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Art and Emotion

Online ISBN:
9780191697227
Print ISBN:
9780199243167
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Art and Emotion

Derek Matravers
Derek Matravers

Lecturer in Philosophy

The Open University
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Published online:
3 October 2011
Published in print:
25 January 2001
Online ISBN:
9780191697227
Print ISBN:
9780199243167
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This book examines how emotions form a bridge between our experience of art and of life. We often find that a particular poem, painting, or piece of music carries an emotional charge; we may also experience emotions towards, or on behalf of, a particular fictional character. These experiences are philosophically puzzling, for their causes seem quite different from the causes of emotion in the rest of our lives. Using many literary, visual and musical examples, this book shows that what these experiences have in common, and what links them to the expression of emotion in non-artistic cases, is the role played by feeling. It surveys various accounts of the nature of fiction, attacks contemporary cognitivist accounts of expression, and offers an uncompromising defence of a controversial view about musical expression: that music expresses the emotions it causes its listeners to feel. Whilst this book engages with the work of contemporary theorists, it remains accessible to readers without philosophical training.

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