” Oh! Lift me as a wave, a leaf a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.”
From Ode to the West Wind by Percy Shelley
Burke makes a very clear distinction between what he defines as beautiful, and what he defines as sublime. From my understanding the distinction is made in the fact that something that is sublime has a dark side to it, it creates a sense of fear, but at the same time brings about something tempting and intriguing. As if he is saying that something that is scary can not necessarily be marked as beautiful, rather sublime. Like being caught in a thunderstorm. I think that this excerpt from Percy Shelley’s poem Ode to the West Wind is a good example of the idea that something that one may see as scary is in fact beautiful,rather than sublime. In his poem, Shelley lists his ambitions, and he comes to a realization that there are many things that he is unable to do. He addresses the wind, and tells it that he would like even a fraction of the freedom that it has. He sees time as a burden, which we see in the line “a heavy weight of hours…”, and this idea of being free like the wind is something that is very appealing to him. The wind has the ability to move, to be free, to not be bound by time, to have peace, and Shelley wants that. The idea of living free, not bound to anything, to move through the air like a leaf, bleeding from falling onto the thorns of life are all very scary images, but they motivate Shelley. I don’t necessarily know if these would be classified as part of the sublime, I think that they are actually more along the lines of being called beautiful, because to Shelley he wants to be untamed like the wind, and free at heart.
1 comments
Interesting and descriptive read. I like the comparison of being caught in a thunderstorm. It’s something most people can relate to as a frightening yet exhilarating experience. To see nature display its power is a beautiful thing. Your read of the wind sounds peaceful. However, wind can be equally as destructive during a hurricane. There’s definitely a yin and yang type relationship going on in nature. I feel like burke’s interpretation of the sublime relates to that idea. I like your concise style of writing.