Description
Book SynopsisThe authors of the standard approach to Bonaventure's aesthetics established the broad themes that continue to inform the current interpretation of his philosophy, theology, and mysticism of beauty: his definition of beauty and its status as a transcendental of being, his description of the aesthetic experience, and the role of that experience in the soul's ascent into God. Nevertheless, they also introduced a series of pointed questions that remain without adequate resolution in the current literature. Thomas J. McKenna's book, Bonaventure's Aesthetics: The Delight of the Soul in Its Ascent into God, provides a comprehensive analysis of Bonaventure's aesthetics, the first to appear since Balthasar's Herrlichkeit, and, in doing so, argues for a resolution to these questions in the context of his principal aesthetic text, the Itinerarium mentis in Deum.
Table of ContentsA Note on the Cover Illustration
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction: Disputed Questions on Bonaventure’s Aesthetics
1. Bonaventure’s Debt to l’Esthétique Musicale
2. Bonaventure’s Debt to l’Esthétique de la Lumière
3. Bonaventure’s Account of the Aesthetic Experience
4. The Aesthetic Dimensions of the Itinerarium Mentis in Deum
Conclusion
Bibliography
