A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Just like reason and passion are never really two separate concepts, neither are beauty and sublime two opposing concepts as Burke notes - at least not to me.  While in class, we talked a lot about sublime of the natural world, of losing one's self in nature's vast expanse.  I understand and love that feeling.  It is good to lose one's self sometimes.  There are certainly therapeutic effects of the natural world and of the sublime.  "It's good for the soul." - whatever that means.  I am not sure that it can be put into words.  "Who feels it knows."

What surprised me is that in class, no one talked about the sublime of the "everyday" but rather of being in beautiful natural surrounding and we briefly touched upon sublime from the arts.  Perhaps my definition of the sublime is different from Burke's...   I am not sure but since we talked about the feeling of sublime from music and other art forms in classs, I take sublime to mean the feeling of losing one's self, of great emotion (happiness and pain/terror at the same).  I feel this feeling when I am around Kaslo, my canine companion.  She moves me to great depths of pleasure and sorrow.  I am in awe that such an amazing creature exists, of the immense emotions that stir up in me when I am with her, of the connection I feel to her and other fellow animals on this planet, of how humans are merely one of many, many creatures on earth (insignificance of the human-animal in the bigger scheme).  If this is not the feeling of the sublime, then I don't know what is. This sublime feeling that I have when I am with Kaslo moves me just as much the sublime feeling of being in the beautiful forests of Britsh Columbia.

I do think that the feeling of sublime sometimes has to be learned.  In this manner, one can argue that it is not a natural or instinctive feeling.  For example, I have listened to the song, Rivers of Babylon since I was a child but it wasn't until I was in my mid 20s that this song moved me to tears in a shinsanken ride in Japan.  It was only then that I was able to feel the sorrow inherent in the lyrics of the song.