The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics
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'This is an immensely useful book that belongs in every college library and on the bookshelves of all serious students of aesthetics.' - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
'The succinctness and clarity of the essays will make this a source that individuals not familiar with aesthetics will find extremely helpful.' - The Philosophical Quarterly
'An outstanding resource in aesthetics…this text will not only serve as a handy reference source for students and faculty alike, but it could also be used as a text for a course in the philosophy of art.' - Australasian Journal of Philosophy
'Attests to the richness of modern aesthetics…the essays in central topics – many of which are written by well-known figures – succeed in being informative, balanced and intelligent without being too difficult.' - British Journal of Aesthetics
'This handsome reference volume... belongs in every library.' - Choice
'The Routledge Companions to Philosophy have proved to be a useful series of high quality surveys of major philosophical topics and this volume is worthy enough to sit with the others on a reference library shelf.' - Philosophy and Religion
'The sheer eclecticism of this work – the variety of content, method, outlook and sensibility – shows the vigour and vitality that aesthetics as a branch of modern philosophy has come to assume in the last two or three decades. Its compilation is a real achievement, and it will appeal to a very wise range of readers. Some of these essays are, and will remain, classics of their kind.' - Richard Wollheim
British Journal of Aesthetics
'...informative, balanced and intelligent...'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
This book is great if you need information from different writers all in one place. It was very useful when writing my dissertation. Five stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
The best survey of aesthetics available
7 July 2007
Format:Paperback
Routledge routinely releases extraordinary material surveying large bodies of knowledge and condensing them into a manageable package of clear, concise articles from a nice variety of perspectives. This is one of their best and most useful (and usable) volumes yet. The field of aesthetics is as old as philosophy itself, but somehow this companion represents major topics and philosophers from every era from Plato to Derrida and Barthes.
The book breaks down into three categories: History, where we get essays on major figures in aesthetics; Aesthetic theory, including essays on major topics such as the "value of art", definition of art, taste, interpretation and others; and finally, Issues and challenges - including criticism, ethics, performance authenticity, and others. Check out the table of contents in the Amazon Online Reader for more. In short, the guide is comprehensive. Naturally, they couldn't include absolutely everything - there's no article on Adorno's widely influential aesthetics and writings on the culture industry, but this is easily forgivable as there are already whole anthologies on Adorno's aesthetics.
There are other companions similar to this such as Peter Kivy's very nice Blackwell guide to aesthetics. The Blackwell guide is just fine, but the Routledge companion has a wider scope, more articles, and is simply easier to use. That said, certain volumes (and here I'm thinking of the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism) work nicely with this book, but they have different areas of focus.
Having spent some time with the major collections on aesthetics, I can definitely say that this is the finest. I highly recommend it to students, artists, educators, or anyone interested. The writing is extremely clear and the format makes it easy to find exactly what you're looking for. If you want to know more about aesthetics, this is the book for you.
The book breaks down into three categories: History, where we get essays on major figures in aesthetics; Aesthetic theory, including essays on major topics such as the "value of art", definition of art, taste, interpretation and others; and finally, Issues and challenges - including criticism, ethics, performance authenticity, and others. Check out the table of contents in the Amazon Online Reader for more. In short, the guide is comprehensive. Naturally, they couldn't include absolutely everything - there's no article on Adorno's widely influential aesthetics and writings on the culture industry, but this is easily forgivable as there are already whole anthologies on Adorno's aesthetics.
There are other companions similar to this such as Peter Kivy's very nice Blackwell guide to aesthetics. The Blackwell guide is just fine, but the Routledge companion has a wider scope, more articles, and is simply easier to use. That said, certain volumes (and here I'm thinking of the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism) work nicely with this book, but they have different areas of focus.
Having spent some time with the major collections on aesthetics, I can definitely say that this is the finest. I highly recommend it to students, artists, educators, or anyone interested. The writing is extremely clear and the format makes it easy to find exactly what you're looking for. If you want to know more about aesthetics, this is the book for you.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A great introduction to the key concepts of aesthetics
5 Oct 2005
Format:Paperback
This is an exceptionally strong volume in the Routledge Companions to philosophy series. With a few exceptions, the essays in this volume are pitched at just the right level to introduce the reader to some of the major figures and central issues from the history of aesthetics. It is both readable to the interested novice in philosophy and useful for the established scholar who wants to get his or her feet wet in a new area. The book covers history, theory, issues, and the specifics of the individual arts. Each chapter/essay is written by a prominent scholar, and is just the right length to identify several of the predominant issues covered in the scholarship. The coverage is fairly thorough, and the second edition is coming out soon which has even better coverage. I was disappointed that there was not a chapter on Schopenhauer, but you know it is there in the second edition.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Excellent companion to Visual Arts Studies
21 Sep 2007
Format:Paperback
Like most of my Amazon purchases, I initially borrowed this book from my university library. I liked it enough to purchase and will remain indefinitely in my growing library collection. The bulky size of this book belies its concise and clear nature, which is a boon for any student attempting to wade through the more dense, wordy literature of some other books on the Philosophy of Art. As the blurb on the rear of the book states, it contains 52 chapters written by leading international scholars which cover pretty much all aspects of aesthetics.
Structurally, the book's layout makes it easy to locate pertinent information quickly. The chapters are divided into sections which discuss the history, theory, issues and challenges of aesthetic theory; and then looks at the individual arts such as film, photography, dance, theater and music (to name a few. Each chapter concludes with a reference list and a further reading list.
Structurally, the book's layout makes it easy to locate pertinent information quickly. The chapters are divided into sections which discuss the history, theory, issues and challenges of aesthetic theory; and then looks at the individual arts such as film, photography, dance, theater and music (to name a few. Each chapter concludes with a reference list and a further reading list.
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