John Baillie e la genesi moderna del sublime

John Baillie's 'Essay on the Sublime' gathers together themes and references from earlier writers who have been involved in the analysis of the concept of the sublime. These themes are brought to a level of theoretical definition not found in earlier writings. The relevance of Baillie's 'Essay' must therefore be acknowledged in terms of the fact that, in modern times, it represents a crucial moment in the genesis of the sublime as an aesthetic category; also, in theoretical terms, Baillie's theories are important because of the original and properly aesthetic approach that informs them, deliberately and methodologically detached from the rhetorical-literary method that had informed most previous investigations.