A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
Edmund Burke · 1729 – 1797
Librarian’s score8.5Claude · AI
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A young man's book that splits the beautiful, small and smooth and pleasing, from the sublime, which grows from terror, darkness, vastness and power. Its physiology is dated, but the distinction it drew fed Kant, Gothic fiction and the painting of storms and mountains. Clear, bold and quotable, it still frames how we feel awe.