Cooper did
not reassess or change significantly the assumptions of Shaftesbury
and Hutcheson. His work was primarily a popularization of their ideas,
and, in its enthusiastic language, its emphasis on sensibility,
and its epistolary form, it seems directed at flattering a female
audience. Armstrong's remarks on taste, written in imitation of
the simplicity and clarity of the rational tradition, are personal
assertions and opinions rather than well-defined or clearly
thought-out critical positions. They are random thoughts rather than a
coherent critical theory.
The significance of Cooper and Armstrong rests, therefore, on certain
representative attitudes toward taste which exhibit the change
"from classic to romantic." On the one hand, they accept the moral
postulates of art, and, on the other, they emphasize the emotional
basis of taste. Cooper treats art as a secondary form of knowledge,
yet emphasizes the thrill that art gives. Armstrong accepts
the standards of clarity and simplicity, while emphasizing the
individuality of response and the need for discriminating particular,
rather than general, qualities.
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