Sublime In 18th Century Essay - 1915 Words

Described as the age of enlightenment, 18th Century Britain became modish in its ways. An emerging trading industry allowed the nation to prosper and develop into a wealthy elite society, where ambition was smothering every opportunity to improve taste, class and wealth. An awareness of society was steadily rising due to heavy influence of newspapers, thus enabling a we to develop. People began questioning fact, exploring and acquiring to new tastes; but the benchmark was when John Dennis returned from the seemingly problematic and extraneous Alps in 1688, and spoke of having experienced an emotional phenomena through the great wonders of these mountains. Such an absurd idea created hype and wonder among the nation-descriptions of†¦show more content†¦(Eagleton, Terry. The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. ) Man is naturally born to survive, to compete, to rival with others, and the sublime ties in with this in the sense it is about individuation and dang er, and seeking to gain the absolute maximum. Ambition is about taking risks, and in taking a risk, we have mixed feelings of fear, passion andexcitement-similar to that of the sublime. In Burke s essay, he says No passion soeffectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear....whatevertherefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublime too, whether this cause ofterror being endued with greatness of dimensions or not; for it is impossible to look on anything as trifling, or contemptible, that may be dangerous. (Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime andBeautiful [extracts]. Section II, Terror. 2nd ed. The University of Edinburgh English Literature 2 WebCTVirtual Learning Environment. 24 Oct. 2008 .)Burke remarks that danger hints at thrill; his word choice of trifling conveys this. This has a direct link to feeling sublime, because thrilling experiences are individual and divine. Ambition certainly has an au ra of danger, and just like experiencingthe sublime, there is that element of thrill, of the chance of it being successful andfailing at the same time. This sense of ambition is arguably caused by our naturalcurious minds; if we were not so wondrous as to try toShow MoreRelatedA Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful: Edmund Burke1299 Words   |  6 PagesEnlightenment movement of the 18th century. 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