In one of my favourite classes in 18th-century English literature, I tell my students the following:
Imagine it is night. You are in a small boat in the middle of the wide empty ocean. There is a storm that makes the sky roar. Strikes of lightning brighten the night in flashes. The waves gasp and almost engulf the little boat you are in. The full moon reigns solemn above it all.
Now, how do you feel?
Can you see how paradoxically terrifying and beautiful this scene is? How majestic the force of nature is, and her relentless power, and how insignificant you as a human being are in comparison? How the closeness of death makes you feel more alive?
Now that, dear reader, is the sublime.
The sublime is a very important concept to understand 18th-century literature (as well as art, philosophy and politics of the time).
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