American Literature: Romanticism Student Midterm Submissions 2016 (midterm assignment) 3. Web Highlights

Peter Becnel

10 October 2016

Clarifying the Indefinable

          As I am planning on writing my research posts over an issue related to the sublime, I thought it would be useful to look into what some of my peers have said in their research posts, web reviews, and midterms about the sublime over the years. I am currently working through several issues with my understanding of the sublime, the first of which is discovering what it is, instead of simply describing what it does. The course site indicates that “the Sublime is beauty mixed or edged with danger, terror, threat--all on a grand or elevated scale.” This, too, seems to explain what the sublime, or something that is sublime, is meant to do, how it is to be perceived, while omitting an actual definition. Perhaps this is the hazard of writing about something that transcends our ability to describe it. We can see characters who experience the sublime, but when these experiences are mediate through language, or art, can we actually succeed in capturing “something that transcends or overwhelms human perception or expression?”

          While I may not be able to improve upon the previous classifications of the sublime, I hope to clarify my thinking about the sublime as it is mediated through art, so that my focus is improved going into my research posts. The first assignment I reviewed is Gregory Buchanan’s “Familiarity and Estrangement in the Sublime,” in which he focuses on the variations of the sublime in American Romanticism and diversity of the experiences that may be classified as sublime. In his review of previous midterm exams, he ultimately determines that “estrangement [can] become sublime,” and that “transformations of domesticity” can also be classified as sublime. I found this especially useful because classifications of the sublime in American Romanticism tend to focus the scale and exceptional beauty and complexity of large natural phenomena. However, Buchanan’s essay, gleaned from the work of his peers, emphasizes a more flexible notion of the sublime that indicates that it can be found outside of nature, and located in other spheres. One such example is taken from Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Focusing on the image of the fire, Buchanan notes that “spiders are relatively unthreatening and easily observable in a domestic environment, but [in Edwards’ work] they take on a new significance, one which translates human aversion into divine abhorrence, creating a sense of profound dread that is deeply sublime.” Here the significance of the example, that the spider is like the sinner, and the listener’s connections to the relationship to the spider, and the wrath of God, transform a commonplace example, elevating it to the sublime.

          Where Buchanan’s essay was useful in redefining what can be considered sublime, Marissa Holland’s “The Trifecta of the Sublime,” and Heather Minette Schutmaat’s “An Exploration of the Sublime” both handle the question of whether or not the sublime can be expressed in art, and if not, why writers and artists focus on the sublime. Holland argues that “a defining characteristic of the sublime is ones’ [sic] power to transcend the potential threats and dangers that are presented within a sublime interaction.” I do not agree with this assertion. The sublime is partly identified by the participant’s inability to express the experience; however, her assertion does give me an interesting thought. In all of the instances of the sublime conveyed in the course, the observer does not face an immediate threat or danger. For example, Emerson looking at the stars, does not fear that he will die as a result of the experience. A tangible danger is something comprehensible; it can be expressed; it is not sublime. What people and characters seem to experience when faced with something sublime is an existential terror coupled with awe at the vastness of the very thing that makes them fearful.

          Schutmaat thoroughly researches several definitions of the sublime in her essay, including Burke: “the sublime object of perception challenges our senses or exceeds our perceptual grasp,” and Kant: ‘a feeling of humanity confronted with something of limitless power’ and sublime qualities as ‘those which transcend understanding.’ This was reassuring to me. Both definitions indicate that the sublime is inexpressible, and this fits with what I know. However, it doesn’t really help me move past the lack of clear definitions for the sublime. Ultimately Schutmaat, who compellingly argues to have experienced the sublime in her life, concludes that a person can seek moments of the sublime, and though “we cannot create the sublime, but we can pursue, attain, and capture and convey the sublime in art.” I had a hard time with this conclusion. If “we cannot create the sublime,” how can we “capture and convey the sublime in art?” Art is an act of creation.

          Overall, I found the web highlights I reviewed reassuring. It was nice to see that other students are dealing with similar issues regarding the sublime that I am, even if I did not fully agree with all of their conclusions. Buchanan broadened my perspective of the sublime, ensuring it included more than simply overwhelmingly beautiful and complex natural settings, and Schutmaat provided some excellent definitions that I found helpful in clarifying my thinking about the sublime. Both Schutmaat and Holland dealt with whether or not the sublime can be expressed through art, and while I didn’t accept their conclusions, they each helped me to begin to clarify my thinking about the issue.