A Lust of the Mind: Curiosity and Aversion in Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics

  • Carolyn Korsmeyer
Chapter

Abstract

Theories that offer hedonic analyses of aesthetic value confront a stubborn version of a traditional question: What accounts for the profound value found in art that arouses disturbing emotions, if that value comprises enjoyment or pleasure? Tragedy arouses pity and terror, as well as grief, sorrow, even despair. Other forms of art deliberately prompt disgust, indignation, anxiety, dread, and a host of other uneasy affects hard to give precise names. All of these emotions are in some way ‘negative’; psychologically speaking, they are ‘painful’. This raises the familiar puzzle: How come human beings seek out experiences that produce pain of any sort? And what kind of pain is this anyway?

Keywords

Negative Emotion Eighteenth Century Phenomenal Quality Grave Disturbance Painful Emotion 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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© Carolyn Korsmeyer 2014

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  • Carolyn Korsmeyer

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