The notion of the href="http://www.litgothic.com/Topics/sublime.html">sublime stretches back
to the Greek philosopher Longinus who produced a theory that attributed strong emotional
responses to how orators used various techniques in rhetoric. In the eighteenth century,
the Romantic sublime came alive when Longinus's idea of the sublime was reawakened and
connected, not to rhetoric in powerful speeches, but to the emotive affect and epiphanic
affect of grand sights in nature. The Romantic sublime focused on how a gnarled tree or
a sweeping, wind-torn vista could awaken feelings of awe and create a connection in the
observer with the greatness of nature. In Sense and Sensibility,
Austen alludes to this when Edward tells Marianne and
Elinor:
I
have no knowledge in the picturesque, and I shall offend you by my ignorance and want of
taste .... I shall call hills steep, which ought to be bold; surfaces strange and
uncouth, which ought to be irregular and rugged; and distant objects out of sight, which
ought only to be indistinct through the soft medium of a hazy
atmosphere.
The Gothic
sublime differs in that Edmund Burke wrote a book that tied the sublime--the emotional
power of a strong effect--to negative and dark emotions. Thus, Gothic sublime uses
nature, locations, and personas to create the sublime of fear, horror, dread, and
suspense.
Therefore, the sublime is the aesthetic of a
psychological impact of a significant effect. At first, Longinus tied this impact, this
sublime, to an inspiring affect from rhetoric used in great speeches. Then in the
eighteenth century, writers and philosophers tied this impact to an inspiring affect
from nature and the supernatural (angels, ghosts, etc), thus creating the Romantic
sublime. Finally, Burke gave rise to the Gothic sublime by tying this impact to an
unnerving affect from dark and eerie nature, places, and personas for the express
purpose of producing horror, fear, dread, and suspense.
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