The Third Earl of Shaftesbury : A Study in Eighteenth-Century Literary Theory

The third Earl of Shaftesbury had generally been known as the forerunner of the Moral Sense school of philosophers in the eighteenth century. Surprisingly little attention had been paid to his importance for literature and yet undoubtedly this had been very great. Originally published in 1951, this study gives an account of Shaftesbury’s aesthetic and literary theory; his discussion of the imagination, ridicule, the aesthetic judgment and the sublime; and his anticipation of later writers such as Burke, Coleridge and Kant. It also considers Shaftesbury’s thought as part of the background of ideas in the Augustan period and his influence in such fields as literature, architecture and landscape gardening. In addition, the author assesses in more general terms Shaftesbury’s attempt to maintain a Platonic viewpoint that would be more congenial to poetry than Locke’s "new way of ideas". Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Frontispiece 7 Original Title Page 8 Original Copyright Page 9 Dedication 10 Contents 12 Note 14 Preface 16 Chapter I. The Cambridge Platonists 18 Chapter II. The Life and Writings of Shaftesbury 38 Chapter III. Shaftesbury's Philosophy 64 Chapter IV. The Ancients and Moderns 91 Chapter V. The Creative Imagination 105 Chapter VI. The Aesthetic Judgment 128 Chapter VII. The Sublime 150 Chapter VIII. The Doctrine of Ridicule 170 Chapter IX. The Influence of Shaftesbury's Thought 191 Chapter X. The Crisis of Reason 213 Appendix 229 Index 230 Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Original Title Page -- Original Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 Young Girls from The House in Paris -- 2 Different Girls from The Waves -- 3 Being a Girl from Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter -- 4 Growing up I from The Member of the Wedding -- 5 Growing up II from The Rainbow -- 6 Wanting a Chance in Life from The Story of an African Farm -- 7 Wanting Something More from Jane Eyre -- 8 A Young Girl's Aspirations from Journals -- 9 Being Non-Educated from Letters This 13 volume set contains titles, originally published between 1949 and 1991. Focusing on eighteenth-century England it includes titles which examine novels, drama and poetry from the time.