The Limits of Aesthetics

What are the limitis of aesthetics? Not too long ago, they were determined, by political and moral definition, to protect the essence of artistic merit. In the meantime, the term "aesthetics" has been used in such an inflationary manner that limits must be set in a different direction, to confront hedonism, triviality and superficiality, and the conception of "culture" propagated by academic circles. All this belongs, according to Bohrer, to the social sphere. This book, insisting on the limits of aestheticism, collects principal reflections on the matter, emphasising the difference of aesthetic and non-aesthetic speech, the romantic metaphor and the problems of the surrealistic imagination.