Summary |
The
sublime (sublimity) has been described as an experience, feeling, or judgment.
As a positively valenced feeling, it is similar to excitement, astonishment, or awe. The concept become influential in aesthetics through the reception of pseudo-Longinus’s work of rhetoric, On the Sublime, where the sublime referred to
that inspiring or overwhelming quality in great literary works or speeches. In the modern period,
it became associated more with nature than art, and was distinguished from
beauty. It was seen as a positive aesthetic experience in response to vast or
powerful (apparently formless) objects such as waterfalls and mountains. As an aesthetic experience, the sublime is distinguished from moral feelings and outright fear. Given its emotional intensity, the
sublime is distinguished from wonder and curiosity. |