Paulson shows how 18th-century English poets and artists confronted the decline of High Renaissance ideals in literary theory and aesthetics. The book is less a single extended argument, though, than a collection of brilliant insights and interpretations: Pope as Ovidian poet; Joseph Wright as Shandyan artist. Especially stimulating are the readings of Hogarth, Wright, Gainsborough, Stubbs, and Constable that comprise the second half of the book...