1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910424623303321

Autore

Berndt Frauke

Titolo

Facing Poetry : Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten's Theory of Literature / / Frauke Berndt

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berlin/Boston, : De Gruyter, 2020

Berlin ; ; Boston : , : De Gruyter, , [2020]

©2020

ISBN

3-11-062348-X

3-11-062451-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (X, 238 p.)

Collana

Paradigms ; ; 12

Altri autori (Persone)

MahlerAnthony

Soggetti

LITERARY CRITICISM / General

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Methodology -- 3. Epistemology -- 4. Metaphysics -- 5. Narratology -- 6. Ethics -- 7. Conclusion -- 8. Afterword -- 9. Works Cited -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–1762) is known in intellectual history for having established the discourse of philosophical aesthetics with his "Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus" (Reflections on Poetry) and "Aesthetica" (Aesthetics), which consists of two books and is considered Baumgarten’s most important work. But this book amends that history. It shows that Baumgarten's aesthetics is a science of literature that demonstrates the value of literature to philosophy. Baumgarten did not intend to pursue such a task, but in working on his philosophical texts and lectures, he ends up analyzing, synthesizing, and contextualizing literature. He thereby treats it not as belles lettres or as a moral institution but rather as an epistemic object. His aesthetics is thus the first modern literary theory, and his articulation of this theory would never again be matched in its complexity and systematicity. Baumgarten’s theory of literature has never been discovered. It waits latently to take its place in intellectual history.