the Aesopic fable; ii. The Fables of Aesop, as first printed by William Caxton, 1484, from his French translation; Hervieux, Les Fabulistes Latins (1893–1899).
Before any Greek text appeared, a Latin translation of 100 Fabulae Aesopicae by an Italian scholar named Ranuzio (Renutius) was published at Rome, 1476. About 1480 the collection of Planudes was brought out at Milan by Buono Accorso (Accursius), together with Ranuzio’s translation. This edition, which contained 144 fables, was frequently reprinted and additions made from time to time from various MSS.—the Heidelberg (Palatine), Florentine, Vatican and Augsburg—by Stephanus (1547), Nevelet (1610), Hudson (1718), Hauptmann (1741), Furia (1810), Coray (1810), Schneider (1812) and others. A critical edition of all the previously known fables, prepared by Carl von Halm from the collections of Furia, Coray and Schneider, was published in the Teubner series of Greek and Latin texts. A Fabularum Aesopicarum sylloge (233 in number) from a Paris MS., with critical notes by Sternbach, appeared in a Cracow University publication, Rozprawy akademii umiejetinosci (1894).
AESOPUS, a Greek historian who wrote a history of Alexander the Great, a Latin translation of which, by Julius Valerius, was discovered by Mai in 1816.
AESOPUS, CLODIUS, the most eminent Roman tragedian, flourished during the time of Cicero, but the dates of his birth and death are not known. The name seems to show that he was a freedman of some member of the Clodian gens. Cicero was on friendly terms with both him and Roscius, the equally distinguished comedian, and did not disdain to profit by their instruction. Plutarch (Cicero, 5) mentions it as reported of Aesopus, that, while representing Atreus deliberating how he should revenge himself on Thyestes, the actor forgot himself so far in the heat of action that with his truncheon he struck and killed one of the servants crossing the stage. Aesopus made a last appearance in 55 B.C.—when Cicero tells us that he was advanced in years—on the occasion of the splendid games given by Pompey at the dedication of his theatre. In spite of his somewhat extravagant living, he left an ample fortune to his spendthrift son, who did his best to squander it as soon as possible. Horace (Sat. iii. 3. 239) mentions his taking a pearl from the ear-drop of Caecilia Metella and dissolving it in vinegar, that he might have the satisfaction of swallowing eight thousand pounds’ worth at a draught.
Cicero, De Divinatione, i. 37; pro Sestio, 56, 58; Quint., Instit. xi. 3, iii; Macrobius, Sat. iii. 14.
AESTHETICS, a branch of study variously defined as the philosophy or science of the beautiful, of taste or of the fine arts.
The name is something of an accident. In its original Greek form (αἰσθητικός) it means what has to do with sense-perception as a source of knowledge; and this Preliminary definitionis still its meaning in Kant’s philosophy (“Transcendental Aesthetic”). Its limitation to that function of sensuous perception which we
know as the contemplative enjoyment of beauty is due to A. G. Baumgarten. Although the subject does not readily lend itself to precise definition at the outset, we may indicate its scope and aim, as understood by recent writers, by saying that it deals successively with one great department of
human experience, viz. the pleasurable activities of pure contemplation. By pure contemplation is here understood that manner of regarding objects of sense-perception, and more particularly sights and sounds, which is entirely motived by the pleasure of the act itself. The term “object” means whatever can be perceived through one of the senses, e.g. a flower, a landscape, the flight of a bird, a sequence of tones. The contemplation may be immediate when (as mostly
happens) the object is present to sense; or it may be mediate, when as in reading poetry we dwell on images of objects of sense. Whenever we become interested in an object merely as presented for our contemplation our whole state of mind may be described as an aesthetic attitude, and our experience as an aesthetic experience. Other expressions such as the pleasure of taste, the enjoyment and appreciation of beauty (in the larger sense of this term), will serve
less precisely to mark off this department of experience.
Aesthetic experience is differentiated from other kinds of experience by a number of characteristics. We commonly speak of it as enjoyment, as an exercise and cultivation of feeling. The appreciation of beauty is pervaded and sustained by pleasurable feeling. In aesthetic enjoyment our capacities of feeling attain their fullest and most perfect development.Differentiation
of aesthetic experience. Its characteristics
as feeling.Yet, as its dependence on a quiet attitude of contemplation
might tell us, aesthetic experience is characterized by a certain degree of calmness and moderation of feeling. Even when we are moved by a tragedy our feeling is comparatively restrained. A rare exhibition of beauty may thrill the soul for a moment, yet in general the enjoyment of it is far removed from the excitement of passion. On the other hand, aesthetic
pleasure is pure enjoyment. Even when a disagreeable element is present, as in a musical dissonance or in the suffering of a tragic hero, it contributes to a higher measure of enjoyment. It is, moreover, free from the painful elements of craving, fatigue, conflict, anxiety and disappointment, which are apt to accompany other kinds of enjoyment; such as
the satisfaction of the appetites and other needs. To this purity of aesthetic pleasure must be added its refinement, which implies not merely a certain remoteness from the bodily needs, but the effect of a union of sense and mind in giving amplitude as well as delicacy to our enjoyment of beauty. Marked off from practical activity,
As the region of most pure and refined feeling, aesthetic experience is clearly marked off from practical life, with its urgent desires and the rest. In aesthetic contemplation desire and will as a whole are almost dormant. This detachment from the daily life of practical needs and aims is brought out in Kant’s postulate that aesthetic enjoyment must be disinterested (“ohne Interesse”), that when we regard an object aesthetically we are not in the
least concerned with its practical significance and value: one cannot, for example, also from
intellectual activity. at the same moment aesthetically enjoy looking at a painting and desire to be its possessor. In like manner, even if less apparently, aesthetic contemplation is
marked off from the arduous mental work which enters into the pursuit of knowledge. In contemplating an aesthetic object we are mentally occupied with the concrete, whereas all the more serious intellectual work of science involves the difficulties of the abstract. The contemplation is, moreover, free from those restraints which are imposed on our mental activity by the desire to obtain knowledge.
While as the highest phase of feeling aesthetic experience appears to belong to our subjective life, the hidden region of the soul, it is connected just as clearly, through the act of sense-perception, with the world of objects which is our common possession. Being thus dependent on a contemplation Uniformity
of aesthetic experience.of things in this common world it raises the question whether, like the perception of these objects, it is a uniform experience, the same for others as for myself. We touch here on the last characteristic of aesthetic experience which needs to be noted at this stage, its uniformity or subjection to law. It is a common idea that men’s judgments about matters of taste disagree to so large an extent that each individual is left very much to his subjective impressions. With regard to many of the subtler matters of aesthetic appreciation, at any rate, there is undoubtedly
on a first view the appearance of a want of agreement.
Contrasted with logical judgments or even with ethical
ones, aesthetic judgments may no doubt look uncertain and “subjective.” The proposition “this tree is a birch” seems to lend itself much better to critical discussion and to The aesthetic judgment.general acceptance or rejection than the proposition “this tree is beautiful.” This circumstance, as Kant shrewdly suggests, helps to explain why we have come to employ the word “taste”
in dealing with aesthetic matters; for the pronouncements of the sense of taste are recognized as among the most uncertain and “subjective” of our sense-impressions. Yet viewed as a species of pleasurable feelings, aesthetic experiences will
be found to exhibit a large amount of uniformity, of objective agreement as between different experiences of the same person and experiences of different persons. This general agreement appears to be clearly implied in the ordinary form of our aesthetic judgments. To say “this rose is beautiful” means more than to say “the sight of this rose affects
