'Aesthetical Qualities' - a term to describe pleasing characteristics in texts?

Question

I am trying to figure out if I can use 'aesthetical qualities' to refer to qualities that writers or readers find pleasing in texts.

This question comes from a remark by a professor on an essay I wrote some time ago. The essay was about the literary genre of Exilliteratur - literature written by dissident or antifascist writers who left Germany during the Nazi era. To cut things short, I was trying to make the point that some of the authors picked topics for their aesthetical qualities (and not because they were trying to make a political point).

Can I use 'aesthetical qualities' in this way? i.e. to refer to properties of texts that authors find attractive or pleasing? My professor said that I may have meant literary features. Any insight on this word would be much appreciated.

Thank you! If I need to add more information, comment away.

Answer 1

A couple of points:

The German term is Exilliteratur, not exilliterature; if you want to anglicise it, you ought to render it as 'exile literature'. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exilliteratur).

Equally, there exist two similar words in English — (a)esthetic and (a)esthetical, the second of which is rather more restricted in scope (look up the words in the Onelook.com metadictionary to explore the differences in connotation).

Personally, I would use aesthetic qualities to refer to the stylistic characteristics of the texts under consideration. Literary features implies an emphasis on the individual technical devices used by the authors rather than on the totality of how they generate an emotional impact on their readers.

EDIT (see comment below)

As I'm sure you've noted, Onelook is not a dictionary per se, but a portal that leads to all the relevant hits/entries it finds in the set of actual online dictionaries that it knows about. So what you encounter will depend on which individual dictionary hits you click on. I'll restrict myself to Lookwayup.com's definitions of the adjective:

AESTHETIC
1. relating to or dealing with the subject of aesthetics ; "aesthetic values".
2. concerning or characterized by an appreciation of beauty or good taste ; "the aesthetic faculties"; "an aesthetic person"; "aesthetic feeling"; "the illustrations made the book an aesthetic success".
3. aesthetically pleasing ; "an artistic flower arrangement".

AESTHETICAL
concerning or characterized by an appreciation of beauty or good taste ; "the aesthetic faculties"; "an aesthetic person"; "aesthetic feeling"; "the illustrations made the book an aesthetic success".