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This is the first English-language anthology to provide a compendium of primary source material on the sublime. The book takes a chronological approach, covering the earliest ancient traditions up through the early and late modern periods and into contemporary theory. It takes an inclusive, interdisciplinary approach to this key concept in aesthetics and criticism, representing voices and traditions that have often been excluded. As such, it will be of use and interest across the humanities and allied disciplines, from art criticism and literary theory, to gender and cultural studies and environmental philosophy.
The anthology includes brief introductions to each selection, reading or discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, a bibliography and index - making it an ideal text for building a course around or for further study. The book's apparatus provides valuable context for exploring the history and contemporary views of the sublime.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments: Sources
Acknowledgments
Note on the Texts
Editor's Introduction
Part I. Ancient
1.Longinus, from On Sublimity
2.Bharata-Muni, from
Na?yasastraPart II. Postclassical
3.Guo Xi, from The Interest of Lofty Forests and Springs
4.Zeami Motokiyo, "Notes on the Nine Levels"
5.Francesco Petrarca, "The Ascent of Mont Ventoux"
Part III. Modern
6.Nicolas Boileau Despréaux, from "Preface to his Translation of Longinus On the Sublime"
7.John Dennis, from The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry
8.Giambattista Vico, "On the Heroic Mind"
9.Edmund Burke, from A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
10.Moses Mendelssohn, from "On the Sublime and Naive in the Fine Sciences"
11.Elizabeth Carter, from Letters from Mrs. Elizabeth Carter to Mrs. Montagu
12.Immanuel Kant, from Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime
13.Anna Aiken (Anna Letitia Barbauld), "On the Pleasure Derived from Objects of Terror"
14.Mary Wollstonecraft, from A Vindication of the Rights of Men
15.Immanuel Kant, from Critique of the Power of Judgment and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View
16.Friedrich Schiller, "Of the Sublime (Toward the Further Development of Some Kantian Ideas)"
17.Anna Seward, Letter to Rev. Dr. Gregory
18.Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolfo: A Romance
19.Helen Maria Williams, from A Tour in Switzerland
Part IV. Late Modern
20.William Wordsworth, "The Sublime and the Beautiful"
21.Mary Shelley, from Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
22.Arthur Schopenhauer, from The World as Will and Representation
23.Georg W. F. Hegel, "Symbolism of the Sublime"
24.Richard Wagner, from "Beethoven"
25.Friedrich Nietzsche, from The Birth of Tragedy, Joyful Wisdom, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra
26.Rudolf Otto, from The Idea of the Holy
Part V. Contemporary
27.Barnett Newman, "The Sublime is Now"
28.Julia Kristeva, from Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection
29.Fredric Jameson, from "Postmodernism, or the Logic of Late Capitalism"
30.Jean-François Lyotard, "The Sublime and the Avant-Garde"
31.Meg Armstrong, from "'The Effects of Blackness': Gender, Race, and the Sublime in Aesthetic Theories of Burke and Kant"
32.Cynthia A. Freeland, "The Sublime in Cinema"
33.Arthur Danto, "Beauty and Sublimity"
34.Vladimir J. Konecni, "The Aesthetic Trinity: Awe, Being Moved, Thrills"
35.Jane Forsey, "Is a Theory of the Sublime Possible?"
36.Sandra Shapshay, "Commentary on Jane Forsey's 'Is a Theory of the Sublime Possible?'"
37.Robert R. Clewis, "Towards A Theory of the Sublime and Aesthetic Awe"
38.Emily Brady, "The Environmental Sublime"
Chapter Summaries
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
1.Guo Xi, Early Spring, 1072
2.Barnett Newman, Onement I, 1948
3.Barnett Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis, 1950-1951
4.Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, c. 1817
About the author
Robert R. Clewis teaches philosophy and is Associate Director of the Honors Program at Gwynedd Mercy University, USA. He is author of The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom (2009), a translator in Kant's Lectures on Anthropology (2012), and editor of Reading Kant's Lectures (2015) and The Sublime Reader (Bloomsbury, 2019).
Summary
This is the first English-language anthology to provide a compendium of primary source material on the sublime. The book takes a chronological approach, covering the earliest ancient traditions up through the early and late modern periods and into contemporary theory. It takes an inclusive, interdisciplinary approach to this key concept in aesthetics and criticism, representing voices and traditions that have often been excluded. As such, it will be of use and interest across the humanities and allied disciplines, from art criticism and literary theory, to gender and cultural studies and environmental philosophy.
The anthology includes brief introductions to each selection, reading or discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, a bibliography and index – making it an ideal text for building a course around or for further study. The book’s apparatus provides valuable context for exploring the history and contemporary views of the sublime.
Foreword
The first English-language anthology of texts on the sublime from Longinus and the Ancient Greeks to today.
Additional text
The Sublime Reader is a much-needed compendium of both classic and underappreciated texts that, together, depict the origins and genealogy of this compelling idea. Robert Clewis has spent many years thinking and writing about the sublime, and this thoughtful and inclusive selection of cross-disciplinary primary materials is the best I’ve seen.
