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English Literature | Vol. 1 | June 2015

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Research Article

The Spectator, Aesthetic Experience and the Modern Idea of Happiness

Brian Michael Norton    California State University, Fullerton, USA    

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abstract

Focusing on Joseph Addison and Richard Steele’s Spectator papers, this essay links modern ideas of happiness to the emergence of aesthetic theory in early eighteenth-century Britain. It argues that Addison and his contemporaries understood aesthetics foremost as a means of enriching life through sharpening our sensory experience of the world, especially the world of nature. The «happiness» that attends this experience, as they describe it, is a heightened sense of feeling alive, of connecting to the providential order, and being part of a common universe of existing things. 

Published
June 30, 2015
Language
EN

permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/2420-823X/EL-2-1-15-16p

Copyright: © 2015 Brian Michael Norton. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.