Theories of the Sublime

1
Theories of the Sublime

• Sublimity is a theoretical, aesthetic, ethical
  and political concept (i.e., attempting to
  explain powerful emotions, lending itself as a
  tool by which nature can be understood, tugging
  at ones moral stance, and tied to the
  revolutionary atmosphere of the later 18th cent.)

2
Its thinkers

• Edmund Burke, whose psychological definition of
  the concept (c. 1756) ties it to terror (e.g.,
  feelings of unease and anxiety when one is close
  to danger a paradoxical idea since one also
  feels relieved, having avoided danger)
• Carl Grosse, whose more literal definition of the
  concept (c. 1790) ties it to depth in scenery
  (e.g., a gorge being more conducive to an
  emergence of sublime feelings than a flat plain)

3
Its components

• according to Burke, fear is essential to its
  emergence
• according to Grosse, one should peer into an
  abyss literally, but also feel great while doing
  so

4
Burke context
Brillenburg-Wurth, Kiene. The Musically Sublime.
Fordham Fordham UP, 2009. (pp. xiii-xiv)
5
Grosse context
Brillenburg-Wurth, Kiene. The Musically Sublime.
Fordham Fordham UP, 2009. (pp. xi-xii)
6
Its effects