Kimberly Dru Keyes
3 March 2004 

The Sublime and the Explorer’s “Moment”  

            The literature of exploration travels across the often indistinct boundaries of its genre leading its reader through tales of thrilling adventure, exotic destinations, and startling experiences.  Moreover, this genre “visits and describes uninhabited places, places presumed to be uninhabited, or civilized places where no or few travelers have previously visited” (Syllabus  4).  In order to preserve these life-changing adventures, whether they are fiction or fact, as well as furnish the scientific world with “necessary” data, explorers must find a way to catalog this information along with their personal recordings.  Although this may appear to be a fairly uncomplicated task, recounting an “other-worldly” experience that may or may not be shared with others presents a difficulty not easily overcome for any writer.  Then, how does one record an experience that reaches beyond one’s ordinary range of perception?  The answer lies in the author’s use of the Romantic concept of the sublime. The use of the sublime gives literature of exploration a transcendent quality that allows the explorer/writer a means to communicate the unknowable or unexplainable, thereby, bringing the reader directly into the explorer’s “moment.”

            Classical philosopher Longinus defines the sublime as “an illusion which draws the reader to new heights, to the realization that there is something more to human life than the mundane, the ordinary” (Internet).  Moving one step further, the sublime transports the reader and excites “ideas of pain, and danger, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror” (Burke, Internet article). With this in mind, one must understand that in order to record an experience that reaches beyond the ordinary range of perception, includes the element of terror or risk, and suspends reality, the writer must move beyond mere words on the page, and whether conscious of it or not, make use of the sublime in an effort to communicate the unknowable.  This idea proves valuable to fiction as well as non-fiction writers.

 Edgar Allan Poe, in his novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, employs the language of the sublime in several instances when his protagonist, Pym, encounters situations that are unknown or unexplainable to the reader.  For example, Pym and two of his comrades find themselves “entombed alive” when the “walls of the fissure…caved in overhead” (Poe 148).  Pym begins his diatribe stating that no experience such as “living inhumation” has occurred “in the course of human events…to inspire the supremeness of mental and bodily distress” (148).  The superlative quality of Poe’s language allows the reader to enter Pym’s world and to grasp the horrifying yet thrilling moment when Pym’s reality is suspended as he faces his own death.  Poe uses the language of absolutes, the sublime, and this draws the reader into the experience and communicates that it is akin to no other.

Another example of Poe’s sublime language comes at the end of the novel when Pym encounters a “shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men” (175).  At this point the reader is clearly aware of the fact that Pym has entered an ethereal place rife with milky-white water, vaporous white fog, and a fine white powder that mists the air.  Poe’s snow-white, veiled figure, looming larger than life, brings an element of terror that leaves the explorers awe-struck, and, as a result, the reality of the two men is suspended for the moment as they contemplate the unknowable and unexplainable.  The author of the anonymous submission “The Sublime in Exploration Literature” on the course website states that “Poe invokes the idea that the sublime is difficult to describe, rare to experience, and accompanied by danger.”  No doubt Pym’s confrontation with the veiled figure as well as his burial underneath tons of earth qualify as more apocalyptic than as common experiences that may be accompanied by the terror of the unknown. Therefore, it is important to note that the superlative language along with the apocalyptic quality of the experience solves the author’s problem of communicating an “other-worldly” experience to the reader.

In addition to the fact that the sublime language allows the author to communicate the unknowable, the use of the sublime also gives the literature a transcendent quality.  Explorers, whether fictionalized or real, enter an unfamiliar and often treacherous world where “it is not that the land is simply beautiful but…it is powerful…[and there is] the tension between its obvious beauty and its capacity to take life” (Ice  180).  This idea combines the splendor of the land with the terror it brings to each man who dares to conquer the unknown.  Yet, in spite of the dangers, the explorer looks for those moments that transcend and suspend reality and in his recording of these moments, brings the reader into a microcosm of sublime absolutes.

 One marvels at the beauty of the literature of the explorers, and it is important to note that “in those days education was less specialized than it is now and even scientists had the classics beaten into them at school.  They knew Shakespeare and Milton and the other great English poets as well as Latin and Greek” (Alvarez 1).  Due of this fact, many explorers as well as authors who wrote during the time of the early Arctic expeditions were well-equipped to transfer their wanderings onto paper and into the minds of their followers. With this in mind, it becomes clear how and why the literature of exploration possesses a quality of transcendence. These explorers and authors understood that they must communicate events that were not only phenomenal but incomparable to any other human experience.

For example, Richard Byrd, recounting his time spent in an underground Antarctic station, experiences many moments that move beyond human limits.  Late one evening, he goes “topside to have a last look at the aurora” and “[begins] to have the illusion that what [he] was seeing was also what [he] was hearing, so perfectly did the music seem to blend with what was happening in the sky” (Ice 152).   Byrd continues, “As the note swelled, the dull aurora on the horizon pulsed and quickened and draped itself into arches…the music and the night became one” (Ice 152). The language and its crescendo effect move the reader into his world, into his experience, and into his soul.  As Byrd brings the moment to the reader, the literature takes on the magnificent quality of the sublime, and, as a result, the reader enters a world that is unexplainable and unknowable. It is apparent that Byrd appreciates the grandeur of the Arctic wilderness while at the same time respects the absolute control that Nature holds over him.  Continuing his observations, he muses, “this was a grand period; I was conscious only of a mind utterly at peace, a mind adrift upon the smooth, romantic tides of imagination…[and] I found my measure of inward peace then” (Ice 155).  During these moments of transcendence, the senses of the explorer become fragile shadows that drift away from reality into the realm of the unknown.  Moreover, this transcendence is captured in the language of the sublime.

             Another example of the transcendent quality of sublime language comes from the prose of Barry Lopez, in his account entitled Arctic Dream.  At times his words possess a surreal quality that is necessary when communicating the beauty and terror of the Arctic.  Upon arriving at Axel Heiberg Island, he encounters vast glaciers, and he struggles to comprehend not only their intimidating size but their absolute magnificence as well.  He explains, “I lost for long moments my sense of time and purpose as a human being…I felt suffused with in that moment, flushed in the face…I felt for the first time the edges of an unentered landscape” (Ice 191).  His experience causes a suspension of rational activity, uncertainty, and self-consciousness.  Lopez fluidly communicates this inexpressible, unknowable moment by using the language of the sublime which in turn brings the reader above the material universe and into a world of absolutes.

            Communicating the unknowable through use of the sublime not only gives the literature a transcendent quality, but it allows the reader a glimpse into the explorer’s moment.  When the time comes to document these “other-worldy” experiences, explorers and authors record them in such a way that the writer’s spark leaps to the reader, thus, joining them together in the moment. This spark is not a product of technique so much as it is the converging of the rational world with the ethereal world of the unknown.  In Poe’s novel this is apparent time and again.  As Pym struggles to follow Dirk Peters down a steep precipice, he determines “not to think…but presently [finds his] imagination growing terribly excited” (166).  Pym continues his ranting as his “fingers clutched convulsively upon their hold, while, with the moment, the faintest possible idea of ultimate escape wandered like a shadow through [his] mind…[his] whole soul was pervaded with…a desire, a yearning, a passion utterly uncontrollable” (166).  Ultimately, Poe’s goal (as well as Pym’s) is to bring the reader into a confounded moment of sheer terror and wonder as again, Pym faces his demise, and Poe’s use of language in this passage succeeds in doing just that.  The language of the sublime crescendos toward a climax that supercedes not only Pym’s reality but the reality of the reader as well. 

            Sublime, apocalyptic moments are well-suited to Poe and his desire for an effect on his reader.  However, the concept of the sublime also serves to engage the reader in moments that are not necessarily apocalyptic or “other-worldly,” and one such example is found in Richard Byrd’s Alone.  Although the experience does not engage the reader in a harrowing, powerful struggle against unforgiving nature, it does pull him into an utterly sublime moment of greatness.  Byrd describes the overpowering silence that envelops the South Pole when he explains that “a soundlessness fell over the Barrier.  I have never known such utter quiet.  Sometimes it lulled and hypnotized…other times it struck into the consciousness as peremptorily as a sudden noise (Ice 130).  Byrd’s description of the absence of noise in his world, the absence of the ordinary and the familiar, brings a sublime quality to his writing that again lures the reader into the “moment.”

Moving further into his description, Byrd continues his commentary on silence saying, “It made me think of the fatal emptiness that comes when an airplane engine cuts out abruptly in flight” (138).  At this point Byrd pulls the terror of the sublime into his description; however, it is important to note that the terror Byrd describes completely opposes Poe’s rendition of the horror associated with the sublime.  As this explorer savors the enormity of this moment in the soundless environment, he is keenly attuned to the fact that he is “straining to listen—for nothing, really, nothing but the sheer excitement of the silence” (138).  Even though it is impossible for the reader to completely comprehend Byrd’s moment on a literal level, his language engages and elevates the reader to a point where experiencing the moment and reading about the moment become one.

Perhaps one of the finest examples of how the reader is brought into the explorer’s moment comes from Barry Lopez.  As he gazes at the Arctic tundra, his mind attempts to process the colors, the texture, the allure, and the terror of a presence greater than himself.  His words mesmerize the reader as they float beyond the familiar world and capture the essence of the sublime:

               The browns and blacks and white were so rich I could feel them.  The

               beauty here is a beauty you feel in your flesh.  You feel it physically,

               and that is why it is sometimes terrifying to approach.  Other beauty

               takes only the heart, or the mind (190).

The author lifts his sensory-laden experience with the language of the sublime and transports it to the reader. At this point, the reader, enmeshed in the explorer’s moment of utopian completeness, experiences Lopez’s world.  The senses are bombarded with the vibrancies of color that permeate the barren tundra; moreover, the earth, with its exquisite textures and startling vastness, and man, with his insatiable passions and rapacious intellect collide to create the explorer’s ultimate “moment.” 

              Explorers endure the hardships of the adventure, bear the risks and dangers of the quest, and ultimately experience indescribable moments that are entirely “other” to the vast majority of the world.  Yet, it is through these moments that one learns of the iron will and the phenomenal resilience of the human spirit. Conveying these glorious wonders can confound the writer/explorer, leaving him without the proper tools to adequately transfer these magnificent experiences into the written word.  However, it is the language of the sublime that transforms what might be mediocre writing into something beyond even the author’s limited imagination.  The sublime elevates and transfers the author’s enigmatic experience into the known thus allowing the reader to experience and embrace the moment.