Aisling Gheár – A Terrible Beauty: The Gaelic Background to Burke’s Enquiry

Abstract

Aisling Gheár - A Terrible Beauty was a poetic cliche in the Gaelic tradition by the time that Burke was composing his treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful. This article briefly summarises the Gaelic political and cultural background to Burke’s life and details how the genre of politcal poetry known as the Aisling Gheár might be seen to have influenced Burke’s Enquiry.The article is particularly interested in Burke’s focus on the effects of the Sublime and Beautiful on the psyche of the listener and the witness, and it draws on recently developing field of Cognitive Science’s exploration of Affect to discuss this aspect of Burke’s work.