Sublime to me is a feeling of elevation. It’s almost a surreal feeling where you have no control. Sublime plays a major part in our feelings and how we process things. Our brains separates fear from joy and real from imaginative scenarios and thought. Environment is what influences the fear and dark thoughts everyone has. This is what nightmares are made up of and what our minds process as frightening. From person to person this differentiates, but for example something commonly feared of is clowns. What creates this fear is the influence from an early age that clowns are a scary character. From comic books to horror movies they play this part that then influences our brain to think negative thoughts when anything related to clowns come to mind. These thoughts cannot be controlled, they come natural to the some and to other they don’t occur. Sometimes as we age we get over these fears or unfortunately grow them.  Another example would be animals, some people suffer from arachnophobia while others may love spiders. This is all in our heads and its different for everyone. Its utter torture for someone with arachnophobia to see a spider while people who do not suffer from this phobia may have them as pets. Sublime is a state of horror and what we relate to it. We differentiate everything differently due to environment and society from when we’re born to the end of our journey. It may not seem like a common topic but we all face this during our everyday life.

-Priyana

In the article The Gothic: Overview, it states that “the Gothic featured accounts of terrifying experiences in ancient castles — experiences connected with subterranean dungeons, secret passageways, flickering lamps, screams, moans, bloody hands, ghosts…” I spontaneously made a connection between the Gothic literary arts with contemporary horror fiction. I was once a fan of horror fiction. Reading horror fiction was an experience of challenging your imagination. The settings vary from ancient castle to underground tunnel. The narrative can be a human or an unknown species like a vampire. In the imagery world of horror fiction, everything is possible.

Darkness and unknown dangers are sources of fear. In ancient, our ancestors faced so many phenomena that couldn’t be explained, such as a tsunami. Therefore, Poseidon and other Greek Gods were created. In other words, fear inspired our imagination. Horror fiction aims to convey a sense of fear. Reading horror fiction is not only for entertainment or escaping from reality but sometimes for inspiration. I still remember a scene from Twilight, the narrative is a vampire and he preserves a youthful appearance. In order to live in human society, once he graduated from a high school, he will move to another town to start over his high school student life. This scene astonished me. Even though vampire has eternal life, they eventually will repeat their life tracks. For the human, the limited lifespan will encourage us to pursue various experience and think about what kind of life is indeed meaningful for ourselves.

For me, the sublime is an art contains culture, heritage, and inspire human’s imagination. The above is a picture of a landscape ink wash painting. Ink wash painting is traditional Chinese painting. It is to use hand-held brush to apply only water and ink to the paper.  The goal of ink wash painting is not simply to reproduce the appearance of the subject, but to capture its spirit. Even though ink wash painting only contains black and white, a fine brushwork creates near realism, distant abstraction, and rich mood. Ink wash painting is the “performance” art. It is not just the dot on the rich paper sketches, but also the performance of “state”, “spirit”, is a system of integrated thinking of the ultimate performance. The blank space of the painting makes people think and imagine.  As a Chinese, I proud of my culture and arts.

In the article “The Romantic Period” In order to understand Burke’s argument and theory, first it is important to understand the meaning of “Sublime and Beautiful” to their individual meanings. English dictionary defined Beautiful as impressing with charm, the intellectual or moral sense, through inherent fitness or grace. And it defined Sublime as something that affecting the mind with the sense of overwhelming grandeur or irresistible power; that inspired awe and deep reverence.

In Burke’s study, he stated that “Astonishment is that state of soul in which all its motions are suspended with some degree of horror”. Unlike Burke’s Astonishment could simply mean the highest form of sublimity in nature, in which we regard an object with horror and can only focuses on that single subject. It is impossible to overlook astonishment because our mind cannot control it. This is what he is trying to articulate in “Clearness and Obscurity” where he first discusses the ability of words and further on the importance knowledge in arousing passion. I emphases that clarity is achieved only through word which can paint anything and the painting which is supposed to fear the viewer can be said to provide sublime in term of Burke.

however, Burke’s also mentioned that power “where the chances for equal degrees of suffering or enjoyment are in any sort equal the idea of the suffering must always be prevalent.” An idea of power is very great and infinity which are considered source of sublime. One can strictly answer that pleasure or pain some particular people may find from the taste of some particular thing. From what I have experience, this could be because of the difference in knowledge. Thus, Pleasure arises when we recognize things we are familiar with.

This is a photo of WuZhen. WuZhen is a typical ancient town of the Yangtze River in the south of the Yangtze River, with the name of “Yumizhixiang, Silk House”. This is a very famous place of my hometown it is one of the ZheJiang Province historical and cultural city. It fully shows the tradition way of Chinese cultural from preserved to now. Our thoughts, emotions originate in sublime and many advanced thinking based on culture and heritage. Before I may never think about what is sublime and why is it in our life? But through these few article now I look back at this picture. It let me know the origin of Chinese silk culture are from my hometown. How the ancestors created and overcome these change past the wealth to us. When we review what these ancestor did and leave for us. I don’t know how other people feel, but I can find out these feelings and existing are in my memory. Maybe that is what sublime bring to me. The historical and cultural handed down from ancestors are sublime to me.

Didi Hu

For me, the sublime is defined as an experience from fear and terror. It works upon our senses and imaginations.

For example, when I think about the fire of the hell I am very scare. We all know about the existence of the fire and that there is something else after death which is the last judgment. My question is that why did God created the ” Hell”?  why did he created humanity if he knows that some of us are going to hell? I was born and raised in a religious family. I believe in God and also believe that anything that happen is God willing. Through my childhood until now, I have learned a lot of things about God and how to act according to his rules. I also learned that if you don’t follow those rules properly you cannot escape the fire of the hell. To say the truth, this makes me very upset. I know I am not perfect because no body is perfect but I can say that I am trying to do my best to do so. Nowadays, there is a lot of crimes (murders, rape,…) .  In addition, people tend more likely to do bad things than good. Sometimes I even ask myself where is the world going? Because everything seems like the world is going at its end.

Aminata Toure

(This is a picture taken by Charlene Collins  of Jamaica, St Elizabeth Black River)

Looking at this landscape of Black River Jamaica, all I can think about is my culture and heritage. A sublime aspect would be emotions and advanced thinking on what’s before you in nature.  My river runs deep like the body of water that flows through my country and endless thoughts of progress cross my mind. This picture is inspiring to understanding my evolution of who I am, where I would like to go with my life. I was born in Brooklyn New York City. Both of my parents are of West Indian, Jamaican descent. My Grandparents migrated to NYC in the 1900 for a better living and a taste of the American dream.

This picture of my origin allows me to strive for more knowing that I’m capable of many great things. In the past, it was hard for black people to own houses or businesses,  however my grandparents managed to buy a house in 1969 and establish businesses such as a church, dry cleaners & tailor shop while working . I must say, my Grandparents did very well. That’s what I call an accomplishment, coming from a country with a few opportunities. They made my family’s future brighter working hard and overcoming diversity as Caribbean immigrants they were never held back. Growing up here was hard but exciting, they say “A tree grows in Brooklyn,” this city taught me a lot. Brooklyn New York is where my story begins, and just like the  Black River it doesn’t end here. When you step into the river, you never step in the same water twice. The river is constantly moving and the mind is always looking for understanding, we will never be the same do to progress. How deep does your river run ?

(Above is a photo of the landscape where I used to live taken from Google Earth. The red pin is my old address.)

It seems to me that, in the broad sense, the sublime is something that is able to entrance the viewer and maintain ones full focus. The sublime is an experience. Something that is humbling, breath taking, something you cant look away from even if it strikes fear. If my interpretation is correct, then the sublime lives in ones strongest memories for it is something they cannot forget.

If I look back into my memories, I would find moments in nature that are some of my strongest memories to be my interaction with the sublime and beautiful. When I think back to my outdoorsy childhood in Idaho, I don’t simply remember that there were a lot of trees or that the pond was cold. I remember the grandiose nature of the pine forest which inhabited the mountains around my house.  I would stare at those pine covered hills across the way on a much smaller mountain (possibly large hill)  when I hiked and be in awe of the near immortality of those trees. When I think of the lake I think of caution. I can see the serine waters and bright green grass, but I think of the day I decided to jump into a different side of the lake away from the doc. No one ever swam there and I didn’t realize why. As I started playing in the water I quickly found it hard to move. It was then I noticed the suction engulfing my right leg into a quicksand type of mud. I sunk into the mud until it reached my hips. Luckily only one leg was stuck in the mud and I was able to get out after 10 minutes or so.

These stories might not seem sublime to some, but for me they were. These are moments were you have no other thoughts or distractions then exactly the moment you are experiencing. This is not the same as a when someone is in the moment of buying coffee, but they are also checking their planner and thinking of dinner. To me the sublime are moments that impact and shape a person.

To me the sublime is something that makes someone react in some way, either positively or negatively, in respect to an image, words, etc. The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh is something that never ceases to astonish me. To me this image never fails to bring my ego back to reality. I’m the kind of person who always constanly finds himself asking questions like, “what is my purpose on this planet?”, “why do some people remember their past lives?” and “why do we live only to die?” instead of the “normal” questions a 20-something year old human tends to ask. The Starry Night’s portrayal of the night sky is very soothing to me. It makes me realize that there’s so much more to being human than living the way society tells you to. The way the stars are portrayed–the universe, it makes me feel small, but not exactly in a negative way. It makes me realize that maybe my life doesn’t mean much on the grand universal scale of things, but humanity itself can mean something great if we all find some ideal way to unite.

My motto has always been, “peace through unity, not division” simply because division, for example borders and walls, are what cause conflicts and wars. Wars cause death and it always pains me to see a fellow human eternally strike down one of their own. It’s been that way since humanity’s birth. I feel like, over the years, my question of, “what is my purpose on this planet?” has changed to something more along the lines of, “what is OUR purpose as a collective on this planet?”. I could probably write pages as to how my sublime reaction towards The Starry Night has influenced my way of thinking such as my belief as to what steps the human race has to take not only to survive, but to advance and make their mark in the infinite universe as well as how it personally makes me want to resolve my own internal conflicts and my strive towards reaching a higher level of consciousness.

Carlos Montoya

This past summer, I spent a month traveling around Italy. The first place we went to was Cala Gonone, a small beach town in Sardinia. The city contains a stretch of some of the most beautiful beaches in Italy, which can only be reached by boat or by hiking for about 4-6 hours. When we got a chance to see the crystal clear water, the white pebble sand beaches, the cliffs, the trees, the caves, all  virtually untouched by globalization, I felt sublime. From a small rubber boat in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea, I realized how vast the world is. How many places are still “pure”? How many mountain tops are still untouched by human hands? Remembering that nature is bigger and stronger than you keeps you humbled. But nature also creates a connection between human beings. As I watched the Italian cliff divers jump off the 40 ft cliffs, the tourists settle on the sand, the hikers climb up the rocks, I realized that we all share this planet and that’s what makes it so wonderful.