Rhetoric, Politics and Society

This book offers a theory of those formal properties of art that are apt to afford strong aesthetic experience - a project resembling Aristotle's in the Poetics, where he analysed structures in tragedies that condition the &quote;peculiar pleasure&quote; of tragedy. However, the book's scope cuts across all genres of literature and also includes classical music - the formal art par excellence. Drawing on a wide array of recent theoretical work and empirical evidence, the book closely analyses dozens of examples of both art forms. Besides Aristotle, major inspiration comes from two modern master thinkers: the linguist Roman Jakobson, who defined the &quote;poetic function&quote; of language, and the rhetorician Kenneth Burke, who proposed a &quote;psychological&quote; concept of form. Throughout, the book argues for aesthetic experience as an end in itself and a component of quality of life, one to which everyone should have access - rather than just a means to other ends.