Greek and Roman Aesthetics

by Edited and translated by Oleg V. Bychkov , Anne Sheppard

• ISBN13: 9780521547925
• ISBN10: 052154792X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-08-16
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This anthology of philosophical texts by Greek and Roman authors brings together works from the late fifth century BC to the sixth century AD that comment on major aesthetic issues such as the perception of beauty and harmony in music and the visual arts, structure and style in literature, and aesthetic judgement. It includes important texts by Plato and Aristotle on the status and the role of the arts in society and in education, and Longinus' reflections on the sublime in literature, in addition to less well-known writings by Philodemus, Cicero, Seneca, Plotinus, Augustine and Proclus. Most of the texts have been newly translated for this volume, and some are available in English for the first time. A detailed introduction traces the development of classical aesthetics from its roots in Platonism and Aristotelianism to its ultimate form in late Antiquity.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Introduction	p. xi
Chronology	p. xxxi
Further reading	p. xxxiv
Note on the texts and the translations	p. xxxviii
Greek and Roman Aesthetics	p. 1
Gorgias	p. 3
From Encomium of Helen	p. 3
Plato	p. 5
From Ion	p. 5
Hippias Major	p. 9
Symposium	p. 22
Republic 2-3	p. 26
Republic 10	p. 52
Phaedrus	p. 68
Timaeus	p. 71
Sophist	p. 73
Xenophon	p. 75
From Memoirs of Socrates	p. 75
Aristotle	p. 79
From Poetics	p. 79
Politics 8	p. 107
Philodemus	p. 109
From On Poems 5	p. 109
On Music 4	p. 112
Cicero	p. 117
From On Rhetorical Invention	p. 117
On the Ideal Orator	p. 119
Orator	p. 124
On Moral Ends	p. 128
On the Nature of the Gods	p. 130
Tusculan Disputations	p. 133
On Duties	p. 135
Seneca	p. 141
From Letters to Lucilius	p. 141
On the Award and Reception of Favours	p. 144
Longinus	p. 147
From On Sublimity	p. 147
Philostratus	p. 167
From Life of Apollonius of Tyana	p. 167
Pictures Preface	p. 170
Philostratus the Younger	p. 171
From Pictures Preface	p. 171
Aristides Quintilianus	p. 173
From On Music	p. 173
Plotinus	p. 185
From Enneads	p. 185
Augustine	p. 201
From On Order	p. 201
On Music	p. 206
On True Religion	p. 219
On Free Choice of the Will	p. 227
Confessions	p. 231
On the Trinity	p. 233
Proclus	p. 235
From Commentary on the Timaeus	p. 235
Commentary on the Republic	p. 236
From Anonymous Prolegomena to the Philosophy of Plato	p. 241
Index	p. 244
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