The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays [Paperback]

These essays explore Hans-Georg Gadamer's writings on art and literature in English.Presents for the first time in English the most important of Gadamer's extensive writings on art and literature.Presents for the first time in English the most important of Gadamer's extensive writings on art and literature.This volume explores some of the more important of Hans-Georg Gadamer's extensive writings on art and literature. The principal text included is 'The Relevance of the Beautiful', Gadamer's most sustained treatment of philosophical aesthetics. The eleven other essays focus particularly on the challenge issued by modern painting and literature to our customary ideas of art, and in turn revitalize our understanding of it. Gadamer demonstrates the continuing importance of such concepts as imitation, truth, symbol, and play for our appreciation of contemporary art, and thereby establishes its continuity with the Western tradition. The essays here are not technical and are readily accessible to the beginning student and the general reader. The collection as a whole serves to illustrate the practice of hermeneutics and to introduce Gadamer's thought. Robert Bernasconi provides an introduction clarifying the central aims of the essays and their relations to Gadamer's major work, Truth and Method, and to the philosophy of art since Kant. A bibliography of Gadamer's writings available in English is also included.Foreword; Editor's introduction; Sources; Part I: The Relevance of the Beautiful: Part II: Essays: 1. The festive character of theater; 2. Composition and interpretation; 3. Image and gesture; 4. The speechless image; 5. Art and imitation; 6. On the contribution of poetry to the search for truth; 7. Poetry and mimesis; 8. The play of art; 9. Philosophy and poetry; 10. Aesthetic and religious experience; Appendix: intuition and vividness; Notes; Bibliography; Index.