The Idea of Beauty

What does it mean to be beautiful in classical and European literature? How is beauty defined by thinkers from Plato to Benjamin? Readings from the classical, medieval, Renaissance, and modern periods are brought into question by works concerning the problems of aesthetics. Works by Plato, Aristotle, Horace, Augustine, Dante, Petrarch, Shakespeare, Racine, Tolstoy and others in addition to readings from the history of aesthetics from Kant through the present.