This is the first of two volumes of the only English edition of Hegel's Aesthetics, the work in which he gives full expression to his seminal theory of art. The

No philosopher has held a higher opinion of art than Hegel, yet nor was any so profoundly pessimistic about its prospects - despite living in the German golden

Hegel's own introduction to his lectures on aesthetics has become a classsic in its own right. Also contains an essay that explains the metaphysical background

Hegel's lectures have had as great a historical impact as the works he himself published. Important elements of his system are elaborated only in the lectures,

A reprint, with new Introduction, of the Harper Torch edition of 1970. The famous introductory lectures collected in this volume represent the distillation of H