| Description |
1 online resource |
| Contents |
Genius and the Spirit of Transgression -- Symbols of the Morally Bad -- Evil and the Sublime -- Wicked Spectators |
| Summary |
"How do we perceive evil? How do we represent evil? In Transgression and the Aesthetics of Evil, Taran Kang examines the entanglements of aesthetics and morality. Investigating conceptions and images of evil, Kang identifies a fateful moment of transformation in the eighteenth century that continues to reverberate to the present day. Transgression, once allocated the central place in the constitution of evil, undergoes a startling revaluation in the Enlightenment and its aftermath, one that needs to be understood in relation to emergent ideas in the arts. Transgression and the Aesthetics of Evil engages with the writings of Edmund Burke, the Marquis de Sade, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Hannah Arendt, among others, as it questions recent calls to "de-aestheticize" evil and insists on a historically informed appreciation of evil's aesthetic dimensions. Chapters consider the figure of the "evil genius," the paradoxical appeal of the grotesque and the disgusting, and the moral status of spectators who behold scenes of suffering and acts of transgression. In grappling with these issues, Transgression and the Aesthetics of Evil questions the feasibility and desirability of insulating the moral from the aesthetic."-- Provided by publisher |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Online resource; title from PDF title page (De Gruyter platform, viewed June 27, 2022) |
| Subject |
European literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism
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European literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism
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Good and evil in literature.
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Aesthetics, European -- 18th century.
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Aesthetics, European -- 19th century.
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Aesthetics, European
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European literature
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Good and evil in literature
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| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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Literary criticism
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Literary criticism.
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Critiques littéraires.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9781487529093 |
|
1487529090 |
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1487529082 |
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9781487529086 |
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