The Sublime

Aesthetic concept, originating in Classical Greece, that was the subject of considerable philosophical debate in 18th-century Europe and that re-emerged in the late 20th century as a central factor in the study of aesthetics. The literary treatise On the Sublime (1st century AD), traditionally ascribed to Longinus, was a major influence on 18th-century writers on taste. In essence, Longinus defined the Sublime as differing from beauty and evoking more intense emotions by vastness, a quality that inspires awe. Whereas beauty may be found in the small, the smooth, the light and the everyday, the Sublime is vast, irregular, obscure and superhuman. The term entered 18th-century discourse by way of literary theory and criticism, such as Grounds of Criticism in Poetry (1704) by John Dennis (1657-1734), and Joseph Addison's Spectator essays, The Pleasures of the Imagination (1711). It soon came to be applied to visual art by, among others, Jonathan Richardson sr in An Essay on the Whole Art of Criticism as it Relates to Painting etc (1719), in which he remarked that terror is a suitable subject for painters as 'by consideration of our own safety it gives us pleasing ideas'. This concept, common to writers on the Sublime, was most fully expounded by EDMUND BURKE in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1756). Burke distinguished between the Sublime and the Beautiful by identifying man's leading passions as self-preservation and love of society. Self-preservation gave rise to delight, as a result of a diminution of pain or terror, while beauty was the source of 'positive and independent' pleasure. Thus delight might arise from the contemplation of a terrifying situation

See the Abbreviations for further details.