Black Voice News Online - Lofty Poetic Words

Lofty Poetic Words

Thursday, 12 July 2007

Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.

In the treatise: "On the Sublime and Beautiful", Edmund Burke (1756) distinquished two types of aesthetic experiences. First was Judgment of the Beautiful, which had its origin in our social feelings (especially of the opposite sex) and in our hope for a consolation through love and desire. Second was the Judgment of the Sublime which had its origin in our feelings towards nature; in our intimation of our ultimate solitude and fragility in a world that is not of our own devising; and that remains resistant to our demands. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) spoke of the Sentiment of Beauty (such as when we sense the harmony between nature and our faculties and are impressed by the purposefulness and intelligibly of everything that surrounds us) and the Sentiment of the Sublime (when we are overcome by the infinite greatness of the world and renounce the attempt to understand and control it). He said the mind is "incited to abandon sensibility" to reach over to that transcendental view of things that shows to us the imminence of a supersensible realm. From the 17th century onward there was wide spreading of the concept of the Sublime's great thoughts; of noble feelings; of lofty figurative language, diction, and arrangement; of powerful emotions; of spiritual and religious awe; and the Everest of Genius Achievement. Many of these areas related to a profound stirring by the mysteries and dynamic forces of nature or anything that surpassed excellence -- such as the Mass in B minor by Bach or the Entombment by Michelangelo or the power of Shakespeare's Othello.

Like the African Amenta or Ocean of Nun, Post-17th century characterizations of the Sublime are: obscurity, darkness, emptiness, vastness, and power. Westerners say the Sublime is beyond all comparison by being absolutely great--whether mathematically in terms of limitless magnitude or dynamically in terms of limitless power; is so superior that a human feels inferior before it; that it is above the senses; that it is necessarily of short duration; that it is well organized, sincere, and complete; and that it is a source of prodigious creative energy, force, and power. Thus, we can see a bit of an overlap between the European and the African concepts of the Sublime.

Lofty words used to refer to these components are invariably clumsy, inadequate, limited, and crude. This is because aspects in the sublime can not be defined. Examples of words for "defining" aspects of the Sublime include: dignified, noble, exaltation, grandeur, elegant, graceful, majestic, magnificent, lofty, astounding, grand, ecstasy, imposing, stately, splendid, rapture, superb, marvelous, wonderful, terrific, magnanimous, supreme, transcendent, rapture, happiness, eminent, empyreal, celestial, heavenly, ideal, gorgeous, royal, perfection, and bliss. Rather than these words conveying a specific concept, they tend to put one into a creative lofty atmosphere of thoughts and feelings -- an awe-inspiring atmosphere -an atmosphere checkered with reverence -an atmosphere causing one to be overwhelmed with pleasure in its highest realms. Besides the atmosphere of power, one feels humbleness, a lack of desire to possess it, and an intense inspiration to create and make things better. Since the source of the Sublime power comes from "the heavens," the experience of being in the Sublime is that of having entered a greatness of power -many times of greater magnitude than being around a mighty waterfall or interfacing with the ocean.

website: www.jablifeskills.com

Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.