Edward Bullough (28 March 1880 – 17 September 1934) was an English aesthetician and scholar of modern languages, who worked at the University of Cambridge. He did experimental work on the perception of colours, and in his theoretical work introduced the concept of psychical distance: that which "appears to lie between our own self and its affections" in aesthetic experience. In languages, Bullough was a dedicated teacher who published little. He came to concentrate on Italian, and was elected to the Chair of Italian at Cambridge in 1933.

Life and work

Early life to "Psychical Distance", 1880–1914

Edward Bullough was born in Thun, Switzerland, on 28 March 1880, to John Bullough and Bertha Schmidlin.F. E. Trayes, ed., Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College, vol. 5, Admissions from 1911 to 1932 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948), 132. Here the latter name is given as Schmidlein. As a child he lived mostly in Germany, and was educated at Vitzthum Gymnasium, Dresden.M. O. [Michael Oakeshott], "Edward Bullough," Caian 43, no. 1 (1934): 1. It was a convention at the time that articles in the Caian were signed with initials only. Oakeshott is identified in Elizabeth M. Wilkinson, introduction to Aesthetics, by Edward Bullough (London: Bowes and Bowes, 1957), xii. At seventeen Bullough moved to England,Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 1. and in 1899 matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge,W. W. Rouse Ball and J. A. Venn, eds., Admissions to Trinity College, Cambridge, vol. 5, 1851 to 1900 (London: Macmillan, 1913), 1134. where he studied Medieval and Modern Languages.Trayes, Biographical History of Caius, 132. He graduated BA (Class I) in 1902, MA in 1906,Ball and Venn, Admissions to Trinity, 1134. after which he taught French and German at Cambridge colleges and lectured in the university.Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 2.

At this time Bullough became interested in aesthetics, and "prepared himself to deal with [its] problems … by a study of physiology and general psychology".Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 2. See also Edward Bullough, Italian Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934), 8–9. In 1907 Bullough gave a course of lectures in aesthetics, the first such at Cambridge, privately printed as The Modern Conception of Aesthetics.Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 2. Bullough mistakenly says the year was 1906 in Italian Perspectives, 8. The lectures are first announced, to begin on 14 October 1907, in the Cambridge University Reporter 37, no. 39 (1907): 1018. He repeated the course annually "until shortly before his death".Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 2. Bullough conducted experimental work on the perception of colours in the Cambridge Psychological Laboratory, the basis for a series of three papers in the British Journal of Psychology.Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 3. Bullough also had an interest in parapsychology, and was a member of the Society for Psychical Research.Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 3.

In 1908 Bullough married Enrichetta Angelica Marchetti (daughter of the actor Eleonora Duse), with whom he had a son and a daughter."Professor Bullough, Italian Studies at Cambridge," The Times, 18 September 1934. He was elected to a Drosier Fellowship at Gonville and Caius College in 1912,Trayes, Biographical History of Caius, 132. and in the same year published his noted theoretical paper, Psychical Distance' as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle". Psychical distance (Bullough capitalises the words) is that which, in certain situations, "appears to lie between our own self and its affections, using the latter term in its broadest sense as anything which affects our being".Edward Bullough, Psychical Distance' as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle," British Journal of Psychology 5, no. 2 (1912): 89. Artistic production and appreciation are two such situations.Bullough, "Psychical Distance," 90.[Psychical Distance] has a negative, inhibitory aspect—the cutting-out of the practical sides of things and of our practical attitude to them—and a positive side—the elaboration of the experience on the new basis created by the inhibitory action of Distance.Bullough, "Psychical Distance," 89.

The relation between self and object remains a personal one (it is not like the impersonal relation in scientific observation, for example) and Bullough thinks that a "concordance" between them is necessary for aesthetic appreciation.Bullough, "Psychical Distance," 91–92. However this must not be such that psychical distance is lost: Bullough imagines a jealous husband watching a performance of Othello, who "will probably do anything but appreciate the play".Bullough, "Psychical Distance," 93. This "antinomy of Distance"Bullough, "Psychical Distance," 92. leads Bullough to say that what is desirable in art, "both in appreciation and production", is "the utmost decrease of Distance without its disappearance".Bullough, "Psychical Distance," 94. In the source, the second quotation is mostly italicised.

War service to death, 1915–1934

In the First World War, Bullough was recruited as a civilian in the summer of 1915 to the Admiralty's cryptoanalysis section, Room 40. He served for four years, finally as a Lieutenant of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 4. After the war he returned to Caius, where he had been re-elected to a fellowship in January 1915.Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 4. He published in the British Journal of Psychology two more papers on aesthetic theory, "The Relation of Aesthetics to Psychology" (1919) and "Mind and Medium in Art" (1920), and a review of experimental work (1921).Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 3. In 1920, he was appointed College Lecturer in modern languages and University Lecturer in German,P. Giles, "Appointment of a University Lecturer in German," Cambridge University Reporter 50, no. 31 (1920): 758. and he edited the anthology Cambridge Readings in Italian Literature.Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 5.

In 1923 Bullough resigned his university post,E. C. Pearce, "University Lectureship in German," Cambridge University Reporter 53, no. 41 (1923): 1042. wishing to concentrate instead on Italian.Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 5. The same year, he joined the Roman Catholic Church as a Dominican Tertiary, and afterwards was active in the Cambridge University Catholic Association.Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 9. In the following decade he published translations of Étienne Gilson, Karl Adam, and Achille Ratti (by then Pope Pius XI), and gave three papers on Dante at Catholic summer schools in Cambridge and Salzburg.Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 7. A colleague believed that his work in Italian studies "all went into his lectures and teaching", rather than research for publication.Quoted anonymously in Oakeshott, "Edward Bullough," 8–9. He was appointed University Lecturer in Italian in 1926.Trayes, Biographical History of Caius, 132. No reference has been located in the Cambridge University Reporter.

Bullough was elected to the Chair of Italian at Cambridge in March 1933.Will Spens, "Professorship of Italian: Election," Cambridge University Reporter 63, no. 29 (1933): 830. In his printed inaugural lecture, titled Italian Perspectives, he claims that the Italian "perspective" is one of "continuity of classical with medieval and modern times",Bullough, Italian Perspectives, 36. so that tradition is treated "with the easy familiarity of a family possession".Bullough, Italian Perspectives, 32. He argues that because the European classical tradition is also, for the Italian, the native tradition, "the 'national' inheritance of Italy lies at the same time embedded in the foundations of Europe".Bullough, Italian Perspectives, 56. In illustration, Bullough proposes Roman law, the Renaissance, and the Romantic movement as "three contributions made by Italy to the patrimony of the civilised world".Bullough, Italian Perspectives, 56. He offers the contemporary fascist movement as a tentative fourth:Bullough, Italian Perspectives, 62–63. a successor to the chair, Uberto Limentani, believed there was "no doubt" that Bullough sympathised with fascism.Uberto Limentani, "Leone and Arthur Serena and the Cambridge Chair of Italian, 1919–1934," Modern Language Review 92, no. 4 (1997): 891.

After a short illness"Professor Bullough," The Times. resulting from an internal operation,H. O. Evennett, "Edward Bullough," Dublin Review 196, no. 392 (1935): 147. Bullough died in a nursing home in Bath on 17 September 1934. He was buried at Woodchester Priory in Stroud."Professor Bullough," The Times. The philosopher Michael Oakeshott, a colleague at Caius, wrote Bullough's obituary for their college record.Elizabeth M. Wilkinson, introduction to Aesthetics, xii. Bullough's influence on Oakeshott's aesthetics is discussed in Efraim Podoksik, In Defence of Modernity: Vision and Philosophy in Michael Oakeshott (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2003), 109–117.

The family home on Buckingham Road, Cambridge was offered to the Dominican Order by his widow and is now Cambridge Blackfriars.

Bibliography

Note that Bullough's texts and translations of other authors are collected after the chronological presentation.

1904. "Matter and Form." Modern Language Quarterly 7, no. 1: 10–15. 1905. "Bibliographisches zu Schillers Demetrius." Studien zur vergleichenden Literaturgeschichte 5, Ergänzungsheft: 290–293. 1907. "The Apparent Heaviness of Colours." British Journal of Psychology 2, no. 2: 111–152. 1908. The Modern Conception of Aesthetics. Privately printed. 1908. "The 'Perceptive Problem' in the Aesthetic Appreciation of Single Colours." British Journal of Psychology 2, no. 4: 406–463. 1909. As compiler. Bibliography to General Modern Aesthetics. Privately printed? (A pamphlet.) 1910. "The 'Perceptive Problem' in the Aesthetic Appreciation of Simple Colour-Combinations." British Journal of Psychology 3, no. 4: 406–447. 1912. Psychical Distance' as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle." British Journal of Psychology 5, no. 2: 87–118. 1913. "Ein Beitrag zur genitischen Ästhetik." In Kongress für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin 7.–9. Oktober 1913: Bericht, 55–72. Stuttgart: Enke, 1914. 1919. "The Relation of Aesthetics to Psychology." British Journal of Psychology 10, no. 1: 43–50. 1920. As compiler. Italy in the Nineteenth Century: Chronological Tables, with a List of Works Recommended for Study, etc. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (A pamphlet.) 1920. As editor. Cambridge Readings in Italian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1920. "The Civil Service and Modern Languages." In Year Book of Modern Languages, edited for the Council of the Modern Language Association by Gilbert Waterhouse, 10–24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1920. "Mind and Medium in Art." British Journal of Psychology 11, no. 1: 26–46. 1921. "Recent Work in Experimental Aesthetics." British Journal of Psychology 12, no. 1: 76–99. 1921. "The Relation of Literature to History." Modern Languages 2: 37–47. 1925. "Dante, the Poet of St Thomas." In St Thomas Aquinas, edited by C. Lattey, 247–284. Cambridge: W. Heffer. 1928. "Broken Bridges." University Catholic Review 2, no. 1: 7–11. 1932? "Dante als Vetreter des XIII. Jahrhunderts." (Cited by Oakeshott, not located and perhaps not published.) 1932? "Dante und die europäische Kultur." (Cited by Oakeshott, not located and perhaps not published.) 1933. "The Relation of Literature and the Arts." Modern Languages 14: 101–112. 1934. Italian Perspectives: An Inaugural Lecture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1935. Psychical Distance' as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle." In A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology, edited by Melvin M. Rader, 87–118. New York: Henry Holt. (2nd ed., 1952. 3rd ed., 1960. 4th ed., 1973. 5th ed., 1979.)