The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other EssaysThis volume explores some of the more important of Hans-Georg Gadamer's extensive writings on art and literature. The principal text included is 'The Relevance of the Beautiful', Gadamer's most sustained treatment of philosophical aesthetics. The eleven other essays focus particularly on the challenge issued by modern painting and literature to our customary ideas of art, and in turn revitalize our understanding of it. Gadamer demonstrates the continuing importance of such concepts as imitation, truth, symbol, and play for our appreciation of contemporary art, and thereby establishes its continuity with the Western tradition. The essays here are not technical and are readily accessible to the beginning student and the general reader. The collection as a whole serves to illustrate the practice of hermeneutics and to introduce Gadamer's thought. Robert Bernasconi provides an introduction clarifying the central aims of the essays and their relations to Gadamer's major work, Truth and Method, and to the philosophy of art since Kant. A bibliography of Gadamer's writings available in English is also included. |
Contents
The festive character of theater | 57 |
Composition and interpretation | 66 |
Image and gesture | 74 |
The speechless image | 83 |
Art and imitation | 92 |
On the contribution of poetry to the search for truth | 105 |
Poetry and mimesis | 116 |
The play of art | 123 |
Philosophy and poetry | 131 |
Aesthetic and religious experience | 140 |
Intuition and vividness | 155 |
Notes | 171 |
| 183 | |
| 187 | |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Aristotle Arnold Gehlen artistic become century certainly character Christian claim classical clearly concept contemporary context creation Critique of Judgment culture Edmund Husserl encounter essays essence everyday example experience of art expression fact familiar festival fulfilled G.W.F. Hegel Gadamer Gadamer's genius gesture Greek Hegel Heidegger Heidegger's hermeneutic Hesiod history of theater Hölderlin human idea ideal imitation insofar intended interpretation intuition Juan Gris Kant Kant's kind Kleine Schriften language lyric poetry means mimesis modern art nonobjective onlooker original ourselves painting particular philosophy pictorial picture Plato play of art poem poet poetic word precisely present produced pure poetry question Rainer Maria Rilke reality realm recognition recognize reference religious representation represents seems sense significance simply someone speak speech stands still-life symbol task taste theater theory things thought tion tradition trans translation true Truth and Method understanding unique unity universal vivid