Abstract
This paper explores Kant's classification of aesthetics as the beautiful and the sublime, and with an interpretation of Lyotard's proposition that postmodern aesthetics is the aesthetics of the sublime, it suggests that postmodern sublimity lies mainly in viewing postmodern literature as an art for protest, highlighting how to tell a story instead of what a story is, and regarding the indeterminacy as the primary aesthetic principle as in the slogan of "Vive la difference," and it then achieves strangeness through radical experiment and eclecticism, and derives pleasure by adjusting expectations. The paper argues that postmodern literature, if judged by traditional or Pythagorean aesthetics, shows no beauty as it knows not how to talk about its beauties.
First Page
94
Last Page
102
Recommended Citation
Chen, Qi, and Quansheng Hu. 2016. "Aesthetics of the Sublime and Its Connotations and Properties in Postmodern Literature." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 36, (4): pp.94-102. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol36/iss4/6
