Costello, Timothy. The Sublime: From
Antiquity to the Present. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2012.
Chapter 1: Longinus and the Ancient Sublime
Ø
Longinus describes the sublime as indicators:
o
An excellence in discourse.
o
Attached to the great writers and poets through
time.
o
Recognized by its affect on the reader.
§
It astounds and amazes.
§
It compels the audience.
o
It comes from a local source.
§
A single thought.
§
A short description.
Ø
Faulty sublime comes from the same source.
o
It is difficult to describe
o
If you cannot discern it, and
o
When it’s encountered definitions won’t help.
Ø
If affects most people.
o
Delight to all
o
Universal consent.
o
Those who disagree tend to be envious.
§
The recognize excellence.
§
They tend to focus on the mistakes of the greats
and overlook their contributions.
·
People who may be risk averse.
Ø
Sublimity and sources
o
Thought
o
Emotions
o
Figures of speech
o
Diction – Metaphor, vocabulary
o
Composition: Word order, rhythm.
Ø First Source:
o Powerful effect with regard to
ideas.
§ Sublimity achieved through
· Thought
· Imitation
· Imagination
§ Added with
· Selections and combination of
details.
·
Amplification
or intensification.
Ø
Sublimity is the echo of a great mind.
o
Beyond the reach of a low or ignoble mind.
Ø
Divine: images of the divine are weighty and
dignified.
o
Some images misrepresent the divine.
§
The image of a great man as god
§
These images must be interpreted as allegories.
Ø Greatness of thought:
o Insights aligned with ordinary life.
§ They are not trivial.
§ Usually enhanced or intensified.
Ø Amplification:
o The accrual or culmination of
intensification.
o Quality of amplification is
critical.
o Quality to enhance the sublime.
o Like words: amplification can
elevate or ruin an idea.
Ø Imitation:
o It’s not about copying.
o Its not about repeating what x said.
§ But what x would have said in a
different situation.
o
We can draw ideas from others, and then expand
on them.
§
It extends our conceptual reach.
Ø
Imagination:
o
Making an imaginary scene.
o
Conceived in our minds through visualization.
§
Takes us out of ourselves.
§
Gives thoughts beyond our normal reach.
Ø
Imitation and imagination:
o
Stretch our ability for great thoughts
o
It manifests:
§
Great thoughts, or
§
Insights to
·
Composition
·
Amplification.
Ø
People have their own nature,
o
And it should be cultivated to greatness.
o
Shift focus from world peace to inner strife.
§
Places responsibility back to the individual.
o
We can aspire to greatness
§
Even if the social environment is unfavorable.
o
Wealth, status and reputation
§
There preoccupation is a barrier to the sublime.
Ø
Sublimity:
o
Engages compels and overwhelms the mind.
o
It is not dependent on the listener.
Ø
The technical sublime can manipulate us, but
o
The sublime functions in the realm of ethics.
o
It always stays within reach.
o
More than technical savvy,
§
It also requires ethical development.
o
A persuasive sublime is not the sublime.
§
But the inadequacy in the individual believing
it.
Ø
We should cultivate the sublime to develop the
sublime.
Ø
Nature has inspired our souls with an invincible
passion for what is great and more divine than ourselves.
o
The limits of the universe do not constrain the
viewer.
Ø
Small mistakes are the small price that is paid
to create great things.
Chapter 2: And the Beautiful? Revisiting Burke.
Ø
Burkes inquire to physiological feelings of the
sublime and beautiful caused by objects.
Ø
All human beings.
o
Primary pleasures of the senses.
o
Secondary pleasures of the imagination.
o
Conclusions of reason.
Ø
A separation of sublime from beauty.
o
Feelings of terror brought a dark side to the
sublime.
o
The terror completely enwraps the mind with the
object.
Ø
Author argues the sublime and beauty are
intrinsically linked.
o
Feels Burkes treatment of beauty may be more
important than the innovative approach to the sublime.
Ø
People are driven by:
o
Self-preservation (Hobbes), and
o
Society (Locke and Shaftsbury).
o
Self-preservation: Subject recoils on their
self.
§
Society drives them to the other.
o
Pain senses nothing but oneself.
o
Pleasure: Directed onto something else.
§
Object of enjoyment.
Ø
Taste is comprised of the senses
o
The imagination is “A Creative Power.”
§
The most impactful on our sense of pain and
pleasure.
§
It harbors our hopes and fears.
·
And our passions about them.
§
Imagination: How we concern ourselves with
others.
Ø
Terror is a source of the sublime.
o
Because it is linked with self-preservation.
o
The sublime kicks in after some distance is
achieved.
§
By becoming an idea,
·
By using the imagination.
Ø
Pleasure: Caused by the existence of an object.
o
Pain: Caused by the removal of an object.
§
The object that is causing pain.
Ø
The sublime as terror must:
o
Animate reason and the ability to reflect on it.
Ø
Delightful Horror: The awareness of being alive.
o
Again: things greater than ourselves.
Ø
Burk viewed the terror of the sublime as
necessary to human health.
Ø
Author contrasts sublime as terror to our
everyday life.
Ø
The beautiful: How we interact with the
world/society.
o
Things that generate a sense of affection.
o
Societal pleasures lies in sympathy, imitation and ambition.
§
Can have the effect of raising a man to his own
opinions.
Ø
Pleasure and pain can be abused when:
o
They create an illusory distance between oneself
and others.
o
One escapes a terror, and then self aggrandizes
about it.
o
One has a lot of wealth, sex, etc…
Ø
Burke disassociates beauty from form, and from
use:
o
Beauty may reside there,
§
But many things are beautiful, but serve no
purpose.
o
Beauty becomes its own source,
§
A full respect on its own.
Ø
Beauty can exist without understanding or
reason:
o
Idea, order, purpose, or proportion.
o
Rejects perfection as a cause of beauty:
§
First to reject all the way back to Plato.
Ø
Beauty for Burke: “Some quality in beauties
acting mechanically on the human mind by the intervention of the senses.”
Ø
Pained is forced upon the senses
o
Pleasure is not forced.
Chapter 3: Moral source of the Kantian sublime
Ø
The
sublime cannot be attributed to any object.
o
It is the creation of the mind.
o
In the mind of one who judges
§
It awakens feeling.
o
Only a state of mind can be sublime.
Ø
Situating the sublime as state of mind:
o
Sublime refers to:
§
Something great in nature that arouses distinctive
pleasure.
§
Can be pleasure or pain
·
Or relief from pain.
o
For Kant, the sublime can be used for
self-reflection or self-examining philosophy.
§
Something about our essence.
Ø
The sublime in nature:
o
Mathmatical sublime: Concerned with spatial
extension.
o
Dynamic sublime: Associated with power.
Ø
Mathmatical – “aesthetic estimation of
magnitude”
o
Taking something in by the eye.
§
But beyond the imaginations ability to grasp it.
o
Vantage point is key.
§
Can only perceive parts:
·
In one simple view
·
But unable to reconcile magnitude.
·
The imagination can apprehend it, but not
entirely make sense of it.
o
A constant tension between imagination and
reason.
Ø
Dynamic sublime: Powers of nature.
o
Capable of arousing fear.
o
Impulse to avoid future engagement
o
The feeling of being threatened.
Ø
The mathematical sublime can become fearful
because we cannot make sense of it.
Ø
Enjoying the sublime helps us appreciate
something in ourselves independent from nature.
Ø
The sensible and the supersensible.
o
Theoretical knowledge: Applies to the sensible:
§
Limited to objects of possible experience.
§
What is the case in the domain of nature.
§
We cannot have theoretical knowledge of the
supersensible
·
God, soul, ect…
o
Practical Knowledge:
§
What ought to be done.
§
The good as brought on by action.
§
Supersedes the want of the individual.
o
Freedom emerges as what ought to be done, but
§
Not causal based.
Ø
Sublime vocation
o
The sublime is part of our nature.
Ø
Kant considers man a rational animal, however
o
People are not perfectly rational
o
And reason must be cultivated.
Ø
The sublime
o
Is a reflective state of mind,
§
In which we are attached to our condition as a
rational animal.
o
The appreciation of the sublime beings with a
physical comparision.
§
Sense comparison.
Ø
Awareness to have the ability to make the
comparison
o
With knowledge of our physical insignificance.
Ø
Moral Feelings
o
The capacity to feel beyond ourselves,
§
Competes with self-conceit.
·
The centering of cross being
§
Self conceit is naturally at odds with moral
being.
·
Because moral feeling humiliates self-centeredness.
o
More feeling must be cultivated.
Ø
The sublime allows one to elevate above their
self, however
o
Uplifting does not necessarily mean sublime.
Chapter 4 – Imagination and Internal Sense
Ø
Internal Sense:
o
Something foundational in nature that allows us
to interpret and speak to beauty and the sublime.
o
Internal counterpart to external senses.
Ø
Imagination – active and passive features of
artistic creativity.
Ø
Anthony Cooper – Earl of Shaftsbury
o
Cooper’s sublime
§
Tends to focus on effects of the audience from literary
style that astonish and compel.
§
Values figurative styles over natural and
simple.
§
What is unlike to humanity or ordinary use.
§
Sublime
·
Elevates feelings
·
Transcendence
·
Presence of something greater than ourselves.
Ø
Sublime:
o
Three orders of beauty.
o
Sense of order and proportion.
§
We can make sense of a scene because we can
decipher harmony from discord.
§
There ar ebase elements which build into larger
themes.
·
We contemplate the scene as a whole.
§
Beauty is revealed through the context of the
whole scene.
§
Beauty ascends
·
Through the basic elements
·
There complexity of arrangement
·
Higher order of interpretation.
§
Beauty is derived from rational enjoyment.
·
It is not sensed as a feature,
·
But as a mystery of the universe.
§
Beauty comes from the forming powers of the
mind.
o
The orders
§
Dead forms – Objects of art and craft and
natural phenomena
·
Things of nature and man but have no power,
action or intelligence.
§
Forming forms:
·
Gives action, operation, or intelligence to a
dead form.
·
Beauty in the object, and beauty in how it is
used.
·
Forms that for: the source of power that gives
identity to eead forms.
o
Beauty forms through ascension of the orders.
o
Understanding forms from the powers that
constitute it.
o
Cooper believes in the disinterested approach.
§
We cannot learn from the new if it competes with
our desires.
§
Interest binds us to the world (ownership, the
material, pursuit of pleasure).
§
Removing our interest.
·
Frees the mind from practical concerns
(material), and
·
Engages the heavier elements of the senses (what
has to be).
·
We can only ascent to the sublime when the mind
is free.
Ø
Thomas Reid
o
Critical of philosophers who reduce the sublime
to sensations, feelings and ideas of the mind.
§
The object has to be perceived before it can be
contemplated.
§
Every experience requires an affective capacity.
o
There is a sensation, and
§
Quality sensation is the effect of the quality.
·
To perceive beauty is to perceive the nature of
the structure.
o
Excellence is in the object.
§
The pleasure is within me
§
A distinction between a sensation and a judgment.
o
Thee is novelty, beauty and the sublime relative
to the knowledge of the viewer.
§
Sublimity requires grandeur in the subject as
well as the composition.
§
Grandeur is discerned in objects of sense only
by reflection.
·
It comes from the essence of life as sparked by
the objects.
§
There is no grandeur in mere matter.
·
It comes from reflection and associations with
humanity.
Ø
Joseph Addison
o
Aesthetic value comes from the interplay of the
objects and the imagination to induce a form of pleasure.
§
Primary pleasure comes from the material,
·
The actual view of the object.
§
Secondary comes from the action of the mind.
·
A comparison to something real or imagined.
o
Based primarily in sight.
§
It brings the most remote parts o the universe.
·
It is not constrained to immediacy of the other
senses.
o
Imagination:
§
A mental seeing.
·
The eye in which the mind roams the world.
·
It enjoys in proportion to the liberty it
enjoys.
·
Looks upon the world in a different light.
·
Discovers a multitude of charms.
§
Longinus tradition: To use literary techniques
to invoke the sublime.
§
Sublime:
·
Something that surpasses the capacity of the
imagination.
·
Calm and clarity in the eye of the storm.
·
When the imagination is expanded or stretched.
o
Sir Joshua Reynolds
§
He focuses on how the painter can expend the
imagination like Shaftsbury ,Reids and Addison.
§
Eighteenth century painter.
§
The great aims of art
·
To captivate the imagination.
o
Make impressions on it
o
Pleasing effect on the mind.
§
The mind
·
Resists things that restrain it.
·
Loves things to big for its capacity.
·
Amazement and stillness of the soul.
§
For Reynolds
·
Beauty, the sublime, and the great are
interchangeable.
§
The mind feels pleasure when filled with great
and noble ideas.
§
Draw the viewer to the whole through imitations
that
·
Capture general features over and above
extraneous details.
·
This expands the imagination.
§
There is natural beauty and artistic beauty.
§
Reynolds is not looking to capture the rules of
art in composition,
·
But to capture the ideas of nature.
·
Nature is open to all, and anyone can
o
Contemplate natural phenomena
o
Study the greats.
o
Great art does not transcend time
§
It ignores it.
o
His recommendations:
§
Choose subjects of universal appeal.
·
Ordinary life restricts artist to time and
place.
·
A particular has defects.,
o
Universals removes defects.
o
Removes matters of fact
·
Unifies composition by
·
Removing distractions
·
One great idea.
§
The idea is to reduce the particulars out of a
scene,
·
And thus giving greater appeal to universal
themes.
Chapter 5: The Associative Sublime
·
Approaching the Sublime from position of:
o
Agreeable
o
Elevated Emotion
o
Burke’s attachment to fear are absent.
o
Uplifting.
·
We can enjoy the beautiful at the same time as
the sublime.
·
Gerard, Kames, Alison, Stewart
o
Authors sharing similar views.
o
Narrative is constructed by overall author.
·
Sublime
o
An internal or reflexive sense
§
An unreasoning response of an object presented
to the mind
·
Summary of ideas
o
The pleasure we feel from the sublime drives
§
From the imagination processing the image.
§
It is in the action of perceiving.
·
Arguments that art can be more sublime than
nature.
o
The artist can elevate those elements that
strike the sublime.
o
The artist can elevate elements that enhance the
sublime.
o
The artist can eliminate or reduce elements that
distract from the sublime.
·
Objects may become sublime when associated with
greater forces.
o
Endless passage of time.
o
Impersonal forces.
o
Divinity of god.
·
Discussion on objects that evoke the sublime in
order to classify it.
o
Not very helpful and misses the point.
·
We want to generate an overwhelming view that we
are with the world rather than the world is part of us.
·
The sublime cannot be unified
o
It is pluralistic and openly associative.
o
Author expresses concern that we cannot
understand the sublime.
·
Literal sublime: The feeling created by objects.
·
Figurative Sublime: Feelings created through
associations.
·
Experience and nature pleasure is a prior to
figurative association
o
The universal may reside in human responses to
nature.
Chapter 6 – Meh
Chapter 7: The German Sublime after Kant
·
Gerard attributed the sublime to one grand
sensation based on
o
Magnitude: the size of the object.
o
Quantity: as applied to human experience.
·
Baumgarten
o
Nature magnitude: Greatness in nature.
o
Moral magnitude: Greatness relative to man.
·
Kant:
o
Mathematical sublime – Exceeding the limits of
imaginations and vistas.
§
The recognition of the might of nature.
o
Dynamic sublime: The ability to contemplate the
forces of nature from a place of safety.
§
Allows us to compare ourselves to the powers w/o
trashing our self-esteem.
·
Uplifts and elevates the soul.
o
The sublime isn’t the object, but our faculties
that allow comprehension and comparisons.
o
Mathematical comes from experience and
imagination.
o
Dynamic comes from awareness, and thoughts of
the viewer.
o
Kant separated the beautiful from the sublime,
§
However, after Kant,
·
The sublime became a category of beauty.
·
Schiller
o
Sublime: When our sensuous nature feels its
limits, and
§
Our rational nature feels its superiority.
§
Its freedom from limits.
o
It sets us beyond natural conditions and we can
think more than we know.
§
And we set ourselves above it.
o
Schiller speaks to art having more potential to
evoke the sublime because:
§
The artist can infuse suffering – that evokes
proper compassion.
§
And resistance to suffering – that evokes moral
freedom.
o
Moral Independence from suffering is
§
The potential human moral character over the
natural circumstances of life.
o
Schiller’s views were an extension of Kant,
§
But it moved the sublime from nature to art.
·
Schelling: reflects that
o
Art identifies conscious and unconscious
activity.
o
Beauty and the sublime are two different things.
o
Beauty has o contradictions.
§
The object itself reveals itself without need of
interpretation.
§
Sublime makes intuition resolve conflict through
interpretation.
o
Beauty: Meaning is in the object.
o
Sublime: Meaning is derived from the viewer.
o
Another reference to the inability to reconcile
scales of magnitude.
o
There is something voluntary about beauty.
§
There is something involuntary about the
sublime.
o
Schelling moves the sublime toward moral feeling
through deptictions of resistance against suffering.
§
A victory through inner character even if
outside circumstances are overwhelming.
·
Hegel
o
Beauty is moved to self-consciousness of spirit
§
Human though is the manifestation of the
intellectual nature of reality.
§
A move from away from aesthetics.
§
Only spirit is true
·
It comprehends everything in itself.
§
Consciousness is the only reality as it has
being only for itself.
o
Art is the expressing of the divine.
o
Art brings nature closer to the senses.
o
The importance of art is its intellectual
content.
§
Does not agree with sense and intellect (Kant).
§
Sense cognition is inferior to intellectual
content.
o
For Hegel
§
The progress of man has removed arts shared
spirituality.
·
Art has become more philosophical than
spiritual.
o
Hegel
diminishes the sublime
§
Because the sublime is only the first step in
the experience and doesn’t play a large part in the crafting of an image.
o
The sublime only hints at the final expression.
·
Schopenhauer
o
A bit of discussion.
o
High contemplation allows us to lose ourselves,
our individuality, our will, and allows us to continue to exist as pure
subject.
o
The sublime
§
Is a primary response to nature,
§
An experience in which ideas are presented for
contemplation.
§
A continuation of the sublime as idea.
·
Nietsche
o
The individual is subsumed into a larger
category of reality,
§
Once the individual cares of existence
dissipate.
o
A passage to the underlying reality.
o
The distinctions of ordinary life are dissolved
and reconciled
§
Between the individual and others.
§
Human beings and nature.
o
There is an underlying feeling of suffering
§
That wants to be released
§
But can only be achieved by accepting human
nature (condition)
§
Transcendence of individuality.
Chapter 8 Post Modern Sublime
·
The central philosophy is the imagination is
trying to present something that is intrinsically cannot be represented.
o
The mind runs up against it’s own limit.
o
It is irresolvable, but continues to present
itself.
·
It creates a mode of thinking radically
different than usual ways of thinking.
·
Presents new resources of intellectual and
aesthetic endeavors.
·
These ideas come from Kant,
o
But are interpreted by the philosophers.
·
Lyotard
o
A renewal of Kant.
§
A return to reflecting on the limits and conditions
of our experience.
§
Sublime
·
Produces a pleasure or pain sensation.
o
When presenting an intuition that doesn’t fit
reason.
·
Through this failure,
o
There is a unintuitable presence of this idea as
an absolute.
o
And the feeling of superiority over the imagination
and the phenomena that created it.
o
However, in some,
§
The imagination is barred from presenting
phenomena,
·
It is limited and finite.
· It is a feeling of discovery because
the mind transcends its own level of thinking.
o The mind transgresses its own
boundaries of critical thinking set by itself.
·
Reflection pushes thinking to the acceptance of
the relative and the accepted.
o
Pushing beyond aligns comparison without the
relative.
o
Norms of consideration for standards are moved
to the not-norms as standards.
·
The sublime increases our awareness of the
limits we set on ourselves.
§
The feelings of the sublime is brought on by the
failure of reason and standards.
o
My thoughts
§
Where do we focus our standards,
·
If we construct what we think art is,
o
Then pushing the imagination is a push against
the standards of art.
o
If our standards are our own explorations, then
pushing the imagination is a push to our explorations.
o
By extension, if we construct our own reality,
§
Then pushing the imagination extends our notions
of reality.
o
Lyotard –
§
Society wants an easy understanding of thoughts
and referent.
·
The sublime takes us beyond that, and it becomes
hard.
·
Deleuze
o
The sublime works during the experience,
§
The sensation
§
An aesthetic rhythm that exceeds or disrupts
presentation.
§
Bacon paints figures without them becoming
models or representations.
·
The figure is a sensible form related to
sensation.
§
Seeking the pint where rhythm falls into chaos.
·
Where reality and thoughts of reality touch on
underlying reality.
·
To go beyond the organism of the lived body to
almost unlivable power.
§
Bacon used “the diagram” as a way to disrupt
composition of the familiar.
§
Rhythm becomes chaos constantly reorganizing
itself.
·
Rhythms foundation to figure.
o
Disrupt rhythm, disrupt figure.
o
The sublime is a cycle or organization from
chaos.
§
However, knowing this we are able to create and
call into action the chaos, or
·
We are better able to see the unknown.
·
Kristeva
o
Abjection: The horror in a scene, the revulsion
§
Turns into a feeing of joy emanating from a
place of suffering.
o
Chora: “mirror Stage” when the infant is unable
to distinguish itself from itself and its surroundings.
o
People develop from the chora through the
abject.
§
We throw off what is radically different from
ourselves.
·
The formation of ego.
§
The symbolic is formed by the object.
o
The sublime: Things that are abject.
§
The presence of something that “lies beyond” and
is not presentable.
§
A threat to ego and identity.
§
Shatters the walls f representation and judgment.
§
It’s met with revulsion, but
·
It offers a momentary experience beyond the
symbolic.
·
Jameson
o
Views aesthetic production as integrated with
commodities
§
With capitalism
·
As such, ideas of high culture and commercial
production have disappeared.
§
The melding of the two limits criticism and
critiques.
o
Jameson focuses on capitalism, but generates new
thoughts.
§
He suggests a culture based in technology.
§
The sublime could be interpreted as a temporary
return to nature’s cycles.
·
A feeling of something lost.
Chap 9 and 10 – Meh
Chapter 11 – Environmental Sublime
·
Longinus is considered the first discourse on
the sublime.
o
Considered a literary style and subject to lit
theory and criticism.
o
And aesthetic theory.
o
Used in discussions on taste.
·
Burke – The sublime is attached to powerful
objects.
o
Vast, infinite, and massive.
o
A mixture of delight derived from terror.
§
But removed enough for reflection (not immediate
pain).
§
People are completely overwhelmed by the
object/encounter.
§
Experienced first hand, but again with some
distance.
·
Viewed from a place of safety.
·
Kant – Mathematical Sublime.
o
Much like Burke
o
Dynamic Sublime:
§
Awesome powers overwhelm us.
·
We see our insignificance to them
·
But ultimately we judge ourselves as we develop
the capacity to measure ourselves in relation to nature.
·
Authors distinctions.
o
Experience of the sublime.
o
Language or expressions derived from our
experiences.
o
Talk about the sublime
§
Reflections and essays on it.
o
These categories can be difficult to separate,
§
Or difficult to reflect on their connections.
§
They all run together.
·
Early transition
o
From the literary to nature, objects and
phenomena.
o
From phenomena to art and ideology.
·
The possibility of the sublime came from
o
Fear of mountains, deserts or wild places, but
o
Become places of admiration.
o
The ability to appreciate the natural sublime
has diminished.
o
Many societies are less awed by nature.
o
The sublime has become uncommon.
·
Today’s places
o
Places on the margin
o
Places with contradictory meaning
o
Extreme sports.
·
Thoughts
o
Technology is not the sublime, but can take us
to the sublime.
o
Big prints emphasize and reflect the sublime.
·
The metaphysical argument.
o
Modern obstacle to the sublime.
§
Associated with transcendental or metaphysics.
§
Theological associations.
o
The sublime has a metaphysical quality
§
It is hard to distinguish from wonder or awe.
o
Problem with metaphysical imagination.
§
To keep free an embarrassment with nature.
§
Indeterminate experiences.
·
Falls short of distinct references.
·
Lack adequate rational support
·
Abstract quality
·
Cannot by analyzed or critically treated.
§
There is a difference between aesthetic and
religious modes of experience.
§
Metaphysical imagination
·
An element of interpretation to help determine
an overall experience.
·
It connects beyond the present moment.
·
It is fused with sensory components.
§
Metaphysical Imagination.
·
Interprets nature as revealing insights about
o
The meaning of life
o
The human condition
o
Our place in the cosmos.
§
Metaphysical Imagination
·
Arises beyond the boundary of science.
·
It doesn’t compete
o
It compliments.
§
Kant mixed negative and positive experiences.
·
Negative is our senses being overwhelmed by vast
and powerful phenomena.
·
Positive is the awareness of freedom and of
power of reason.
o
Ability to measure ourselves against nature.
o
Felt awareness of our place in the world.
·
Kant’s imagination
o
Unable to and fails to present the object to the
mind.
o
However, the process expands the mind.
§
The anthropocentric argument.
·
The soul is amazed by a view surpassing its won
power.
o
This notion implies the sublime is of the human
mind
§
And not of nature itself.
·
The author’s point is the sublime is relevant to
modern discourse.
o
He is going through the obstacles that detract
from it.
·
Nature becomes a means of self-discovery.
o
Howe we realize our place in the world.
o
Puts nature as something that distorts and
humanizes nature.
o
Nature is posed as an other
§
Separate from ourselves.
·
It is possible to recognize an element of
humility in the powers of nature.
·
Author notes experiences with the greater powers
of nature tend to be uncomfortable.
o
Stores, thunder, ect.
o
It is in these experiences when we are
§
Overwhelmed
§
Feel greater themes
§
And engage the metaphysical imagination engages.
·
Otherness is mystery
o
It is the unknown
§
Whether in people or in nature.
·
The self is dislocated through nature as the
mysterious.
·
It is not fully realized.
·
Could also use decentered instead of dislocated.
§
Hepburn 2003
·
Indeterminate mystery
o
A feature of Romanticism
§
The absence of structure in a world we must
adapt too.
§
The sublime overwhelms, but
·
Expresses the infinite, or the unknowable.
§
Stan Godvitch
·
Mystery model
o
All cultural and scientific interpretation is
removed.
o
Acute awareness of nature’s independence from
us.
o
Nature lies beyond our knowledge.
o
Mystery relates to the unknowable.
§
Hepburn
·
We become both actor and spectator
·
Allows us to experience ourselves in an unusual
or vivid way.
·
A self reflection during moments of humility and
grandeur.
§
Mystery helps define the sublime
·
Beyond ourselves
·
Beyond the unknown.
§
So….
·
The sublime
o
We are forced into admiration of nature,
§
Feeling both insignificant and aware
§
In relation to the power and magnitude of
nature.
·
The sublime
o
Vastness, enormity, power, dark mystery,
powerful.
·
Beauty
o
Harmony, smoothness, order, tranquility.
·
Sublime -
Terrible beauty allows to consider the more overwhelming qualities of nature.
·
It’s a connection to environment.
Chapter 13: British Sublime
·
Wordsworth
o
It is our nature as being to transcend the
limitations of the finiate.
o
The human soul wants a source of the infinite.
Chapter 14: Sublimity of the Fine Arts.
·
There is the sublime
o
But representations do not always produce the
same effects.
·
Fine arts – Eighteenth Century
o
Innovation
o
A mix of systemization and
§
Reflection aesthetic experience.
o
Early definitions didn’t speak to the sublime.
§
Aesthetic constraints on the presentation
precluded sublime experiences.
§
Natural sublime poses problems for selections of
subjects.
·
Fine arts
o
Abbe Charles Batteaux
§
They are imitative semblances
·
Whose first object is to please.
§
Sets a utility between utility and beauty.
·
Mechanical arts – meets our basic needs.
·
Utilitarian arts – Architectural rhetoric
o
Fills a need, by take part in pleasing the
audience.
·
Finer arts – Associated with leisure
o
Their use lies in consumption.
·
We want to create art
o
That is more exquisite than mere nature.
o
But is still natural.
o
That operate on both the sense and the
imagination.
o
That are recognized and compared through
imagination.
·
Fine art’s end is
o
Pleasure
o
Its means is imitation
o
And it appeals to the senses and to the
imagination.
·
Fine art can improve taste and thereby
character.
·
The power to impress is more important than the
power to please.
Chapter 15
·
The artificial infinite
o
Vastness is a powerful cause of the sublime.
§
The infinite is not only a source,
·
But may be inherent attribute.
§
Repetitive patterns – perspectives
·
Rows of organized trees, columns.
§
Psychological sense of expanding
·
The experience is not in the imagining of
columns extending beyond their natural limits,
o
But the experience of expanding existential
space.
o
Intuited form of space – how we perceive
ourselves in space.
o
Architecture can have a void middle space
because
§
We become the middle axis through our own
spatial orientation.
o
Expansion is associated with columns and trees,
or looking up into a rotunda.
o
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