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Rabbit Hole: an Infinite Text Exploration of the Sublime

November 21, 2022

literature, philosophy, programming, subjectivity, sublime

Chances are, the title – as well as the listed categories – might sound confusing. “Rabbit Hole”? “Infinite Text”? “the Sublime”? Ironically enough in this context, this program – which I named, rather predictably, Rabbit Hole – precisely exploits two interrelated faces of language:

Language is both ambiguous and limiting; we have fewer words than we have possible concepts and ideas to express.
As a result, language is subjective; we create our own meaning.

With all this in mind, Rabbit Hole is many things at once. In a sense, it’s an infinite text generator – a bit like the one in Word Journey. In another, it’s an exploration of the sublime – our inability to go beyond certain thresholds, though we might still be able to taste what lies beyond them. After all, as I implied above, talking about the limits of language, how can we represent the unrepresentable?

In a way, we could say Rabbit Hole is an exploration of art – in the most subjective sense of the word. It is what its user wants it to be.

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Reality in Frankenstein: Dreams and Temporal Distortion

November 9, 2020

Criticism

academia, frankenstein, reality, sublime, time

Note: the following article on reality in Frankenstein is a modified excerpt (pp. 150-152) from my doctoral dissertation, “Time is Everything with Him”: The Concept of the Eternal Now in Nineteenth-Century Gothic, which is available for free from the repository of the Tampere University Press. For a list of my other academic publications, presentations, etc. feel free to visit the relevant page on the main Home for Fiction website.

Reality in Frankenstein is a matter of temporal perception. On more than one occasion Victor Frankenstein alludes to a distorted sense of time, which effectively precludes the possibility of defining reality. As the grieving scientist admits, “[s]ix years had elapsed, passed as a dream” (F 61).

However, the most powerful sense of loss of reality for Frankenstein comes after his friend, Henry Clerval, is found dead. The hapless man mentions how everything “passed like a dream from [his] memory” (F 135), and a little later, while in prison, he insists saying “if it all be true, if indeed I did not dream” (F 136).

Furthermore, he confesses that his entire life passed before his eyes like a dream, causing him to doubt whether any of it was real, “for it never presented itself to [his] mind with the force of reality” (F 136).

reality in Frankenstein — Reality in *Frankenstein* is directly related to the perception of time

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The Sublime in Literature: Meaning and Significance

January 20, 2020

Criticism

academia, ambiguity, experiencing, Gothic, literature, sublime

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.

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