Philip Shaw is Professor of Romantic Studies in the School of Arts at the University of Leicester, UK.

Introduction 1. Before (and After) Longinus 2. Sublimity in the Eighteenth Century 3. Burke: A Philosophical Enquiry 4. Kant: The Analytic of the Sublime 5. The Romantic Sublime 6. Modernism and the Sublime 7. The Sublime is Now (and Again) Afterword Glossary Bibliography

Related to ideas of the great, the awe-inspiring and the overpowering, the sublime has been debated for centuries amongst writers, artists, philosophers and theorists and has become a complex yet crucial concept in many disciplines. Offering historical overviews and explanations this remarkably clear study is essential reading for students of literature, critical and cultural theory.