Write a note on Edmund Burk's idea of Sublime
Answers
Explanation:
The idea of the sublime is central to a Romantic’s perception of, and heightened awareness in, the world. It was Edmund Burke, who in 1757 published a treatise of aesthetics called A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, and therefore provided the English Romantic movement with a systematic analysis of what constitutes the sublime, and the various qualities which it possesses, and hence gave the English Romantics a theoretical foundation, and a legitimacy, to their artistic expression.
Burke (1729-97) was born in Dublin and educated there at Trinity College. He is best known for his political achievements: firstly as a Whig MP; and then as the founder of modern conservatism with the publication in 1790 of the Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which he expressed mistrust in the rationalism of the French Revolutionaries, who believed that politics can be conducted according to a priori principles not rooted in previous experience and practice. Yet much earlier in his life, when only 28 years old, and whilst establishing himself in literary London, he wrote his Enquiry, which precedes the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, by 41 years.
Consistent with the dominant philosophical way of thinking in Britain during his life, Burke was an empiricist. That is, he believed that the formation of our ideas, and our knowledge of the natural world, is derived from our sensory experience, which is determined by our senses, perceptions or passions (feelings or emotions). This is to be contrasted with the rationalist school of thought, which asserts that knowledge of innate ideas can be arrived at through intuition and reasoning alone, independently of the passions. For Burke, it is the passions (as represented in our imagination), not reason, which determines how and what we see, hear and feel in the world.
Like most empiricists, Burke sought to apply a scientific method to his chosen subject-matter, so in the Enquiry he undertakes a scientific investigation into our various passions, and uses the collected evidence to explain the nature and power of the sublime. His Enquiry opens with an introductory discussion on taste, where he observes that although we have a shared sensory apparatus, our idea and knowledge of a particular taste (and whether we like it or not) is the product of our own individual physical experience, combined with our social and cultural context: