The sublime is something that evokes great emotion. In class, we discussed several different interpretations of the sublime. One in which the sublime is described as something that evokes both terror and the sense of beauty. Another in which the sublime is something that elicits great questioning within us without the yearning for fact or reason (also known as negative capability). The sublime, however you may personally interpret it, is all around us.

If we look at the picture I have attached, we will see my father crouching before the ocean on a trip to Fire Island in mid-January; one of many trips we take on those long, non-eventful weekends.  In this picture, he is a small, dark creature faced with the vastness of the sea and of the sky. What formed the waves tumbling towards him? How did this enormous mass of water get there? How can a sun so far away heat our tiny planet? How do we have the capacity to see all this? To think? Those are some of the questions that the open ocean and the bright sky of this photo may stimulate. We spent nearly an hour on this beach, my parents and I, staring out to the ocean, watching the waves roll in and out, and in silence, each deep in their own thoughts. Soon after, with no new answers or knowledge, we all walked away, resuming our regular lives. None of us having expected to learn anything new, we left content in allowing our minds to ramble and absorbing the moment. The sublime, in this photo, is generated as John Keat’s idea of negative capability.