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Book Series

Copyright

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing; Hugh Barr Nisbet; Rosamond McKitterick; Roger Paulin; Michael Squire;

ISBN

Paperback978-1-80511-811-4
Hardback978-1-80511-812-1
PDF978-1-80511-813-8
HTML978-1-80511-815-2
EPUB978-1-80511-814-5

Language

  • English
  • German

THEMA

  • QDTN
  • DSA
  • JBCC9
  • QDHM
  • DB

BISAC

  • PHI001000
  • PHI009000
  • ART015060
  • LIT004170
  • HIS002010

Keywords

  • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
  • German Enlightenment
  • eighteenth-century aesthetics
  • literary theory
  • translation

    Laokoon, or: On the Boundaries of Painting and Poetry

    (with notes and Paralipomena)

    FORTHCOMING
    Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Laokoon, or: On the Boundaries of Painting and Poetry (1766) remains a foundational work in aesthetics, exploring the relationship between visual and verbal modes of representation. In this classic study, Lessing distinguishes the ‘arts of space’ from the ‘arts of time’, offering a nuanced account of how painting and poetry engage perception, emotion, and imagination. His richly digressive reflections on sensory experience, grounded in a historically informed reading of ancient Graeco-Roman art and literature, continue to shape debates on the limits and powers of artistic media.

    Developed through discussions with Moses Mendelssohn and Friedrich Nicolai, Laokoon evolved over several drafts. The Paralipomena—fragments and extrapolations of Lessing’s later thoughts, published posthumously—trace the further refinement of his aesthetic theory.

    This volume presents a new English translation of Laokoon and the first English translation of the Paralipomena, both by the late H. B. Nisbet, the distinguished scholar of the German Enlightenment. Nisbet’s translation, recovered from his papers and prepared for publication by his colleagues, is accompanied by contextual materials reflecting his lifelong engagement with Lessing, Kant, Hegel, and Herder.

    This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of aesthetics, art history, literary theory, Enlightenment studies, classics, media studies, and the history of ideas.

    Contributors

    Hugh Barr Nisbet

    (translator)

    Rosamond McKitterick

    (editor)
    Fellow of Sidney Sussex College and Professor Emerita of Medieval History at University of Cambridge
    https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1296-0589

    Rosamond Deborah McKitterick (born 31 May 1949) is an English medieval historian. She is an expert on the Frankish kingdoms in the eighth and ninth centuries AD, who uses palaeographical and manuscript studies to illuminate aspects of the political, cultural, intellectual, religious, and social history of the Early Middle Ages. From 1999 until 2016 she was Professor of Medieval History and director of research at the University of Cambridge. She is a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College and Professor Emerita of Medieval History in the University of Cambridge

    Roger Paulin

    (editor)
    Schröder Professor Emeritus at University of Cambridge
    https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4928-4513

    Michael Squire

    (editor)
    Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at University of Cambridge
    https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9571-4273

    Michael Squire is Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. His research interests include Greek and Roman material and visual culture, the history of aesthetics, the interrelations between words and images and the reception of classical forms.