In the development of English aesthetics, William Hogarth's 'The Analysis of Beauty' takes a position of high significance. In this now classic edition, Ronald Paulson includes the complete text of the original work; an introduction that places the 'Analysis' in the tradition of aesthetic treatises and Hogarth's own 'moral' works; extensive annotation of the text and accompanying illustrations; and illuminating manuscript passages that Hogarth omitted from the final printed version. Hogarth's stature in his own time suggests the importance of his attempt to systematise and theorise his...

The confusion of sin and evil, or religious and moral transgression, is the subject of Ronald Paulson's latest book. He calls attention to the important distinction between sin and Evil (with a capital E) that in our times is largely ignored, and to the further confusion caused by the term "moral values." Ranging widely through the history of Western literature, Paulson focuses particularly on American and English works of the eighteenth through twentieth centuries to discover how questions of evil and sin--and evil and sinful behavior--have been discussed and represented.
The breadth of...

This series gathers together a body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The selected sources range from important essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and documentary material such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to...

Each chapter in this intriguing book by one of the world's leading authorities on Henry Fielding begins with an annotated chronology of the known facts, followed by analyses of the important issues. Paulson's account must be essential reading to all admirers and serious students of Fielding and his work.

This work chronicles the emergence of Hogarth the man and satirist, and sets his achievements in the context of his contemporaries such as Defoe, Swift and Pope.

This final volume takes Hogarth from his 53rd year to his death at 67. The period opens with Hogarth at the height of his powers; a figure of influence with the literary generation of Richardson and Fielding, he was known to an unprecedented spectrum of English men and women. At this point, Hogarth chose to philosophise about art, extending his successful practice into aesthetic theory, in The Analysis of Beauty, partly in reaction to the agitation for an art academy based on the French model, partly out of conviction that his art required verbal validation, and partly (some contemporaries...

This work demonstrates Hogarth's conflicting aims of producing a polite or popular art, for patrons or for the general public, and is concerned with the central issue of Hogarth as painter and engraver.

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.