Sublime

Throughout last week I was introduced to Sublimity. Not being fairly familiar with it before, Longinus made it clear for me as to what it is and what it does. Sublimity is dependent on moral qualities of the artist. It can recognize moral positions. However, I only thought of sublime as it means something beautiful, I did not know sublime had more thought to it. Longinus made it clear that only sublimity can be spoken about, not taught, which makes absolutely sense. In Longinus’ text, he mentions critics of the student. He goes into detail about how sublimity cannot be taught, how to “write” sublimity, and so on. 

My only concern was if something was born beautiful does it create sublimity?

If a rose is simply beautiful, is it considered sublime? Is anything beautiful considered to be sublime or close to it? Each and every one of us as individuals strives for sublimity whether it is recognizable to ourselves or not. In our class discussion on this subject, Longinus made a clear point that one can reach sublimity not just through an object or as a human being but through a speech to connect through their audience. “Audience is involved in realization and pinpointing and recognition of sublime…” 

However, not every sublime can result in a good reaction when dealing with an audience. There is a chance that once the audience has recognized sublimity, it can alienate the audience. Not every individual will have recognized the sublimity but that is because the audience as a listener and reader need to be purely and naturally engaged; “heightened stance” of audience. In the end, sublimity is an achievement of selecting most important features in the right organization (an interaction between reader and writer and writers knowledge and it is seen in the text).