Sublimity addresses the nature of the sublime experience itself, and the function that experience has played, and continues to play, within aesthetic discourse. The book both updates and revises existing treatments of the sublime in the eighteenth century, examines its neglected role in the nineteenth century aesthetics, and analyzes the significance of the modifications the concept has undergone in order to serve the interests of contemporary aesthetics. The book thus offers the most comprehensive coverage of the history of the sublime available.
Chapter 1 Mountains, Tigers, and Magnanimity: A Passion and Its Objects; Chapter 2 A Pleasing Rape? Boswell versus Johnson in the History of the Sublime; Chapter 3 Proud Creatures: The Fascination of Greatness; Chapter 4 The Claim to a Nobler Motive: Kant; Chapter 5 The Triumph of the Will: Schiller; Chapter 6 The Philosophy of Belief: German Idealism; Chapter 7 Common Senses: Eighteenth-Century Survivals; Chapter 8 The Literature of Power: The Nineteenth Century; Chapter 9 Epiphany and Therapy: The Twentieth Century; Chapter 10 Sublimity;
