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1b. Long Essay Describe, analyze, and illustrate a term, objective, or combinations . . . |
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Liz
Davis
9 Oct
2016
The Sublime: When Beauty and Terror Collide
The Sublime can be defined as
beauty mixed with terror on a grand scale that causes the audience both pleasure
and pain at the same time. The sublime is an overwhelming expression of vast and
small or terror and ecstasy. The sublime can be
found in art, music, literature, nature,
and almost everywhere else you look. The concept of the sublime spans the
entirety of Romanticism even though there
are many different writers and styles of writing within the genre. When you see
something that is truly
sublime, it can be a strange experience
because the idea of something being both gorgeous and horrifying
is not common. People react to the concept of the sublime
differently, and some even transform
depending on the situation that occurs.
The
concept that the sublime is two
contrasting elements, such as terror and ecstasy,
represents a correspondence between not only emotions but possibly the inner
self as well. Jonathan Edwards uses fear in “Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God” to scare
people into following the word of God. He refers to God as an almighty and
powerful being and preaches about how
much God cares about his people, yet he has the capability and wrath to throw
them into the pits of Hell. Edwards writes, “God hath had it on his heart to
show to angels and men, both how excellent his love is, and also how terrible
his wrath is.” The Almighty God possesses
both extreme love and extreme hate on a grand
level, and the people should fear him. The sublime elements of the
drastic difference between heaven and
hell along with the love and wrath show the different faces of God and leaves
the people room to reflect on themselves. Similarly, Edgar Allan Poe uses the
sublime to convey terror and ecstasy in “Ligeia.” The narrator says “I had
become a bounded slave in the trammels of
opium, and my labors and my orders had taken a
coloring from my dreams.” Opium gives one extreme ecstasy at the time of
the dose, but he or she must suffer through the pain that comes with the drug
addiction, whether that be withdrawals, addiction, depression, or whatnot. The
narrator is thought to be in a state of sublimity throughout the
story, and this allows the audience to
feel his emotions in the final paragraphs. When Rowena walks into the room, Poe
instills fear into the reader. He draws the audience in with
suspense, and once Rowena transforms into
Ligeia, the reader feels a sense of
ecstasy because Poe reveals the twist. The sublime feeling of shock and awe is
intended not only for the characters in the story but also for the reader to
experience.
Authors portray the sublime through the use of romantic rhetoric and elevated
language. In “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Edwards uses different
literary devices to express the sublime. He uses extremes such as “ineffable
extremity,” “wrath without any pity,” and “vastly disproportioned” to show the
greatness of the sublime. He also uses an extended metaphor about “the bow of
God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string.” He uses these
devices to aid the reader in
understanding something far beyond their understanding, such as God’s wrath, by
using terms they would understand. He also uses elevated language shows that men
can ascend to the divine, but God still has total authority. God’s wrath is like
great waters that “increase more and
more, and rise higher and higher, till and
outlet is given.” Similarly, Poe
uses romantic rhetoric in “Ligeia” to express Ligeia’s beauty. He uses extremes
such as “a majesty so divine — the skin rivaling
the pale forehead — it was faultless” to show her perfection even through her
imperfections. Through the use of superlatives and absolutes, he passionately
describes the image of Ligeia as if she
was the most elegant woman in the world. Like Edwards, Poe is using the Romantic
rhetoric to help the reader understand the meaning of something so sublime that
there are almost no words. In Walt
Whitman’s poem “There Was a Child Went Forth,” Whitman lists a catalog of
visions of what the child sees on his journey. This helps the reader envision
what the child is experiencing on his journey. Whitman also uses anaphora, the
repetition of the first part of a sentence, in the poem. Not only does this add
to the poem’s imagery, but it also helps
the reader get inside of the child’s mind. When the child speaks, this is how he
would most likely retell his journey. Romantic rhetoric is helpful when trying
to convey the sublime because when a moment is awe-inspiring, sometimes a person
is at a loss for words. Romantic rhetoric and literary devices help convey the
message to the reader through a multitude of ways instead of just simply stating
the facts.
The individual can experience the sublime through a drastic difference of
emotions such as desire and loss.
The
individual wants to escape the here and now because he or she is at rock bottom
and through a moment of reaching a desire, they hit immediate ecstasy and feel
the sublime moment. In Poe’s “Ligeia,” the narrator is in such a state of
depression from the loss of his love Ligeia that he remains in an opium-induced
haze. “In the excitement of my opium dreams (for I
was habitually fettered in the shackles
of the drug) I would call aloud upon her name…” He becomes a recluse, buys
a large house, and marries another woman
who is his first love’s polar opposite. Because the narrator is in such a
terrible state of mind, he wants to escape from the here and
now and the drug is his only replacement
for his long-lost love. He has reached such a state of madness at the end of the
story, that he sees Ligeia return to the world of the living. It is at that
moment that he has finally found his desire and he hits the
point of sublimity. Likewise, in
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Mr. Hooper is isolated from
the world when he begins wearing the black veil across his face. His wife leaves
him, and the townspeople treat him
differently. Hooper cries out to his wife before she leaves him, “it is but a
mortal veil — it is not for eternity! O! you know not how lonely I am, and how
frightened, to be alone behind my black veil.” Hooper wears the
veil because it enables him to be a
better preacher, but he is sacrificing his mortal life for this job. He is
willing to commit to a life of isolation and loneliness on earth if that means
when he will lead a happier life when he ascends to heaven. Mr. Hooper wears
this veil in misery for the rest of his life
and it is upon his deathbed that he
finally reveals why he has been wearing it to the townspeople. Thus, the belief
that one can endure a life of isolation and pain for so long and then eventually
find ecstasy in death, or the afterlife,
can be seen as the sublime.
The
sublime occurs in nature on a grand scale and is impressive because it is made
of the earth and not controlled by man.
There is a correspondence between the human spirit and nature that exists and
man interprets his relationship with nature
differently depending on the situation. In “There Was a Child Went Forth” by
Walt Whitman, the child journeys out into nature
and becomes one with it. Everything the child sees including the lambs, the
schoolmistress, the schooner and “the early lilacs became part of this child.”
Though all of these people influence the child
throughout the day, his innocence remains.
He becomes one with all of his surroundings yet
remains innocent and childlike. So, the
child looked upon nature and absorbed his surrounds yet did not let it affect
his true self. In Emerson’s “Nature,” he mentions that when he sees a beautiful
landscape in nature, “it is less to [his] purpose to recite correctly the order
and superposition of the strata, than to know why all thought of multitude is
lost in a tranquil sense of unity.” Emerson was a transcendentalist who
believed in the unification of man’s soul with nature. Nature is
sublime, and because of this, it can
be seen as an elevating power. Emerson
writes, “every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house
a world; and beyond its world, a heaven.
Know then, that the world exists for you.” Nature is powerful and is not
governed by man, and that is what makes
it so dangerous and sublime. In Mary
Rowlandson’s the “Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary
Rowlandson,” Rowlandson must bind her
mind and body together to adapt to her surroundings or she will not survive in
nature. She had to cross rivers, sleep outside, and walk for miles during her
captivity and she still managed to hold on. While
remaining a Christian woman, she had to
adjust her views on faith to suit her real
adjustment as well. Mother Nature can be very
cruel, and since one cannot control his or her exterior
environment, he or she must adapt. Nature
is sublime in and of itself and as individuals man must decide how to interpret
and react to its greatness.
When an
individual approaches something of
sublime nature, it is overwhelming,
so a transformation happens. There is a physical
and emotional change that occurs during this
process, and it corresponds to the sublime. In “Ligeia,” the narrator
transformed into a different person once
the love of his life died. He became an opium addict because he felt a love for
the sublime feeling the drug gave him, such as the feeling Ligeia’s gave him. He
dealt with the sublime by letting it consume him. In Whitman’s
poem, “There Was a Child Went Forth,” the child
deals with the sublimity of nature on a daily basis. His approach to the
situation is to absorb it completely, and it does not change him — the child
remains innocent and pure. He chooses to become one with nature and to respect
it because that is the way one should approach nature from a Romantic
standpoint. Finally, in Rowlandson’s captivity narrative, she adjusts her mental
and environmental states because the sublimity of nature is extreme yet
beautiful and dangerous. The outside elements are out of her control, and she
can only adjust her faith so much that she must make sacrifices on account of
surviving in the sublime.
The sublime is an awe-inspiring concept that is found in many sub-genres of Romanticism. It is common among them because, in nature and life, the idea of something being both terrifying and beautiful at the same time is magnificent. When approaching the sublime, many writers and characters react to it differently depending on their psychology and emotional state. Some people even transform their inner and outer state due to their interpretation of the sublime. The sublime is a powerful concept and will continue to be intriguing to authors throughout time.
