Beautiful and Sublime: The Byproduct of Romanticism
“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chain.” — Jean Jacques Rousseau
The philosophy of ‘The Beautiful and the Sublime’ is a byproduct of Romanticism, a fifty year period where expression was valued over the church and the enlightenment. Expression was based in the idea that mind was entitled to reason as well as emotion. This state of free thought contradicted both the biblical outlook that stifled reason and the enlighten view that overlooked emotion. Rather than looking to God or to a man of practical wisdom, Romantic thinkers looked to discover themselves. These thinkers adapted the phrase: “Dare to be,” (Kreis) as they embraced consciousness and diversity. Expressions ranging from art, to music, to literature, to philosophy became the mean in which a mind could demonstrate its individuality. The key being individuality, the whole movement was away from objective generalizations and towards subjectivism. This called upon the people of the time to look inward, defining standards for both the beautiful and the sublime. Natural state of beauty and morality was adopted by the Romantic not in the orderly sense of the Enlightenment but rather in organic sense. Nature was alive and in nature resides the soul. Romantics freed themselves of the “soulless” (Kreis) or rather the materialistic. This return to unexplainable was under the premise that “the heart has reasons that Reason is not equipped to understand.” (Kreis). Sensations overpowered reason where the emotion felt was valued over the scientific analysis. The focus in on emotion is the origin of the distinction between the sublime and the beautiful. The sublime evokes deep emotion, where as the beautiful merely supply superficial pleasure. The sublime doesn’t need to be pleasant, it can be distant and still, compared to the busyness and levity of the beautiful. There is an honesty in sublime as it is a source virtue rather than merely being a beholder of virtue. (Kant)
Resources:
Kant, Immanuel, Patrick R. Frierson, and Paul Guyer. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2012. Print.
Kreis, Steven. “The Romantic Era.” The History Guide. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
