![]() ![]() Soon after Dennis, English essayist Joseph Addison (1672-1719) added to the concept, distinguishing it from the beautiful in his essay On the Pleasures of the Imagination (1712). The Sublime Versus Beauty: Joseph Addison The Chasm of the Colorado by Thomas Moran, 1874, via United States Geological Survey ![]() And secondly, he brought the notion of terror and threat into his conception – thus laying the foundations for the philosophers to come. “…a delightful Horror, a terrible Joy, and at the same time… I was infinitely pleas’d, I trembled.”Īn Avalanche in the Alps by Phillip James De Loutherbourg, 1803, via Tate Modern, Londonĭennis’ conception departs from Longinus’ in two significant ways.įirstly, Dennis expanded the category of sublimity to encompass many other things (natural and supernatural phenomena), not just language. For example, when recalling his experience in the Alps, during his Grand Tour, he described: This ranged from supernatural phenomena (such as devils, witches and gods) to natural phenomena (such as earthquakes and floods).ĭennis, in contrast to Longinus, put great emphasis on the element of terror present in sublimity. He argued that all the things that evoke intense emotion in poetry should also be considered as evocative of sublimity. 1821, via Tate Modern, LondonĮnglish critic and dramatist John Dennis (1658-1734) expanded the concept of sublimity, approaching it from the perspective of poetry. Mixed Emotions in the Sublime: John Dennis Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum by John Martin, ca. It was only in the seventeenth-century that the notion once more became prominent, after poet Nicolas Boileau’s translation of Peri Hupsous into French (Brady, 2013). The idea of sublimity remained largely dormant after the writings of Longinus, being a concept more or less exclusive to religious thought. It was this idea of perfection that was to be challenged and modified over the centuries to come. ![]() What distinguished Longinus’ original conception from those to come was that he considered sublimity to be a state of perfection – one that “naturally elevates us” (Longinus, in Brady, 2013). Sea of Ice (Das Eismeer)by Caspar David Friedrich, 1824, via Kunsthalle Hamburg When these features are present, ‘elevated’ language (and thus sublimity) will result. In particular, Longinus proposed that the “power of grand conceptions” and the “inspiration of vehement emotion” were key to sublimity as found in rhetoric (Longinus, in Brady, 2013). The work was a piece of literary criticism, in which Longinus applied the concept of sublimity to language and rhetoric. The first discussion of sublimity in Western Philosophy appeared in an essay called Peri Hupsous (translating to ‘On the Sublime’) by first-century Greek critic, Longinus. The Sublime as Perfect and Evocative: Longinus The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli, ca. ![]()
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