Premodern Aesthetics

Catalog description

What was premodern aesthetics? The question itself ensures raised eyebrows and accusations of anachronism. "Aesthetics" identifies a post-Enlightenment body of theory that subjects issues of beauty and taste to philosophical inquiry; following Kant's Third Critique, the "aesthetic judgment" is necessarily disinterested, and therefore at odds with the devotional, didactic, and political aims of much literature and visual art produced in the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. In this seminar, we will discern the vocabulary and concepts with which premodern thinkers understood the category of beauty and its relationship to perception. To do so, we will examine an array of literary, theological, and philosophical works written from classical antiquity to the sixteenth century - among them, rhetorical treatises, biblical commentaries, and vernacular poetry and prose - that aim to describe, make sense of, and produce aesthetic experience. All assigned readings, except for those written in accessible Middle English, will be available in modern English translation. No prior knowledge of medieval literature is required.