Abstract
This paper analyzes Theodor Adorno's essay entitled "Aesthetic Theory" which is Adorno's critique of subjectivist aesthetic theory in light of the role art plays in society today. The reviewer perceives Adorno as seeking a higher truth for art. Adorno's essay is considered a criticism of the new, bourgeois view of art, in which art exists simply for the pleasure of the viewer. Additionally, the reviewer is surprised that Adorno attacks psychoanalytic and the Kantian approaches to art criticism, seeing that they attempt to understand art at a higher level. The paper further elaborates on Adorno's issue with these two academic approaches to art criticism.

From the Paper
"Given Adorno's disgust with the hungry, subjectivist view of art, it is unsurprising that within his essay Adorno lodges an attack against two subjectivist theories of aesthetics: the psychoanalytic and the Kantian. Adorno is especially disgusted with the Freudian notion that desire propels art, though he finds fault with the Kantian notion of disinterestedness as well."

Tags:Kant, Freud, art criticism

Abstract
The paper discusses how the aesthetic form, even that of language, played a highly important role in terms of modernity's exploration of the nature of representation. The paper explains how it played an important role as an alternative to language, as a mode of both perceiving and expressing experience. The paper examines Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" and Heidegger's "Work of Art" and shows how the aesthetic is presented, in both theories and representations of modernity, as highly important for the perception and expression of experience as a meaningful unity.

From the Paper
"Allyson Booth notes in Postcards from the Trenches that expressionist architects, in their handling of 'glass in a way that encourages us not to see through glass but to see glass' opened up, in modernity, a 'self-consciousness about the nature of representation'. Being primarily a post-war phenomenon, this mode of aesthetic representation was contemporary in 1927 when Virginia Woolf published her novel To the Lighthouse. It can thus be seen as significant that she opens this novel with part one entitled, 'The Window'. By means of its obvious reference to glass, Woolf immediately establishes a connection between the aesthetic use of glass in the expressionist architecture of modernity and the thematic concerns of To the Lighthouse. This connection indicates that Woolf, like the architects of her time, wished to direct her readers towards a consideration of language as a material of construction and, like the expressionist architect, demanded that her structural material was itself examined rather than merely looked through."

Tags:language, separation, meaning, unity, reconciliation, forces, experience

Abstract
This paper probes Goodman's theory of depiction which is a form of metaphorical exemplification which the philosopher also calls expression. This well-researched and detailed paper examines Goodman's system of determining the relationship between work and emotion which applies broadly to the arts. This paper also focuses on Goodman's approach to nominalism as an ontological position about the existential status of abstract objects as well as his aesthetic program that advances a belief in the intellectual nature of art.

From the Paper
"For Goodman, the nominalist, there is no chance of inherent essence of a label, and so the only explanation for the interplay in a re-assignment involved in metaphor are rules of association which govern the behavior of labels. A sort of conventional nominalism chalks these rules up to "practice," while a stipulative nominalism would determine that the rules are handed down by an unknown source. In any case, the rules are ordered by the conditions in which the label is applied. For example, when confronted with a painting, a decision is made to apply the predicate "inspiring" to the object in question."

Tags:art, theory, nomial, aesthetics, nature, photography, philosophy

Abstract
The paper analyzes Dolce's article for what it tells us of conflict between Venetian and Florentine notions of art, as presented by Aretino in praising colour/depiction, and Fabrini's appeal to more thematic, bold, Florentine painting. The text offers access to a very different city state in Venice, of different history, and a culture given to aesthetic softness and realism. The paper gives reflections on the purposes of painting as indicated by both speakers.

From the Paper
"Lodovico Dolce's L'Aretino 1557 - Pietro Aretino and Giovan Francesco Fabrini. Pietro Aretino presents the pro-Venetian views of Dolce, in contrast with Fabrini's pro-Florentine ideas, as they debate what we would today describe as colour theory. For Aretino, naturalism and colouring are aspects of Venetian art, and art in general, that he believes are most noteworthy, as opposed by Giorgio Vansari, the primary influence of Fabrini's views. The pages discussed here open in Aretino's assertion that painters to include birds or horses exemplified the importance of colour. (pp. 1-3)"

Tags:venice, florence, purposeofart

Abstract
This paper examines John Keats' "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"
and Charles Simic's "Stone". It shows that, in both of these poems, one written during the Romantic era of English letters, the other a modern expression of poetic and personal development as mirrored in the natural world, the central conflict is: how can the poet apprehend and appreciate what is beautiful outside himself" It also asks what kind of beauty enriches human life and expression and how is this achieved.

From the Paper
"Keats thus adapts the Elizabethan love and faith in structured, ordered, and beautiful expressions of cerebral thought, even for romantic ideals, in his sonnet. In Keats' case, however, the subject matter is not Shakespeare's fair young man or dark lady, but the text of Homer. The choice of a romantic, rarified, logical yet passionate form is thus quite a deliberate plea, upon Keats' part, to parallel affection for a woman or beloved friend with affection for a once-inaccessible yet beautiful literary text and tradition. As sonnets were used to open the hearts of cold or chaste females, so the translation of Chapman has opened the heart of Keats to a form of poetic expression, once closed, like a stone "a stone, unlike the runes upon the inside of Simic's stone, that can be opened."

Tags:metaphor, classical, victorian, sonnet, Homer

From the Paper
"Editor Hal Foster states in the preface to his book, The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, that he brought together the essays for this work in an effort to present a dialogue on the meaning of postmodern culture as reflected in all the arts. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss postmodern culture, its theory and practice, its affect on design issues, and its influence on society and reaction from society.


Foster defines postmodernism as a "conflict of new and old modes--cultural and economic" (xi). The anti-aesthetic relates to an interdisciplinary cultural position on the present time. It is his aim to reflect various different views coming from different art forms in order to stimulate thinking about the diverse nature of postmodernism and the anti-aesthetic.


In theory, postmodernism refers to the moving away of the..."

Abstract
This paper explains that in its classical sense, Marxist theory does not deal explicitly with literature and art and does not develop an aesthetic of culture or literature. However, the theoretical trajectory of Marxist thought has impacted radically on art and literature as aspects of societal and cultural discourse. The author points out that the concept of dialectic refers specifically to the methodology or method of analysis, which is peculiar to Marxist theory;. In this sense, literature and art, as cultural products, are analyzed in relation to their social and historical context. The paper analyzes specifically " Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, "A Passage to India" by E. M. Forster's and the writings of Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Overview
Foundation of Marxist Theory and Literary Criticism
Marxism - Extrinsic and Intrinsic Approaches to Literature
The Premises of Marxist Criticism
Base and Superstructure
The Dialectic
Ideology and Alienation
Semiology and Psychoanalytic Theory.
Reader - Response Theories
A Marxist Critique of Literature
Analysis of the Echo in "A Passage to India": A dialectical reading
" Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad
Dickens
Shakespeare
Conclusion

From the Paper
"From this perspective, literary works are essential structures of ideological formations. In other words, literature expresses and represents the ideals and aims of class formation that persist and maintain the society. "Literature is for Marxism a particular kind of signifying practice which tends to make up what can be termed an ideological formation". Therefore, Marxist critical perspectives will attempt to explain literature from within its social context and in relation to that particular historical time period. This in turn relates to basic strategies, such as the identification of class structures and class struggle within the literature of a certain historical period."

Tags:discourse, dialectic, method, analysis, context

Abstract
In Kant's "Critique of Judgment," he expressed his thoughts on judging something as beautiful. Kant believed that an object should not be brought under a concept. For example, if a flower is considered beautiful, it is not a pure beauty since it is part of a basic judgment that it is a flower. The paper shows that Kant asserted that part of the miracle of nature is that it should be so well colored and formed, and in thinking of it as beautiful, individuals think of their interests and their luck in living in such a world. For something to be purely beautiful, according to Kant, it should be designed in such a way that cognition gives way to imagination.

From the Paper
"According to Kant, while ones taste cannot describe beauty on its own, it is still useful in finding beauty. Kant observed that within any discussion of aesthetics, there is a general agreement of taste on what is beautiful and what is not. For example, a group of people may agree that orchids are beautiful. However, Kant asserts that this agreement on beauty is not a universal. However, he states, it is still a useful indicator of a universal beauty as it is not based on individual taste.
When the judgment is no longer dependent upon subjectivity, it shifts to include a collective reason. However, Kant clearly states that while this shift leads toward a definition of beauty, leaning too far towards the cognitive can be as misleading as finding beauty as being too subjective."

Tags:imagination, concept, of, purpose

Abstract
In this article, the writer refutes the claim that the sociology of taste undermines Kant's theory of pure aesthetic judgment. The writer describes Bourdieu's claim that there is no such thing as disinterested judgment because all judgments are sociologically motivated. The essay goes on to point out that Bourdieu is discussing sociology, which does not encroach on Kant's epistemology at all. Kant acknowledges that aesthetic judgment will be guided by taste, but this will not explain why one is actually moved by beauty, and for this reason he posits the existence of pure aesthetic judgment. The essay analyses Monet's paintings "Impression, Sunrise" and "Blue Water Lilies" in order to illustrate the theme.

From the Paper
"Kant is a philosopher, and he scarcely encroaches on the field of sociology. Of course a philosopher cannot ignore society. Kant alludes to society when he calls something practical, or contingent. Aesthetic judgment takes place in the context of society, as far as it is motivated by determinate ends. Only that part of it which transcends all determinate ends, and prefigures beauty, in its purity, and in its inexplicableness, may be said to be beyond the bounds of society. The object of Kant's metaphysics is to point out how the contingent is ruled by the transcendental. Therefore, in his epistemology he makes out practical reason to be ruled by pure reason, and in his critique of morality he describes duty as being ruled by the categorical imperative."

Tags:pure, aesthetic, judgment, sublime, beauty, critic, rational

Abstract
This paper shows that Kierkegaard's individualistic morality is the culmination of reviewing and discarding various ways of living. He depicts a few different ways of life, and it is clear that his intention is to make each way of living a specific stage in a person's life and that each stage evolves to the next. The paper shows that, in this regard, Kierkegaard is expressing his antagonistic intellectual relationship with Hegel and his theory of dialectics. However, compared with the Hegelian shaping of conflicts into a new and higher meaning, there seems to be too much of a willful leap in Kierkegaard's "spheres of existence" from one level of living to the next level. There are problems with the notion of willed beliefs; making the "leap of faith" a questionable move.

From the Paper
"When Kierkegaard calls this mode of living the "aesthetic sphere of existence," this is "aesthetic" in the sense of the immediate and the sensory. The first volume of Either/Or represents this aesthetic level, and the essays dwell on figures like Don Juan and Mozart's Don Giovanni. Because the aesthete makes no commitments, there are no risks, so there is the avoidance of any possibility of disappointment. Yet there is the need to keep oneself amused. "Boredom is the root of all evil," (281) so it is even possible to avoid commitment methodically ("The Rotation Method") in order to keep life interesting, while avoiding obligations. It is also possible to make this lack of commitment into an elaborately staged art form, as described in the celebrated "Diary of the Seducer." But there is no self-content, no balance, and no continuity. In this manner of existence, whatever one does has no consequence in the final analysis."

Tags:aesthetic, hegel