A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics

A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics responds to, and reflectson, the arts in the ancient world. The history of Western thinkingabout such matters goes back to the Greeks, when the arts, in oneform or another, were a central feature of public life, evaluatedand discussed long before Alexander Baumgarten published his Aesthetica in 1750 and established aesthetics as a distinctphilosophical discipline. Greek speculations on the nature ofartistic experience have profoundly shaped our culture, and thisvolume explores the many ways in which the arts were experiencedand conceptualized in the ancient world.

The contributors take a broad view in their discussions, movingaway from analysis of the classical antecedents of 18 thcentury aesthetics, to discuss ancient aesthetics as a subject inits own right. The first of its kind, the volume presents asynoptic view of the arts, which crosses traditional boundaries andexplores the aesthetic experience of the ancients across a range ofmedia oral, aural, visual, and literary. The essays presentan integrated perspective on the major themes of ancient aestheticsthat challenges traditional demarcations and raises questions aboutthe similarities and differences between ancient and modern ways ofthinking about the place of art in society.

  Introduction Pierre Destrée and Penelope Murray Part I: Art in Context   1. Greece: festivals, symposia and the performance ofpoetry Richard P. Martin 2. Figures of the poet in Greek epic and lyric Deborah Steiner 3. The Hellenistic world: the contexts and experience ofpoetry and art Graham Zanker 4. Rome: poetry, patronage and politics Thomas Habinek 5. Music and dance in Greece and Rome Eleonora Rocconi 6. Greek sculpture: the body, human and divine Rosemary Barrow 7.   Painting and private artcollections in Rome Agnès Rouveret 8. Architecture and Society Catherine Saliou Part II: Reflecting on Art 9. Literary criticism and the poet s autonomy Andrew Ford 10. Poetic inspiration Penelope Murray   11. The canons of style Jeffrey Walker 12. Sense and sensation in music Armand D′Angour 13. Dance and aesthetic perception Anastasia–Erasmia Peponi 14. Greek painting and the challenge of mimçsis Hariclia Brecoulaki 15. Ways of looking at Greek vases François Lissarrague 16. Displaying sculpture in Rome Thea Ravasi 17. Perceiving colors M. Michela Sassi 18. The beauties of architecture   Edmund Thomas 19. Stylistic landscapes Nancy Worman 20. Conceptualizing the (visual) arts Michael Squire Part III: Aesthetic issues 21. Mimesis Paul Woodruff 22. Fiction Stephen Halliwell 23. Imagination Anne Sheppard 24.  Beauty David Konstan 25. Unity, wholeness and proportion Malcolm Heath 26. The Sublime James I. Porter 27. Poikilia Adeline Grand–Clément 28. Wonder Christine Hunzinger 29. Tragic Emotions Christof Rapp 30. Laughter Ralph M. Rosen 31. Pleasure Pierre Destrée 32. Art and Morality Elizabeth Asmis 33. Art and Value Michael Silk

Pierre Destrée is Associate Researcher at the FNRS andAssociate Professor at the University of Louvain, Belgium, where heteaches ancient philosophy. He is the author of a Frenchtranslation of Aristotle′s Poetics (2014) and editor of Plato and the Poets (with F.G. Herrmann, 2011), Plato andMyth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths (with C.Collobert and F. Gonzalez, 2012); The Cambridge Companion toAristotle′s Politics (with M. Deslauriers, 2013) and What isUp to Us? Causality and Responsibility in Ancient Philosophy(with R. Salles and M. Zingano, 2014).

Penelope Murray was Senior Lecturer and a founding member ofthe Department of Classics at the University of Warwick, UK, beforeretiring in 2008. She continues to work on early Greek poetry andpoetics, on philosophical responses to Athenian song–culture,especially the views of Plato, and on ancient literary criticism.Her publications include Genius: The History of an Idea(Blackwell, 1989); Plato on Poetry (1996); ClassicalLiterary Criticism (2000); Music and The Muses: The Cultureof Mousike in the Classical Athenian City (edited with P.Wilson, 2004).