"Offering historical overviews and explanations, Philip Shaw looks at the history of the sublime from the earliest, classical theories, through those of the Romantic era, to post-modern and avant-garde conceptions of sublimity; the major theorists of the sublime such as Burke, Kant, Lyotard, Derrida, Lacan and Žižek, offering critical introductions to each; the significance of the concept through a range of literary readings including the Old and New Testaments, Homer, Milton and writing from the Romantic era; and how the concept of the sublime has affected other art forms such as painting and film, from abstract expressionism to David Lynch's neo-noir."--Publisher description.