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The sublime in literature (and art in general) is a fascinating but complex concept. The difficulty in comprehending its ins and outs lies squarely in the fluidity of its definition.

Just as the Gothic itself – with which the sublime is heavily associated – that eludes clear-cut definitions, the sublime is not all that clear to put in a box. In a way, the sublime in literature is a way of experiencing. Yet in another way, the sublime is no more than a ghostly reflection – and so, it’s not really prescribing but rather describing.

In simple terms, the sublime in literature is every instance where we reach a threshold of ambiguity. Whenever we (vicariously, through the protagonist) experience the fuzzy passage between reason and emotion, between fear and awe, or between puzzlement and understanding, the sublime is there.

The Sublime in Literature as a “Point”

When it comes to definitions of the sublime, my personal favorite is Philip Shaw’s – you might remember it from my post on the eternal now in Gothic fiction.

Shaw, referring to Frances Reynolds’s 1785 Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, argues that

true sublimity occurs at “the point” where the distinctions between categories, such as cause and effect, word and thing, object and idea, begin to break down. The moment is religious because it also marks the limits of human conception, the point at which reason gives way to madness, certainty to uncertainty, and security to destruction. (Shaw 2006, 46)

This definition of the sublime contains three important elements: firstly, a transcendental, spiritual essence; secondly, a connection with dialectical collapse occurring at the level of the sublime, as traditional separations begin to break down, thus placing limits on reason, expression, and direct perception; thirdly, the importance of the eternal now, or the indefinably small “point” where sublimity occurs.

The Sublime Is about the Unreachable

The sublime, then, refers to an indefinable present moment, at which the ability to express and formulate an adequate depiction collapses.

This experience is also accompanied by a heightened sense of metaphysical awareness and of a sense of transcending a certain threshold – despite the fact that limitations of reason and perception forbid direct knowledgeYou might also want to take a look at my post on the concept of the Neo-Hegelian Absolute. of what might exist beyond this border. As a result, such experiences are invariably connected to a distorted sense of reality.

Furthermore, it is important to add that the sublime is a major disrupting force in regard to definitive boundaries, as it “refers to things which appear either formless … or which have form but, for reasons of size, exceed our ability to perceive such form … Our ability to discern boundaries or spatial or temporal limitations is brought into question by the sublime” (Shaw 2006, 78; my emphasis).

In terms of size, the concept of infinity is more readily associated with the sublime, both spatially, for example as a vast ocean or the starry night sky, as well as temporally, for example considering the unfathomable past of life on earth, or the posited heat death of the universe in the future.

However, thinking of the eternal now in terms of size, as well as form, it becomes evident that it is precisely the infinitely small, undefinable – in other words, formless – nature of this basic temporal building block that connects it with the sublime.

The Sublime in Literature: Temporality and Ambiguity

In Dracula, the arrival of the eponymous character in England causes both an unprecedented storm and a temporal distortion. According to Mina Harker, “[t]he time and distance seemed endless” (D 101).

Importantly, this sense of timelessness is highly oneiric in nature, not only because of the gloomy images and the eerie stillness, but also because of Mina’s confession: “I must have gone fast, and yet, it seemed to me as if my feet were weighted with lead, and as though every joint in my body were rusty” (D 101), an uncannily accurate description of a dream.

The “Wonderful and Awful Loveliness”

Similarly in H. Rider Haggard’s She, there is a clear connection between the sublime and altered states of consciousness:

How was it possible that I, a rational man, not unacquainted with the leading scientific facts of our history, and hitherto an absolute and utter disbeliever in all the hocus-pocus which in Europe goes by the name of the supernatural, could believe that I had within the last few minutes been engaged in conversation with a woman two thousand and odd years old? The thing was contrary to the experience of human nature, and absolutely and utterly impossible. It must be a hoax, and yet, if it were a hoax, what was I to make of it? What, too, was to be said of the figures on the water, of the woman’s extraordinary acquaintance with the remote past, and her ignorance, or apparent ignorance, of any subsequent history? What, too, of her wonderful and awful loveliness? (Haggard 1951, 120; my emphasis)

It is important to note the unsolvable vacillation between “an illusion of the senses” and a reality “controlled by laws unknown” (read more about the ontological attributes of the Gothic here).

Moreover, one should note the unmistakable reference to the woman’s sublime essence, being both wonderfully and awfully lovely. Murphy calls this woman, Ayesha, “a kind of Gothic sublime” (2001, 55), but I would specify that the sublime nature of the experience clearly originates from her temporal attributes and, in particular, her distorted temporality.

Amassing Time

Ayesha’s past is concurrent with the Victorian present, not unlike Count Dracula’s amalgamation of centuries that amass in the present moment.

The sublime nature of the Gothic attitude towards the past is evident:

[T]he ‘borderland’ attitude of Gothic [sic] to the past is a compound of repulsion and attraction, fear of both the violence of the past and its power over the present, and at the same time longing for many of the qualities which that past possesed … Montoni [of The Mysteries of Udolpho] and Doctor Moreau are both archaic and contemporary, attempts to understand the present in terms of the unexplained past, attempts to allay the past in terms of a threatening present The code of Gothic is … dialectical, past and present intertwined, each distorting each other with the sheer effort of coming to grips. (Punter 1980, 418–419)

If one wished to group these elements presented here into an encompassing semantic sphere, the best candidate would arguably be ambiguity. The great in-between, the bridge that both separates and connects, emphasizes the double and often self-contradicting nature of the Gothic.

Hegelian syntheses and ideas of hybridity complicate matters further, as the line between natural and artificial or natural and unnatural becomes dangerously blurred.

Note: Interested in trying a Sublime Detector program I’ve made? You can try it following this link. For a full list of my available programs, see the relevant page on the main site.

Works Cited

Haggard, H. Rider. Three Adventure Novels: She, King Solomon’s Mines, Allan Quatermain. New York: Dover, 1951.
Punter, David. The Literature of Terror. London: Longman, 1980.
Shaw, Philip. The Sublime. Oxon: Routledge, 2006.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. London: Penguin, 2003.

You can also read my doctoral dissertation, available (for free) from the repository of the Tampere University Press.