meanings which vary according to time and place, it is best to examine the movement in a specific culture and period. Of all the ...

Tragedy

By Feagin, Susan L.

Tragedy is primarily a type of drama, though non-dramatic poetry (‘lyric tragedy’) and some novels (for example, Moby Dick) have laid claim to the description. As a genre, ...

Art, performing

By Davies, Stephen

Some works, such as plays and pieces of classical music, are created as instructions (either notated or implicit in an exemplar) for performers; performances of such pieces arise ...

Art, performing

Some works, such as plays and pieces of classical music, are created as instructions (either notated or implicit in an exemplar) for performers; performances of such pieces arise ...

Art, performing

Some works, such as plays and pieces of classical music, are created as instructions (either notated or implicit in an exemplar) for performers; performances of such pieces arise ...

Aesthetics, Chinese

By Goldberg, Stephen J.

In China, poetry, painting and calligraphy are traditionally known as the ‘Three Perfections’ of the cultivated scholar. They are construed as ethico-aesthetic acts of self-signification and are evaluated ...

Tragedy

Tragedy began in ancient Greece as a type of drama and has become an important part of the literary and critical tradition in Europe and the United States. ...

Kokoro

By Viswanathan, Meera

Kokoro is a comprehensive term in Japanese religion, philosophy and aesthetics often translated as ‘heart’, whose range of meanings includes mind, wisdom, aspiration, essence, attention, sincerity and sensibility. ...

Romanticism, German

By Beiser, Frederick

Because Romanticism has many meanings which vary according to time and place, it is best to examine the movement in a specific culture and period. Of all the ...

Ethics and Literature

By Mulhall, Stephen

Moral philosophers typically assume that literary texts have no significance for ethical reflection beyond providing one possible source of examples of moral problems. This is in line with ...

Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich (1759–1805)

By Reed, T.J.

Schiller was an artist first – a major poet and the leading dramatist of eighteenth-century Germany – and an aesthetician second. At the height of his involvement in ...

Aesthetics, Japanese

By Viswanathan, Meera

While the terms ‘aesthetics’ and ‘philosophy’ were only introduced into Japan during the Meiji Period (post 1868), Japanese culture has nevertheless witnessed the proliferation of various arts and ...

Art and truth

By Taylor, Paul

Some things are true within the world of a literary work. It is true, in the world evoked by Madame Bovary, that Emma Roualt married Charles Bovary. In ...

Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1900–2002)

By Wright, Kathleen

Hans-Georg Gadamer is best known for his philosophical hermeneutics. Gadamer studied with Martin Heidegger during his preparation of Being and Time (1927). Like Heidegger, Gadamer rejects the idea ...

Tragedy

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Formalism in art

By Budd, Malcolm

Formalism in art is the doctrine that the artistic value of a work of art is determined solely by the work’s form. The concept of artistic form is ...

Gardens, aesthetics of

By Ross, Stephanie

Because they blend both art and nature, gardens pose special aesthetic problems. These problems arise most forcefully for gardens deemed works of art. Gardens exhibit a great variety ...

Ibn Sina, Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn (980–1037)

By Kemal, Salim

Ibn Sina (Avicenna) is one of the foremost philosophers in the Medieval Hellenistic Islamic tradition that also includes al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd. His philosophical theory is a comprehensive, ...

Opera, aesthetics of

By Tanner, Michael

Opera, which may be defined as a dramatic action set in large part to music, is an inherently unstable art form, more so than any other. It has ...

Bachelard, Gaston (1884–1962)

By Tiles, Mary

One indication of the originality of Bachelard’s work is that he was famous for his writings both in the philosophy of science and on the poetic imagination. His ...

Mimēsis

By Most, Glenn W.

A crucial term in the literary theories of Plato and Aristotle, mimesis describes the relation between the words of a literary work and the actions and events ...

Structuralism in literary theory

By Margolis, Joseph

‘Structuralism’ is a term embracing a family of theories that between them address all phenomena of the human world – notably language, literature, cookery, kinship relations, dress, human ...