“We rest–A dream has power to poison sleep; / We rise–One wandering thought pollutes the day” (9-10).
Although I have slight disagreements with Mr. Burke’s comparison of sublime and beauty, in particular Burke’s position of beauty not to be obscure, and a slightly greater disagreement that beauty should be light and delicate, I will express respect for Mr. Burke’s opinion and share my thoughts on the lines above. But before I do, I should say I had met a lot of young to well-aged females at Baruch college and in my travel, and the last thing I would use to describe their beauty is that they’re “light and delicate” for displaying strength and independence when juggling a full-time job and finding time to attend classes. My second disagreement is with his position on beauty not being obscure, and I should also add my thoughts that true beauty is from the inside and not on the outside, and therefore it is obscure and not obviously clear as Mr. Burke had wrote about.
In regard to the lines above, my believe is that they demonstrate this theory of sublime. My method to understand this literary element, because it was slightly confusing, is to produce an analogy to Marvel Daredevil, the superhero, where Mr. Daredevil sees only the darkness and gloomy criminal world that conjures this feeling of “terrifying fear,” like the sublime, but instead of evading this fear, Daredevil is attracted to its appeal because it gives him this sense of “exhilaration.” This great delight, as relating to the sublime, is what motivates Daredevil to embrace his supernatural gift and exercise the law (according to netflix) to do good. It is the same idea in the two lines above. The poet says in an abstract, or indirect context, manner that dream has the power to poison our sleep. But we sleep anyhow. We embrace this “exhilarating” feeling after a good night sleep, (then rush back to English 3015 class the next day). Then the poet tells us that “wandering thought pollutes the day.” We daydream anyway. Again, we embrace it because it’s so delightful! despite the negative image being put on it.
-Nhan
