Download or read book Enlightened Pleasures written by Thomas M. Kavanagh and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-30 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Novelists, artists, and philosophers of the eighteenth century understood pleasure as a virtue - a gift to be shared with one's companion, with a reader, or with the public. In this daring new book, Thomas Kavanagh overturns the prevailing scholarly tradition that views eighteenth-century France primarily as the incubator of the Revolution. Instead, Kavanagh demonstrates how the art and literature of the era put the experience of pleasure at the center of the cultural agenda, leading to advances in both ethics and aesthetics."--Publisher's description.