• A new edition of one of the central works in the history of aesthetics, whose influence extends to literature and art and on philosophers from Kant and Nietzsche and beyond.
• Paul Guyer's expert introduction deftly guides the reader through Burke's arguments, explaining the classical tradition that he overturned and analysing the Enquiry's influence on philosophical thinking to the present day.
• Up-to-date bibliography guides the reader through the burgeoning literature on Burke's aesthetics.
• Thorough notes places Burke's work in the context of the aesthetic theories of his time.

New to this Edition:

• Introduction by distinguished scholar Paul Guyer providing a thorough and clearly written historical and analytical overview of the work and drawing on scholarship of the last twenty-five years since the previous edition.
• Expanded and up-to-date bibliography.
• Revised and expanded notes.

  
'Pain and pleasure are simple ideas, incapable of definition.'
  
In 1757 the 27-year-old Edmund Burke argued that our aesthetic responses are experienced as pure emotional arousal, unencumbered by intellectual considerations. In so doing he overturned the Platonic tradition in aesthetics that had prevailed from antiquity until the eighteenth century, and replaced metaphysics with psychology and even physiology as the basis for the subject. Burke's theory of beauty encompasses the female form, nature, art, and poetry, and he analyses our delight in sublime effects that thrill and excite us. His revolution in method continues to have repercussions in the aesthetic theories of today, and his revolution in sensibility has paved the way for literary and artistic movements from the Gothic novel through Romanticism, twentieth-century painting, and beyond. 
  
In this new edition Paul Guyer conducts the reader through Burke's Enquiry, focusing on its place in the history of aesthetics and highlighting its innovations, as well as its influence on many subsequent authors from Kant and Schiller to Ruskin and Nietzsche.