The Beautiful is a recurring idea in the book. Along with the Sublime, the Beautiful is a major focus of this work. Beauty is defined as the quality of an object (and Burke frequently "objectifies" women for the purposes of this theory) that incites the passion of love. Beauty then is opposed to the Sublime, as it is derived from pleasure rather than pain. Importantly, perfection, fitness (the appropriateness of a part to its function), and proportion are NOT aspects of beauty, as may have previously been supposed by philosophers and artists.
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