A Treasury of Essential Quotes on Form in Literature and in the Fine Arts

These passages from works written over the past two millennia by more than sixty authors from Aristotle to Auden afford hundreds of illuminating and often startling insights into the nature and primacy of artistic form and of its power to provide extraordinary aesthetic delight. They reject subordination of works of art to non-aesthetic purposes, arguing instead that in itself, exquisite composition is the primary element and source of the value of all great works of art.

Moreover, they show that this emphasis on formal design is not merely a minority view or an exclusively modern sentiment: rather, these passages demonstrate that for more than 2,000 years, aesthetic form has served - and in our day ideally still should serve - as our primary concern in the reception and valuation of artistic works.