According to Paul Guyer, aesthetics — or, more cautiously, modern aesthetics — is fundamentally and at its core a debate as to whether aesthetic experience involves (i) a distinctive form of knowledge, (ii) an emotional experience, or (iii) a free play of the imagination. Guyer adds that aesthetics — so understood — originates in the eighteenth century. Of course, Guyer's conception of the discipline of aesthetics is a contentious one. But my aim in this paper is not to challenge it. Instead, I will show that Margaret Cavendish's reflections on poetry contain each of ideas (i-iii). Indeed, I will show that Cavendish's account of the experience of writing and reading poetry offer a unique synthesis of those ideas. This is an independently interesting result. But it also shows that aesthetics — as Guyer characterizes it — dates back at least to the seventeenth century.
Sponsored by The Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Fund at Yale University.
