Burke and sublime

INTRODUCTION

On the Sublime, which is traditionally attributed to Longinus (the first or second century AD?), analyzes the sources of the sublime in literature. They include nobility of mind, the ability to feel powerful emotions, aesthetic structure, beautiful prose, and enormous natural phenomena, like the ocean or mountains. When this treatise was translated into English in 1674, it set off a widespread debate about the sublime to become what Hugh Honour calls "the most confused and confusing aesthetic notion of our time." . In this welter of contradictory opinions, Edmund Burke produced A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Idea of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757); it became the definitive essay on this subject and provided a theoretical basic for the contradictory emotions of pleasure and fear that the Gothic novel aroused in readers.

Burke permanently separated the beautiful from the sublime and made them incompatible categories; that is, a landscape might be beautiful or sublime, but not both. The sublime, he asserted, has only one cause, terror.

A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Idea of
the Sublime and the Beautiful

PART I

Section VI.–of the Passions Which Belong to Self-preservation

Most of the ideas which are capable of making a powerful impression on the mind, whether simply of Pain or Pleasure, or of the modifications of those, may be reduced very nearly to these two heads, self-preservation and society; to the ends of one or the other of which all our passions are calculated to answer. The passions which concern self-preservation, turn mostly on pain or danger. The ideas of pain, sickness, and death, fill the mind with strong emotions of horror; but life and health, though they put us in a capacity of being affected with pleasure, make no such impression by the simple enjoyment. The passions therefore which are conversant about the preservation of the individual turn chiefly on pain and danger, and they are the most powerful of all the passions.

Section VII.–of the Sublime

Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that, is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. I say the ,strongest emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure. Without all doubt, the torments which we may be made to suffer are much greater in their effect on the body and mind, than any pleasures which the most learned voluptuary could suggest, or than the liveliest imagination, and the most sound and exquisitely sensible body, could enjoy. Nay, I am in great doubt whether any man could be found, who would earn a life of the most perfect satisfaction, at the price of ending it in the torments, which justice inflicted in a few hours on the late unfortunate regicide in France. But a pain is stronger in its operation than pleasure, so death is in general a much more affecting idea than pain; because there are very few pains, however exquisite, which are not preferred to death nay, what generally makes pain itself, if I may say so, more painful is, that it is considered as an emissary of this king of terrors. When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are, delightful, as we every day experience.

1802, John Constable, Dedham Vale

Quotes from the Text:

1. "Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling." [50]
2. "Astonishment, as I have said, is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree; the inferior effects are admiration, reverence and respect." [53]
3. "Indeed terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently the ruling principle of the sublime." [54]
4. "To make any thing very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes." [54]
5. "And I think there are reasons in nature why the obscure idea, when properly conveyed, should be more affecting than the clear. It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration, and chiefly excites our passions. Knowledge and acquaintance make the most striking causes affect but little." [57]
6. "But let it be considered that hardly any thing can strike the mind with its greatness, which does not make some sort of approach towards infinity; which nothing can do whilst we are able to perceive its bounds; but to see an object distinctly, and to perceive its bounds, is one and the same thing. A clear idea is therefore another name for a little idea." [58]
7. "And indeed the ideas of pain, and above all of death, are so very affecting, that whilst we remain in the presence of whatever is supposed to have the power of inflicting either, it is impossible to be perfectly free from terror." [59]
8. "But whilst we contemplate so vast an object, under the arm, as it were, of almighty power, and invested upon every side with omnipresence, we shrink into the minuteness of our own nature, and are, in a manner, annihilated before him." [63]
9. "Another source of the sublime, is infinity; if it does not rather belong to the last. Infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of delightful horror, which is the most genuine effect, and truest test of the sublime." [67]
10. "A true artist should put a generous deceit on the spectators, and effect the noblest designs by easy methods. Designs that are vast only by their dimensions, are always the sign of a common and low imagination. No work of art can be great, but as it deceives; to be otherwise is the prerogative of nature only." [70]
11. "without a strong impression nothing can be sublime" [73]
12. "But darkness is more productive of sublime ideas than light." [73]
13. "opposite extremes operate equally in favour of the sublime, which in all things abhors mediocrity." [74]
14. "sublimity must be drawn [..] with a strict caution however against any thing light and riant; as nothing so effectually deadens the whole taste of the sublime." [75]
15. "Whatever either in sights or sounds makes the transition from one extreme to the other easy, causes no terror, and consequently can be no cause of greatness. In every thing sudden and unexpected, we are apt to start; that is, we have a perception of danger, and our nature rouses us to guard against it." [76; Suddenness]
16. "Things which are terrible are always great; but when things possess disagreeable qualities, or such as have indeed some degree of danger, but of a danger easily overcome, they are mere odious, as toads and spiders." [79, Smell and Taste. Bitters and Stenches]
17. "the idea of bodily pain, in all the modes and degrees of labour, pain, anguish, torment, is productive of the sublime" [79, Feeling. Pain]

Questions:

• What does Burke define as the Sublime?
• How does he differentiate between the Sublime and Beauty?
• How does he see language?
• What is similar, what is different with regard to Longinus?
• What about his definition of passion / pathos? (Introd. P. XX): "an odd mixture, revealing [..] the overlap between pain and pleasure" (XXI)