Sample Student Research Project, spring 2006
LITR
4232: American Renaissance
Sample Student Research Project, spring 2006
Julie O'Gea
14 April 2006
Journal: The Religious Sublime: An Encounter of Epic Emotions
Introduction
In my lifetime, I have encountered many experiences, but none are quite as memorable as the sublime experience. In fact, until this semester, I was unable to apply a name to the phenomenon I associate with the chilling, spine-tingling, almost eerie feeling I receive from a sublime experience. Although I refer to this phenomenon as a feeling or an emotion, somehow the terms do not encompass all that the sublime feeling can entail.
A sublime moment may be associated with many art forms. It is often associated with visual art when one views a painting or sculpture that seems to “come to life.” Everyone can relate to the portrait in which they eyes of the painted subject seem to follow the viewer everywhere; or the sculpture that appears so life-like that the viewer believes he actually sees the sculpture move. This same phenomenon, or form, of the sublime may also be associated with music. Oftentimes I have heard music that seems to speak to my heart creating such a spine-tingling feeling that I believe the artist must have composed the piece especially for my heart at the specific moment in time in which I heard the piece. The same reaction is applicable to the response a reader has to a poem or prose piece that seems to reach beyond the words from which it is composed.
Upon encountering the form of the sublime, as it applies to the various texts read in this course, I began to expand this notion of the sublime to texts I have read outside of this class and, as well, to my own personal religious experiences. I have discovered that the sublime provides a sort of an escape or rescue from everyday life, and this intrigues me. Therefore, for the purpose of this journal, I will review various texts focusing on religious sublime moments.
What is the
Sublime?
In order to search for the religious sublime, one must have a working knowledge of the sublime. One of the working definitions used in class is that the sublime is a “brush with the supernatural,” but in my effort to arrive at a more universal definition of the sublime, I consulted many background texts. I found that the notion of the sublime is an historical one; it has been around as long as man has. The word “sublime” is a “Latin-derived word meaning literally ‘(on) high, lofty, [and] elevated’ . . . “ (Sublime 819). The term is said to have been coined by a man named Cassius Longinus who was a Greek philosopher and orator of the 3rd century B.C., but there is evidence that the notion of the sublime may go back as far as 50 B.C. (Sublime, 819). Therefore, it is safe to assume that the notion of the sublime is anything but a new discovery. According to the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Longinus “. . . regard[ed] sublimity above all as a thing of the spirit, a spark that leaps from the soul of the writer to the soul of his reader, and only secondary as a matter of technique and expression” (Sublime, 819). It is also interesting to note that while each of the background texts I consulted discusses the sublime from a slightly different perspective, all of the sources agree on one major factor: the sublime involves more than an intense emotion or feeling. The sublime is a spiritual encounter of sorts in which the quality of emotion is stressed over the emotion itself (Weiskel; Sublime; Martland).
The Traditional
Religious Sublime
In an effort to set precedence for the notion of the religious sublime, I looked in the Old Testament of the Bible. I did not want to limit my search for the religious sublime to one religion, so I specifically looked in the book of Exodus, because Exodus is common to both the Bible and the Torah. However, my text will reference the Bible as it the source I have available.
The book of Exodus tells the story of the Hebrew people who were led out of slavery in Egypt by a man named Moses. Like most historical leaders, Moses documented the events of his society in an effort to preserve the history of his people. Moses occupies a unique position in the history of the Hebrew people. He was born a Hebrew, but due to a decree set out by Egypt’s pharaoh, Moses was sentenced to die as an infant simply because he was born a male Hebrew child. Moses escaped death because his mother placed him in “a papyrus basket” and “put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile” (106). As luck, or divine intervention, would have it, Moses was rescued by the Pharoah’s daughter who raised him as if he were her own child, making Moses not only a Hebrew male, but the Prince of Egypt. When Moses discovered his true identity, he “refused to be known as the son of Pharoah’s daughter” (127). Instead, he chose to align with the Hebrew people, and eventually served as their spokesman for freedom.
When Moses receives his calling from God to lead the Hebrews out of slavery, it is through a “burning bush,” but it was no ordinary fire (108). Moses was tending sheep and noticed a bush on fire in the middle of nowhere. As he moved closer, he “saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up” (108). It was from the bush that “God called to him,” and told him to “[t]ake off [his] sandals, for the place where [he was] standing [was] holy ground” (108). When Moses heard this “he hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God” (108). This is certainly “a brush with the supernatural,” and it qualifies as a spiritual encounter of sorts in which the quality of emotion is stressed over the emotion itself. Moses must have felt intense joy and pain at the sight of the bush and the voice of God combined with the knowledge that no one could see the face of God and live. Moses accepted God’s calling and proceeded in obedience to confront Pharaoh on behalf of the Jewish people.
During the negotiations with Pharaoh for the freedom of the Hebrews, and in the following years in the desert, God often spoke to Moses out loud. In modern day life, if God spoke out of the clouds that would surely be a spiritual encounter of epic proportions, but Moses seemed to become accustomed to hearing God’s voice. After the Hebrews were freed and wandering in the desert, Moses went up on Mount Sinai to speak with God. Moses boldly requests to “see God’s glory” (157). God agrees because he is “pleased” with Moses, but he explains that Moses “cannot see [his] face,” so he places Moses “in a cleft in the rock and cover[s] [Moses] with [his] hand” (157). When God passes by he “remove[s] [his] hand” and allows Moses to see only his “back” (157). This act in itself is religious sublime, but in order to validate its sublimity, it is necessary to discuss the reaction of the Hebrews as witnesses who were waiting for Moses at the bottom of the mountain.
When they saw Moses “his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him” (158). The Hebrew people experienced the same combination of intense emotions at the sight of Moses. Their reaction is reminiscent of how Moses reacted when he first witnessed the voice of God from the burning bush. More importantly, their response bears witness to the spiritual encounter Moses had with God, because he had to place “a veil over his face” to conceal its radiance after each encounter with God from that moment forward.
The Sublime in the
New Testament
Another great leader in religious history is the apostle Paul. He led the faction of Jews who followed Christ and believed Christ was the prophesied Messiah of the Jews. This makes Paul one of the first Christians. However, he was not always a believer of Christ as the Messiah.
Paul was originally known as Saul, a Jewish Pharisee “who knew the Bible and sincerely believed that [the] Christian movement was dangerous to Judaism. Thus Paul hated the Christian faith and persecuted Christians without mercy” (1967). His conversion happened on the road to Damascus where he intended to take “prisoners [of faith] to Jerusalem” (1963). While journeying on the road to Damascus “a light from heaven flashed around him” (1963-1964). He “heard a voice” that identified itself as “Jesus” asking “why do you persecute me?” At this point in history, Jesus had already been crucified, so the voice of one who was believed to be deceased was, indeed, a sublime moment. Paul throws himself on the ground and the voice continues urging Paul to go forward teaching others that Jesus was the Messiah.
Paul was not alone on his journey. He was traveling with other men who “stood there speechless; [and] they heard the sound[s] but did not see anyone” (1964). Paul’s encounter fits the definition of the religious sublime, because it combines the “high, lofty, [and] elevated” voice of Jesus with the intense emotional response of Paul and the men who were traveling with him.
After that supernatural encounter, Paul proceeded to lead the first Christians and taught the Gentile people about Christ. Many believed and were followers, however, there were also those who did not believe and strove to eliminate Paul and his message. This often resulted in Paul and his comrades’ arrest and imprisonment. On one such occasion, Paul and his friend, Silas, were “stripped and beaten” and were “thrown into prison” in Rome. They were placed in the “inner cell” and their feet “fastened . . . in the stocks” (1992). Rather than remaining silent, Paul and Silas continued to witness to the prisoners around them through worship. They “were praying and singing hymns to God” when “[s]uddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken,” “the doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose” (1993). Once again, in a traditional religious sense, Paul experienced a supernatural encounter of epic proportions. His experience is shared by Silas, and also by the other prisoners who were not likely followers of Christ. The earthquake could be construed as coincidence, but the loosing of the chains of all the prisoners, is certainly inexplicable, and therefore, sublime – religious sublime. The guard on duty was so moved by the event that he begged to be baptized into the faith immediately.
The Sublime in Toni
Morrison’s Beloved
In an attempt to shift from traditional religious sublime, I applied the notion of the religious sublime to secular texts. One such text is Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
Toni Morrison is a critically
acclaimed novelist who is notorious for her novels on
the black American experience; especially the female black American experience.
Her list of accomplishments include: The
Bluest Eye (1970), Sula
(1973), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved
(1987), Jazz (1992), and Love (2003). She is the recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize in
Literature and Beloved won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1987.
Beloved
is based on the true story of Margaret Garner, who was a runaway slave.
When she was recaptured, she killed her infant daughter to protect her
from growing up in slavery. The
novel addresses many issues surrounding slavery and the lives of those who
endured it. The story focuses on
the aftermath of slavery in the lives of Sethe and her children after they
escaped slavery and fled to freedom across the Ohio River.
They go to live with Sethe’s mother-in-law, Baby Suggs.
Suggs is an interesting character because she serves as a sort of
preaching heart for the other freed slaves in the community.
Slavery had “busted her legs, back, head, eyes, hands, kidneys, womb
and tongue,’ [so] she had nothing left to make a living with but her heart”
(Morrison, 102).
Suggs’
actions embody the sublime when she meets the members of her community every
Saturday afternoon in the “Clearing – a wide-open place cut deep in the
woods” (102). The meeting is
essentially a meeting for clarity to cleanse the people from their slave
mentality and to heal them from the horrors of slavery.
She calls out the children, the men, and the women.
She instructs them to laugh, dance, and cry:
It
started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying women and then it got
mixed up. Women stopped crying and
danced; men sat down and cried; children danced, women laughed, children cried
until exhausted and riven, all and each lay about the Clearing damp and gasping
for breath. In the silence that
followed, Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart. (103)
Suggs offers her people more
than emotion. She provides them a
release that transcends emotion; a release that some might call therapeutic, but
that I call religious sublime. Here
it is important to realize that the religious sublime is not confined to any one
particular religious group. In this
case, religion is a people’s “beliefs and opinions concerning the existence,
nature and worship of a deity, and divine involvement in the universe and human
life” (Encarta Dictionary). “Baby
Suggs, holy” and her heart is that “divine involvement” in the human lives
of the individuals participating in the Saturday afternoon ritual in “the
Clearing” (103).
The
Sublime in Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory
Continuing in the same fashion as with Beloved,
I want to review Edwidge Danticat’s novel, Breath,
Eyes, Memory for religious sublime without linking it to any mainstream
religion.
Danticat was born January 19, 1969 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Her parents moved to New York, when she was a small child,
leaving her to grow up in Haiti with extended family. During her young life in Haiti, she encountered and learned
the art of story-telling, which would serve her well in later years.
She was twelve years old when her parents sent for her.
She spoke only French and new nothing of American culture making her
first experiences in America extremely awkward.
However, amazingly, two years after her arrival in America, she published
her first writings in English. Her
awards include the 1994
Fiction Award “The Caribbean Writer;” a nomination for the 1995
“Woman of Achievement Award” from Barnard College for Krik? Krak!; and the
“Best Young American Novelists Award” for Breath,
Eyes, Memory in 1996.
In 1994 at the age of twenty-five, Danticat published Breath, Eyes, Memory. It
is a fictional novel about a young Haitian girl who was conceived through rape,
deserted by her mother and then rejoined with her at the tender age of twelve in
the foreign land of the United States. The
novel discusses much of Haitian culture including the horrors of growing up as a
female in such a culture where only the strongest women survive.
The protagonist, Sophie, becomes involved in a “sexual phobia group”
as a result of her culture’s traditional “testing” of young females to
ensure their virginity (201). The
group is comprised of women from various cultures.
One woman is “Buki, an Ethiopian college student” who “had her
clitoris cut and her labia sewn up when she was a girl” (201).
Another member is “Davina, a middle-aged Chicana” who “had been
raped by her grandfather for ten years” (201).
In their meetings the women talk about their abuse and the emotions that
resulted from their abuse. On one
particular meeting, the women dressed in “long white dresses” and read aloud
a note that Buki wrote to her abuser. They
“each wrote the name of [their] abusers in a piece of paper, raised it over a
candle, and watched as the flames consumed it” (203).
The intent was for the flame to burn the abuse out of existence allowing
the women to move forward in the healing process.
The women “believe” in the power of the flame as “divine
involvement” eliminating their past abuse (Encarta Dictionary).
The flames “consuming” the name of the abuser (and the abuse) serve
as a spiritual encounter of sorts. By
burning the name of the abuser, the women are also burning away the abuse so
that it ceases to exist. The
actions of the flames emphasize the importance of positive emotions, and burning
the negative emotions out of existence allows the women to begin the process of
healing. In this sense the healing
process is an example of the religious sublime.
Conclusion
The sublime is a powerful vehicle for conveying intense emotions and
ideas of epic proportions. It
supplies added depth to support ideas and notions through the written word. However, through research and reflection I have discovered
that the sublime is present in many literary texts, and is often not as
blatantly obvious as in religious texts.
If I were to continue my research on this subject, I would undoubtedly
delve into other religious writings as well as other cultural literary forms,
because I believe the notion of the sublime exists on many levels and is not
exclusively a Judeo Christian experience. (I
believe I touched on that by discussing the sublime in the Morrison and Danticat
novels.) As a part of further
research, I would include sections on poetry and short stories, and I might even
apply it to the other art forms.
Obviously
a study of such magnitude could easily swerve out of control, so I would strive
to develop exact parameters for my study, and formulate each religious group or
cultural group as individual chapters in a book. I am confident there is a wealth of religious sublime
examples to supply my needs for such an endeavor, and the mere thought of it
induces religious sublime reactions in me.
Works
Cited
Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1994.
"Edwidge Danticat." Wikipedia.org. 17 Mar. 2006. 14 Apr. 2006
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwidge_danticat>.
"Encyclopedia Britannica's Guide to Women's
History." 300 Women Who
Changed The World. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.. 03 Apr. 2006
<http://search.eb.com/women/article-9053829>.
Jokinen, Anniina. Toni Morrison Biographies. 21 1997. 14 Apr. 2006
<http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/tonimorrison/tonibio.htm>.
Life Application Study Bible.
New International Version ed. Wheaton: Tyndale House
Publishers, Inc., 1991.
Martland, T. R. "The Sublime." The Encyclopedia of Religion. 1st ed. 1987.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Vintage International, 1987.
"Otto and the Numinous." The Gothic Experience Page. 7 Feb. 2003. 30 Mar. 2006 <http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/gothic/numinous.html>
"Sublime." Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. 1st ed. 1974.
Weiskel, Thomas. The Romantic Sublime: Studies in the Structure and Psychology of Transcendence. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Univeristy Press, 1976.
