The Origins of Aesthetic Thought in Ancient Greece: Matter, Sensation, and Experience

Description

This is the first modern attempt to put aesthetics back on the map in classical studies. James I. Porter traces the origins of aesthetic thought and inquiry in their broadest manifestations as they evolved from before Homer down to the fourth century and then into later antiquity, with an emphasis on Greece in its earlier phases. Greek aesthetics, he argues, originated in an attention to the senses and to matter as opposed to the formalism and idealism that were enshrined by Plato and Aristotle, and through whose lens most subsequent views of ancient art and aesthetics have typically been filtered. Treating aesthetics in this way can help us perceive the commonly shared basis of the diverse arts of antiquity. Reorienting our view of the ancient vocabularies of art and experience around matter and sensation, this book dramatically changes how we look upon the ancient achievements in these same areas.

James I. Porter is Professor of Classics at the University of California, Irvine. Recent publications include Classical Pasts: The Classical Traditions of Greece and Rome (edited, 2006), and The Invention of Dionysus: An Essay on the Birth of Tragedy (2000).

'[A] remarkable book ... Porter's argument is substantial: learned, challenging and, on various levels, worth serious consideration.' The Times Literary Supplement '... a lengthy, learned, and bold book ... tremendously stimulating ...' Jane Heath, The Expository Times