One of the fundamental ideas of chaos theory is the "butterfly effect," first proposed by Edward Lorenz in the 1960s: a single, small event may yield exponentially enlarged effects, just as the single flap of a butterfly's wings may produce vast, unpredictable ramifications in weather patterns far away. Theorists of literature and culture who derive their conceptual framework from chaos theory are now performing the butterfly effect: a few suggestions on the part of certain physicists and biologists have inspired an exponentially growing literature of metaphorical applications in faraway fields. The Aesthetics of Chaos makes the salutory attempt to restrain, summarize, and unify the multivarious aesthetic theories of chaos.