The Spectator, Aesthetic Experience and the Modern Idea of Happiness

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Campo DC	Valore
dc.identifier	ECF_article_58
dc.title	The Spectator, Aesthetic Experience and the Modern Idea of Happiness
dc.contributor.author	Norton Brian Michael
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing
dc.type	Articolo
dc.language.iso	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/it/edizioni4/riviste/english-literature/2015/1/the-spectator-aesthetic-experience-and-the-modern/
dc.description.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.
dc.relation.ispartof	English Literature
dc.relation.ispartof	Vol. 1 \| Giugno 2015
dc.issued	2015-06-30
dc.identifier.issn
dc.identifier.eissn	2420-823X
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.identifier.doi	10.14277/2420-823X/EL-2-1-15-16p
dc.peer-review	yes

Articolo
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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.

Pubblicato

30 Giugno 2015

Lingua

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.

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