Percy Bysshe Shelley “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.” In Ozymandias Shelley creates a sublime effect by illustrating the decaying grand statue of Ozymandias. While it stands alone in the desert the statute represents …
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Sep 27
Sublime Through the Eyes of the Mariner
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Lines 322 – 326) “The thick black cloud was cleft; and still The Moon was at its side: Like waters shot from some high crag, The lightning fell with never a jag, A river steep and wide.” Edmund Burke’s idea, or definition, of the word “sublime” is evident …
Sep 27
Sublime in “Mutability”
“We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon; How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver, Streaking the darkness radiantly! Yet soon Night closes round and they are lost for ever:” (Lines 1-5) “To whose frail frame no second motion brings One mood or modulation like the last.” (Lines 8 & 9) Percy …
Sep 27
Sublime in Keats “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet never did I breathe its pure serene, Till I heard Chapman speak out lout and bold: Then I felt like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; (lines 6-10) In describing what sublime is Edmund Burke explains the sublimity of words. …
Sep 27
The Sublime of England in 1819
“England in 1819” by Percy Shelley “Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; Religion, Christless, Godless-a book sealed; A Senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed, Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may Burst, to illuminate our tempestuous day” (Lines 10-14) Burke defines the sublime as something that is compelling and a great sight …
Sep 27
Sublime – Percy Shelley
From “Mont Blanc” by Percy Shelley Lines 136-145 Its home The voiceless lightning in these solitudes Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods Over the snow. The secret Strength of things Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee! And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and …
Sep 27
Death Brings Not Fear, but Wonder
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (lines 185- 189) “Are those her ribs through which the Sun Did peer, as through a grate? And is that Woman all her crew? Is that a DEATH? and are there two? Is DEATH that woman’s mate?” Upon, sighting the ghastly crew that swiftly approached the Mariners ship, …
Sep 27
The Sublime in “Ode to a Nightingale”
From Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale”, Lines 51-54: “Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath;” According to Burke, “Greatness of dimension is a powerful cause of the …
Sep 27
Ozymandias and the Sublime
“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone/Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand,/Half sunk, a shattered visage lies…” -“Ozymandias” by Percy Shelley, lines 2-4. Although this is an atypical response to the notion of the sublime, I believe what Shelly is writing about can be categorized by the idea. Seemingly, the sublime is in …
Sep 27
The Sublime in Wordsworth
“Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” by William Wordsworth (Lines 79-86) “…The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite: a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter …