Bundy Fowler-Bowers

Desire and Loss: The Precursors of the Sublime and the Transcendental

     As I read through the many incredible sample final essays from previous years, I found a marvelously profound statement in one from 2005 regarding desire and loss. DC stated, “We have the unique ability to simultaneously recall our yesterdays with crystal clarity, though they are forever lost to us, and yearn for uncertain tomorrows, which are always beyond are reach.” It occurred to me that the Romantic notion of desire and loss on a personal level could be applied to the vast majority of thoughtful individuals as yet another thread in the complicated fabric of the human condition. At this point, I remembered another student’s inspirational essay from our midterm discussing the Romantic notion of achieving the sublime as an individual, separate from the masses. An experience of a truly sublime moment would stir intense emotions of both contentment and heartache, remarkably similar to desire and loss. Further, a numinous moment of this nature would transcend our personal preconceived ideas of self-perception or true expression. The concept of desire and loss, on a very individual level, parallels the notion of the sublime and the transcendental.

     This element in Romanticism is illustrated by numerous authors from the Pre-Romantic and Early Romantic Period and continuing its presence through the Post-Romantic Era of the Harlem Renaissance and the Modernist Period. As I sit and ponder over my own personal desire and loss concept, I realize that the loss is based on fear. My yearning to hold on to that which I desire and love the most drives my actions. To think of losing these objects of my deepest affection horrifies my dreams and often preoccupies my thoughts. Further, to isolate myself among nature and attempt to find a balance could produce a moment so powerfully sublime, so awe-inspiring, the emotional response could be overwhelming. At this point, I may feel so close to God that a transcendental moment might also occur. Coincidently, my belief in the spiritual realm beyond this earthly world is the main thing that helps me through those erratic bouts of fear I have experienced. Because of my own personal experience with these concepts, I feel that there exists a clear connection between the ideas of desire and loss, the sublime and the transcendental in Romantic literature.

    In Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God during the Early Romantic Period, Jonathan Edwards uses very strong, concrete language to preach his sermon to his congregation. Using Gothic imagery Edwards declares, “Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering...and these places are not seen” (197). The desire in this sermon is to reach those unconverted men before they reach their final destination in hell. Throughout the sermon, Edward foreshadows the loss as the hellfire and damnation one will face without the reverent worship of the “infinite God.” Embedded in this desire and loss foundation are infusions of the sublime as Edwards states, “There are black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm and with big thunder” (199). The ideas of “God’s wrath” and “big thunder” illustrate the sublime element in this statement. For Edwards to fully transcend (according to his beliefs reflected in his sermon) would be immediately after death as the spirit leaves the body and faces the positive judgment of God, an assured place in heaven.

     Edgar Allan Poe’s writings, in the Southern Gothic Era of Romanticism, also demonstrate the thematic parallel of desire and loss and the sublime and the transcendental. The haunting, gothic tale of “Ligeia,” exemplifies desire to an extreme, obsessive level. Poe talks a great deal about her eyes and the “secret of their expression...And (strange, oh strangest mystery of all) I found in the commonest objects of the universe, a circle of analogies to that expression” (681). He furthers the description of this femme fatale’s expression as he feels it in the material world claiming he has felt it as he gazed upon “one or two stars in heaven” (681).  The emotions of the loss he describes as he speaks of her death are deeply moving, “It is this wild longing—it is this eager intensity of desire for life...that I have no power to pourtray—no utterance capable to express” (683). The loss of Ligeia haunts him as he continues to obsess over her beauty. It seems, however, that Poe expresses this obsession with Ligeia came after he lost her. He reaches to the sublime when he says, “But, in death only, was I fully impressed with the intensity of her affection” (683). Poe repeats this upon the death of Rowena, who could not compare to the beauty and affections of Ligeia until her own death, upon which he sees her eyes claiming, “...these are the full, and the black, and the wild eyes of the lady—of the lady Ligeia!” (688). In the case of “Ligeia,” Poe’s desire seems to increase at the loss of her (and Rowena). The loss he describes with elements from the sublime, which the women only reached as they left this world through death and transcended to the spiritual realm.

    As the New England Gothic era of Romanticism emerged, Hawthorne made this thematic idea his own. In “The Minister’s Black Veil” Hawthorne’s focus spotlights a particular gothic symbol: a black veil.  The Reverend Mr. Hooper, a reputable preacher, stubbornly decides to eternally wear a black veil that covers his face to the horror of the townspeople and his love. He provides little explanation for his behavior except a very vague justification to his love, Elizabeth, “so far as my vow may suffer me...this veil is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness...no mortal eye shall see it withdrawn. This dismal shade must separate me from the world...” (627). He furthers his thoughts briefly, “If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough...and if I cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?” (628). This gives the impression that the black veil symbolizes the undisclosed sin that masks man’s true face from God and humanity. Perhaps by wearing the veil it was his desire to remind the townspeople of their own secret sins, ultimately causing them to face them, persuading them to ask for absolution. Sadly, Mr. Hooper remains “lonely...and frightened...behind [his] black veil.... in miserable obscurity forever” (628). The loss he suffers due to his decision to wear the veil is one of isolation from the community. Children shriek, adults turn away in shame and gloom follows him like a dark cloud. He seemed to have a connection with the darker side of humanity as “Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr. Hooper, and would not yield their breath till he appeared...and they shuddered at the veiled face so near their own” (629).  Sadly, a good man “spent a long life, irreproachable in outward act, yet shrouded in dismal suspicions; kind and loving, though unloved, and dimly feared:  a man apart from men, shunned in their health and joy, but ever summoned to their aid in mortal anguish” (629). The sublime element in “The Minster’s Black Veil” is his deeply felt responsibility to wear the veil, in spite of the pain. Perhaps, the Reverend Hooper felt he was an instrument of God to convince the townspeople to seek absolution. This idea is demonstrated in the idea that “dying sinners” called for him and would hold on to their last breath until he appeared. As they left our world into the spiritual realm, he was their messenger of God to assist them as they transcended.

    The Romantic period of The Slave Narrative possessed the same types of themes. Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl resonates the desire and loss theme throughout its entirety. She discussed the “unusually fortunate circumstances of [her] early childhood” and how those things changed upon the loss of her mother at the age of six (806). At this time, she learned by observing those around her that she was a slave. She foreshadows another incident of loss when she claims, “Those were happy days—to happy to last” (807). Even the present feelings of desire she had for William were darkened by the ever-present existence of loss. “But even that pleasant emotion was chilled by the reflection that he might be torn from me at any moment, by some sudden freak of my master” (812). She also longs for something outside of her own world by saying, “To me, nothing seemed more dreadful than my present life” (812).  After a tale of such incredible instances of desire and loss, she ends her story with the idea that even though her story ends with freedom by marriage that “The dream of my life is not realized” (825). The reader can leave with the sublime feeling of understanding Linda’s powerfully emotional mixture of pleasure and pain. Her final statement is absolutely sublime in both language and context. “Yet the retrospection is not altogether without solace; for those gloomy recollections come tender memories of my good old grandmother, like light, fleecy clouds floating over a dark and troubled sea” (825). Looking back she finds some peace among all of the pain, her reference to the “sea” seems transcendental especially because she is remembering her grandmother who has passed away.

     During the Transcendental period of Romanticism, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote insightful essays about a variety of topics. Although the trend of desire and loss deceases in his often “maddeningly abstract” language the idea still remains, while the elements of the sublime and the transcendental become increasingly apparent (492). Perhaps his desire was quite simple, he yearned to “get his whole philosophy into ever essay” and the loss was his skepticism regarding “the capacity of language to embody truths” (492). As he begins his journey into the sublime, in “Nature” he suggests, “To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society” (493). His references to “heavenly bodies” and “the stars awaken a certain reverence” all suggest “the perpetual presence of the sublime” (493). He suggests, “I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God” (494) an idea that is truly transcendental. Of course, in “Self-Reliance” he reminds us “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind” (535). As one of the most important of the Transcendentalists, his references throughout “Nature” and “Self-Reliance” are obviously transcendental.

    The period of Romantic free style introduced Whitman and those who descended from his ideas. The parallels between desire and loss and the sublime and the transcendental can be seen in the writings of Whitman. In “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” the first element is clearly one of desire and loss as it is an elegy about Abraham Lincoln. Whitman speaks of sadness as, “I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring...And thought of him I love” (1071). Further ideas of loss resonate when he states, “O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me! O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul” (1071). The theme of desire and loss continues, and its sublime elements are obvious from the beginning of the elegy as well. He immediately makes reference to “the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night” and continues this idea with several other references him as a star, “O powerful western fallen star” (etc) (1071). He moves on into the realm of the transcendental with “To the tally of my soul, Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird, with pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night...Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night, The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird, and the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul” (1076-1077). These passages reflect the soul actually transcending into the immortal.

     The writers of the Harlem Renaissance also demonstrate the same distinctions. Zora Neale Hurston’s “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” shows the reader a very different world that we have seen from the earlier African American authors. The desire and loss in her essay is less overt, but it can be found in the idea that in spite of her innovative desire to be treated as an equal, there will always be those that view her as colored. “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background” (2160). Her descent into the sublime in her essay is found when she states, “The cosmic Zora emerges. I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads” (2160). The expression of this thought with such “noble diction” and elaborate language (cosmic and eternal feminine) illustrate sublime elements. She exemplifies a form of rugged individualism when the individual transcends any cultural identity. She expresses, “I am merely a fragment of the Great Soul that surges within the boundaries” (2160). This concept of the transcendental is part of her ideology that being an American transcends race and we are all part of the “Great Soul”(a very Emerson-like term).

     Langston Hughes furthers this notion in his poem “Mother to Son.” The mother’s desire is for her son not to lose hope when faced with life’s difficulties. The loss is implied and reflected in her thoughts about how difficult life has been for her. “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, and splinters and boards torn up” (2265) Even though she has faced these problems she has persevered, “For I’se still goin’ honey, I’se still climbin’” (2265). This is how she expresses her desire for her son to never give up hope at what life might bring. The “crystal stair” and the idea of life as a journey are reflective sublime elements. The importance of her desire to keep his spirits up and maintain hope outside of the material world is a bit of a transcendental thought as well.

     These Romantic elements continue to inspire authors after the Romantic Period’s end. Reflected in 20^th century poetry, Sylvia Plath’s “Blackberrying” possesses all of the qualities of desire and loss, the sublime and the transcendental. The poem is a journey possibly through life and towards death, her ultimate goal. In the first stanzas, the blackberries are large, ripe and perhaps fertile representing the desire for love and children. As the poem progresses the blackberries become overripe and covered with flies, “one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies” suggesting decay, then eventually death (a reference to the gothic) (2658). The sadness and loss she expresses reflects that somewhere amid the many events of daily life, she lost sight of those things she once held most dear. The sublime is demonstrated in her references to the sea. Vast and endless, the speaker’s life faces many “hooks” or turns in the blackberries path to finally reach the sea. Described as something that “looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space,” a deep sense of awe correlates to the sea (2659). The end of the poem she describes the last turn “To the hills’ northern face, and the face is orange rock/That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space...” (2659). This description of “great space” depicts transcendence into another spiritual realm. Nothingness would be a depiction of no afterlife, but the existence of the “great space” suggests something more is out there.

     These authors from Pre-Romanticism to Post-Romanticism including Edwards, Poe, Hawthorne, Jacobs, Emerson, Whitman, Hurston, Hughs and Plath exemplify strong elements of Romanticism. Desire and loss and the parallel with the sublime and the transcendental are clearly connected in a variety of texts in different ways throughout the period. So as we recall the past with such clarity, even though we can never retrieve it (except in our minds), we also have dreams and hopes for the future, which always lies ahead of us. The desire and loss from our past (and present) shapes us into the individuals we are; our future can be determined through our ability to wish to achieve the sublime and transcend rather than focusing only on the desire and loss in our lives. One cannot ignore the similarities of these ideas, and how the Romanic texts demonstrate them.