aesthetes

Noun

aesthete (plural aesthetes)

1. (derogatory, often) Someone who cultivates an unusually high sensitivity to beauty, as in art or nature, often in a manner perceived to prioritize beauty over other qualities such as virtue and utility.
   • I prefer to think of [literature] as providing a discipline of the sensibility—a special way of apprehending reality. But though I prefer such a conception, it gives rise to all sorts of misunderstandings […] To define literature in this fashion is to risk being called a mere aesthete and even an...a. 1994, Cleanth Brooks, “English Literature: A Subject Matter? A Discipline? A Special Amalgam?”, in Community, Religion, Literature, published 1995, →ISBN, page 184