Women on Philosophy of Art: Britain 1770-1900

Women on Philosophy of Art is the first study of women’s philosophies of art in long nineteenth-century Britain. It looks at seven women spanning the time from the Enlightenment to the beginning of modernism. They are Anna Barbauld, Joanna Baillie, Harriet Martineau, Anna Jameson, Frances Power Cobbe, Emilia Dilke, and Vernon Lee. The central issue that concerned them was how art related to morality and religion. Baillie and Martineau treated art as an agency of moral instruction, whereas Dilke and Lee argued that art must be made for beauty’s sake. Barbauld, Jameson, and Cobbe thought that beauty and religion were linked, while other women believed that art and religion must be decoupled. Other topics explored are gender and genius, tragedy, literary realism, why we enjoy the sufferings of fictional characters, the hierarchy of the art-forms, whether art can transcend its historical circumstances, and critical issues around the artistic canon. Examining the print culture that made these women’s interventions possible, this book shows that these women were doing a particular kind of philosophy of art, which was interdisciplinary and closely tied to artistic criticism and practice. The book traces how these seven women influenced one another, as well as engaging with their male contemporaries. But unlike their male interlocutors, these women have been unjustly left out of narratives about the history of aesthetics. By including these women, we can enrich and broaden our understanding of the history of philosophy of art.

Alison Stone, Professor of Philosophy, Lancaster University

Alison Stone is Professor of Philosophy at Lancaster University. Her interests span the history of philosophy, post-Kantian European philosophy, feminist philosophy, and aesthetics. Her most recent books are Being Born (OUP 2019), Frances Power Cobbe: Essential Writings of a Nineteenth-Century Feminist Philosopher (OUP, 2022), and Women Philosophers in Nineteenth-Century Britain (OUP, 2023). With Lydia Moland, she has co-edited the Oxford Handbook of American and British Women Philosophers in the Nineteenth Century.