Speaking of Beauty (Magill’s Literary Annual 2004)
At a glance:
- Author: Denis Donoghue
- First Published: 2003
- Type of Work: Literary criticism and philosophy
- Time of Work: From the time of ancient Athens to modern times
- Setting: Worldwide
- Principal Characters: Immanuel Kant, Friedrich von Schiller, John Ruskin
- Genres: Criticism, Nonfiction, Philosophy
- Subjects: Philosophy or philosophers, Literature, Art or artists, Beauty, Morality or morals, Industrialization, Aesthetics, Impressionism
- Locales: Earth
Denis Donoghue posits beauty as one of life’s six indisputable virtues, along with life, love, truth, virtue, and justice. Other, more disputable values are power, belief, communication, and (surprisingly) money. Each of these values, he sighs, tends to seize the world in its favor and jostle its rivals aside. He gives five reasons for appreciating beauty, without necessarily agreeing with all of them: First, because its existence is related to goodness and truth; second, because the search for beauty encourages a “respect for intrinsic value, freedom, independence, selflessness”;...
[The entire page is 2077 words long]
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