The Sublime Is Defined By Edmund Burke, Arthur Schopenhauer, And Immanuel Kant

is an aesthetic notion distinct from Beauty (from which the Picturesque aesthetic flows) in that Beauty generally evokes positive feelings in the viewer; the Sublime, on the other hand, has the ability to instill awe, wonder, and even horror (46).

Beauty is often measured on the appearance and the aesthetic value of art. Often this is the case. Beauty can be on the outside and many artworks do this extremely well. However, what about the beauty on the inside or the beauty in the story behind it? Beauty in our modern world looks beyond the inside and sees only the outside beauty. People idolize "beautiful" people because that is what society is doing. Not only in people, but also

During this class, I have learned much that I was surprised of some of the information that was delivered. While I slightly knew what I might have expected to see during the course, the concepts that were introduction were fascinating and I was shocked that I didn’t know a few beforehand. One such important concept was the idea of the sublime.

Beauty is an incredibly subjective thing; what might seem appealing to one’s eyes may be horrendously ugly in the eyes of another. However, the status of “beautiful” or “ugly” can be assigned rather objectively when art is examined from the perspectives of different philosophies. The beliefs and values of different philosophies can be used to find meaning and beauty in various art forms, allowing for a more straightforward determination of beauty. Because of the many layers of meaning most paintings entail, they are a perfect example of an art form that can be analyzed by numerous philosophical viewpoints to find meaning and beauty, and Ma Yuan’s painting Walking on a Mountain Path in Spring, which comes from the Song dynasty of Chinese and depicts a sole figure standing in a natural surrounding, is no exception. Ma Yuan’s painting is beautiful because it represents the ultimate achievements for the Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian philosophies.

Robert Frost, author of “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, and Mark Twain, author of Two Ways of Seeing A River, explore the idea of beauty by putting their personal feelings into what they see. Both of these American authors use nature to interpret the ways of beauty into words. Frost and Twain go hand in hand with each other in the aspect of their diction. While Frost and Twain both use imagery to demonstrate fleeting beauty, frost includes time indicators, while Twain uses rhetorical questions.

While outwardly it appeared that he was unconscious, inwardly the furiousness of his awareness, perception, and determination were accelerating at breakneck speed. It was during this time that the Sublime became the reality of the innermost visions of the man, and that the concepts so eloquently stated through [Innovisions] was truly fulfilled (Dragonwagon, 64).

     They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As stated in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Poetic Principle," a concept of beauty can only be achieved through the use of emotion, an "excitement of the soul," a necessary element to any worthwhile poem (Poe 8). Poe's fascination with the mystery of death and the afterlife are often clearly rooted in his poems and provide a basis for himself and the reader to truly experience his concept of beauty. Although also a believer in portraying beauty through poetry, Ralph Waldo Emerson found beauty to be eminent in nature and all things created by the Oversoul. Beauty for Emerson is not an idea or unknown, it is visible all around him.

Identical to the Sublime's characteristic of accumulation in "The Circular Ruins" is Magical Realism's characteristic of an extensive

The quest for the ideal is a phenomenon that many people attempt to achieve. As we all know, the quest for the ideal is difficult and complicated by personal experience. The poems, “The Story” by Karen Connelly and the “The Love Song of J.Aflred Prufrock”, by T.S Elliot, as well as the essay “Kant’s Beauty and the Sublime” by Maureen Rousseau explore the peril inherent in the quest for the ideal, which is that in our search for beauty we risk encountering the sublime. The danger of the sublime is that we cannot comprehend the magnitude of the realms of things that are sublime. We ask ourselves why someone would want to risk encountering the sublime. Well, with great risk comes great reward and that is the beauty we

Human nature is something that never seems to change. While humans all seem to be different from one another through physical and emotional attributes, their psychological behaviors are all mostly very similar. In the late 18th century and early 19th century, many authors successfully could explain the characteristics of human nature and the effects that it has on everyone and everything surrounding human beings. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allen Poe all convey the behavior of human nature in separate ways. These three authors show the curiosity, drive for perfection, and fear of human nature throughout their texts in detail. With these characteristics being prominent in human nature itself, it

Just as other works that reflect art, pieces in the category of fine arts serve the important message of passing certain messages or portraying a special feeling towards a particular person, function or activity. At times due to the nature of a particular work, it can become so valuable that its viewers cannot place a price on it. It is not the nature or texture of an art that qualifies it, but the appreciation by those who look at it (Lewis & Lewis, 2008).

Burke’s examination of all seven qualities of the sublime relates to sight: terror, power, vastness, infinity, succession and uniformity relates to what can be seen, while obscurity relates to what cannot be seen. In addition to the content of his writing, Burke’s use of language and diction, for example, with words and phrases like “[l]ook” (Burke 5) and “[w]ithout all doubt” (3) (which implies clarity) also reinforces the element of ‘sight’ in his text. For Burke, the power of the sublime object or landscape lies in its ability to overwhelm the viewer’s mental faculties and impose upon them feelings of the sublime. Here, the viewer is positioned as a subject upon which the sublime landscape impresses its image and sublimity, rather than one that is actively participating in the creation of this sublime experience. This passivity is highlighted by Burke who states that the sublime requires some form of mediation of “distance” (4) and remoteness. Following the explication of the observer’s passive role in the sublime experience, this essay will move on to affirm the subordinate

Plato describes beauty in the Phaedo as being “radiant among other objects” , while the other virtues remain murky in relation to it. Plato’s declaration of beauty’s radiance indicates that it is significant. Beauty is observed most clearly by use of vision, which “is the sharpest of our bodily senses” . Plato explains that “beauty alone has this privilege, to be the most clearly visible and the most loved” . Because of the way in which beauty stands out among the other virtues, Plato confirms that beauty is dominant over the other virtues.

    The book Of Love and Other Demons (1994), written by the Columbian Gabriel Garcia Marquez, has more characteristics of sublime literature than of magical realist literature. Magical Realism and the sublime are so closely related that distinguishing between the two is hard. They are more closely related than magical realism and the fantastic.

In his Metaphysical Exposition of Space, Kant attempts to show that the experience of space is just a form of intuition. Kant defines space as that of which we sense out side of us, in comparison to our mind, which is