The Beautiufl Soul: Aesthetic Morality in the Eighteenth Century (inscribed by the author)
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995. First edition. Firts printing. As ne win dust jacket. Warmly inscribed and dated Sept. 12, 1995 by Norton to a fellow Ivy League colleague on the half title page. Laid in is also a one page handwritten letter from Norton to the same recipient. Hardcover. xi+ 314 pp. with bibliography, index. Considered one of the most important works in its field and the first book in English on the subject. Norton follows the fortune of the cultural icon of the "beautiful soul" (a symbol of enlightened humanity carrying with it the possibility that aesthetic beauty and moral goodness would be fused in a new unity), exploring the reasons for both its initial popularity and its subsequent decline as a cultural ideal during the Enlightenment. The work traces the emergence of "moral beauty" as it first appears in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and maintains that the attempt to combine the good and the beautiful was a response to the rise of secular authority. As New / as new. Item #E25346
ISBN: 080143050X
Price: $150.00