The modern person does not have too many reasons to rise above the ordinary and soar in higher spheres. We are more likely to focus on summarizing, balancing, preparing reports, etc., actions in which there is no place for lofty feelings and high style. All this remained in the XIX century, and more precisely - in the XVIII.
However, nevertheless, at the level of the subconscious, it is human nature to strive for the transcendent: to a state that is difficult to describe, and the words need special ones ... At such moments, we suddenly for no reason begin to express ourselves as it was adopted either at the time of Homer, or with Derzhavin in his odes. Apparently, in the modern language, there are no concepts for describing elevated feelings.
Striving for harmony
A man comes into this world for development through self-knowledge, which involves constant spiritual growth, which is impossible without change. Although the worst wish in China is considered to be when someone is offered to live in times of change. From a household point of view, this is understandable: constant adjustment to unstable living conditions is a blow not only to physical, but also to mental endurance. Life in the pendulum mode is not for everyone. However, what does not kill us makes us stronger by shifting the “assemblage point” of our awareness to a higher level.
The historical pattern is that after total changes, there follows a period of comprehensive stagnation, in which reports, balances, consolidated statements and other clerical things become very popular, allowing the ruling elite to keep the masses in a state of light tension with a touch of guilt. And this is where our subconscious mind begins to turn on the “go beyond the flags” function: we suddenly begin to be pulled in situations in which we have to deal with something beyond. So the use of sublime style is the first sign that the brain is rebooting.
Form and content
What is the "sublime"? This is a concept related to aesthetics, showing the hidden side of things and phenomena, which is immeasurably more significant in terms of the impact and depth of the subsequent spiritual transformation of a person in comparison with a clearly expressed side, perceived by the subject, taking into account the existing reality.
With regard to aesthetics, the concept of the sublime correlates with the category of beauty, but significantly expands the boundaries of the latter, as a result of which there is a logically inexplicable feeling of infinity and grandeur, either causing feelings of grace and holiness or fear and other shades of this state.
However, such an understanding of the sublime is the subtlety of Western philosophy. As for the East, here the comparison of the sublime and the beauty does not have such fundamental differences. Vivid examples of the sublime are the Japanese ability to enjoy the sakura flower, reflecting in it the world harmony, or the Chinese ability to see in the form of a cloud a flock of cranes flying to infinity.
The unity of opposites
It would be impossible to imagine that I. Kant, standing at the crossroads of two eras: romanticism and enlightenment, circumvented the theme of the sublime in his philosophical studies. Mankind owes it to scientific works on transcendental idealism, and he also defined the sublime. This, according to I. Kant, is a category whose essence lies in its infinity, inexpressible greatness that goes far beyond the limits of human perception, limited by the framework of subjective consciousness. Beauty, according to Kant, has similar qualities to the sublime, but it is enclosed in the boundaries of form.
Contemplation of the sublime leads the person to the thought of his own boundaries and the finiteness of his existence. However, thanks to the awakening of the spirit, man has been given an awareness of his moral strength, thanks to which he rises above his fears, overcomes his base nature, becoming one step closer to the category of the exalted.
Speaking about this concept, we mean something beautiful or spiritual, but one way or another they will be in superlative degree, an infinite number of orders higher than those forms with which we come into contact in everyday life. Feelings experienced in contact with the category of the exalted are capable of reaching a level that is not comparable to just ecstasy: rather, they can be identified with the Divine revelation of the soul.
However, any form of energy needs to be balanced. The sublime and the base - the same as the mandala "yin-yang": being in a single space, they wage an eternal struggle of opposing principles.
Accordingly, the base is an aesthetic concept, contact with which causes the subject to negatively charged feelings, suppressing his will, replacing value orientations, destroying the structure of the individual and, as a result, posing a danger to society as a whole.
The synonyms of the base - bestial, animal, vulgar, vile, insignificant, that is, everything that is connected with the animal nature of man in the complete absence of a spiritual principle. As a result of the infiltration of the baser in public life - war, slavery, total control of the individual, a ban on a different opinion, passions causing addiction: alcohol, drugs, fornication, zombies through the media.
Classic period
The value and influence of the works of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who lived about 300 BC. e., it is difficult to overestimate. He wrote his treatise, “The Doctrine of the Three Styles,” using precisely the sublime that was used by the speakers at that time. However, considering the use of artistic genres in art, the philosopher identified the ultimate goal of the work - pleasure. In the context of this topic, Aristotle considered the feeling of emotional pain as a consequence of the negative in creativity, which is shocking, but still hurts the poetic side of the personality.
It should be noted that in the art of antiquity you can find many examples of contrasting the sublime and the earthly, when the hero is faced with a choice: personal happiness or sacrifice in the name of the public good. The images of such works are most often tragic.
Times of Homer
The well-known ancient Greek poet Homer left the descendants examples of exalted works "Iliad" and "Odyssey." From them we can judge the style used in oratory. However, at the time of the epic narrator, this method of narration was the norm, and he was not assigned the category of "exalted."
Later, the philosophers of Ancient Rome took up this concept closely, as evidenced by the information about the lost treatise of the Roman rhetoric Cecilius, who lived around 63 BC. e. under 14 years old e., when the reign of Emperor Augustus, who was called "father of the fatherland." The theme occupied the mind of Cecilia, set forth in the essay "On the High", the author of which for a long time was considered Dionysius Cassius Longinus, who lived in 200 BC. e. However, the Neoplatonist Longinus merely retold the work of Cecilia, known in his time.
Nevertheless, with the light hand of I. I. Martynov, who translated and published the arguments of Dionisy Longin in 1903, all subsequent researchers began to attribute the authorship of the work "On High" to him. Restoring historical justice and discussing the theses that took place in the treatise "On the High," we should mention Cecilia, who examined in detail the concept of "exalted" and the synonyms related to it.
Listing words that are close in meaning, such as: ideal, sacred, poetic, solemn, divine, allows you to expand your understanding of the original term. The Roman philosopher drew attention to the fact that the sublime is a special state based on not so much understanding coming from the mind as admiration originating in the heart. Cecilius also warned readers about the possible substitution of a sublime imitation due to the use of acting techniques: solemn pomp, importance and splendor, seasoned with colorful gestures.
It should be noted that the techniques described by Cecilius were studied by philosophers and speakers in the Renaissance.
Incarnation in creativity
The meaning of the word “exalted” is inseparable from the process of aesthetic perception by a person of works of art. But no matter what form the results of creativity may apply, they will amaze the imagination with their grandeur and grandeur. One of the synonyms of the sublime is the concept of “inspired”, and this is how one can characterize such incarnations of creative inspiration as the Saint Remy Cathedral in Reims, St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow or St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, over which the great sculptor Michelangelo worked, an inspired artist Raphael, and the architect Bernini. It should be noted that the Cathedral of Peter accommodates 60,000 parishioners, not counting another 400 thousand people who have the opportunity to stay on the square.
Of the works of architecture, the Sagrada Familia Temple in Barcelona, ​​which has been under construction for more than 134 years, amazes with its monumentality and combines the flight of imagination by Antonio Gaudi and the Neo-Gothic.
In music, the sublime also found its embodiment, a vivid example of this - Beethoven's “Pathetic Sonata” or P. Tchaikovsky's symphony No. 6, also called “Pathetic”.
English look
In the romantic XVIII century, the English writers Shaftesbury, Addison and Dennis visited the Alps with a difference of several years, after which they shared their impressions with the general public, focusing her attention on the category of the exalted.
John Dennis distinguished between sensible feelings, such as rapture, and an all-consuming sense of horror, combined with admiration for contemplating the limitlessness and incomprehensibility of nature. Since Dennis was a literary critic, he used his ambivalent experience in his work.
Shaftesbury also noted the mixed feelings that possessed him in contact with the magnitude and grandeur of the painting that opened to him in the Alpine mountains.
Joseph Addison’s travel impression was expressed by the definition of “pleasant horror”, referring to the observed landscape, striking the imagination with its grandeur and beauty. In his notes, Addison did not use the term "sublime", replacing it with a more suitable shade of the synonym "majestic", etc., which, according to the traveler, brings the person closer to understanding the described category.
Thus, Addison drew the line between a beautiful work of art and a category of sublime states that beauty cannot reach. This moment was developed by the philosopher Edmund Burke.
The ideologist of conservatism
A politician known in England and Ireland in the mid-18th century, Edmund Burke was a well-known publicist and was considered one of the founders of conservatism. His work "Philosophical research on the emergence of our concepts of the sublime and the beautiful" is devoted to the development of this topic in the context of its opposition to the beautiful. According to Burke, in the sublime there is certainly an element of the terrible, which is the antipode of beauty.
This concept is fundamentally opposed to the dialogues of Plato, who combined the beautiful and the sublime, thanks to which the person, in his opinion, received an inexpressible experience of the soul.
Conservative Burke put forward the idea of ​​ugliness, transforming the emotional perception of the person through a new aesthetic experience, the experience of which expands the consciousness of the subject and leads him to understand the sublime.
As a result of combining antagonistic categories, the subconscious operates in a “pendulum” mode, the amplitude of which is higher, the greater the gap between pain and the majesty of aesthetic experience. Such, for example, are the pictures of the great battles where fortitude is combined with the pain of large-scale losses of human lives.
Burke drew readers' attention to the physiological side of the sublime, reinforcing the terrible pole, in contrast to which the power of the exalted should also increase many times, which explains the inexpressible feeling of "negative pain".
German understanding
Johann Wolfgang Goethe lived and worked in an era when the events of life decisive for many countries took place in the world, which he had the opportunity to observe and evaluate: the Seven Years War, the self-determination of America, the French Revolution, the rise and fall of Napoleon. As a witness and participant in changes in the world and human destinies, Goethe formed as a person and created his own system of values. And the conclusions made by the writer and poet from the consequences of historical upheaval formed the basis of many of his works.
In particular, in the publication “On Laocoon”, the poet argues that only an object should be depicted in a literary and other work at the highest moment of its spiritual development, breaking the boundaries of reality. Indeed, the most striking works of Goethe himself, which are the handbook of contemporaries and a descendant, describe heroes approaching a climax on the path to realizing their lofty dreams.
The founder of German philosophy, I. Kant, devoted the theme of the sublime scientific work "Observations on the sense of beauty and exaltation." Analyzing the category under study, the philosopher came to the conclusion that there are three forms: noble, magnificent (or magnificent) and awesome (terrible).
In his explanations in Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant came to the same conclusions as the Englishman Edmund Burke: the essence of the sublime is its grandeur and monumentality, and the feeling of the sublime combines a high degree of fear and delight.
Further, the German philosopher divided the lofty into two types: mathematical and dynamic. However, some researchers insist on the presence of a third kind - moral, identical to spiritualized and highly moral.
As an example, we can cite the following: a person, leaving on a fragile little ship in the vast expanses of the sea, feels like a fine grain of sand given to the will of the waves. However, if he is armed with the realization of his highest destiny and strives for an exalted dream, he receives from an unknown source spiritual strength that allows him to overcome fears associated with carnal nature.
Continuing the thought of Kant, the German poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller expands the concept of the sublime to historical horizons. He also belongs to the idea of ​​introducing the category of "perfectly beautiful."
The next stage in the study of this topic by German philosophers was the unification in a sublime idea and form. Jean Paul (Richter) interpreted the sublime as an infinite category related to a sensory object.
Under the prism of the beyond, he ultimately considered the sublime Schelling.
Hegel argued that the category of the sublime should be considered as a disproportionality between an individual phenomenon and the unlimited idea embodied by it.
Reality of the sublime
You should not think that the sublime manifests itself exclusively in the events of the great, having a grandiose format. The internal potential of the object, its scale is not always noticeable behind the external facade of everyday life.
However, the sublime may well manifest itself in the daily routine, behind which a high meaning is revealed. A great example of this is the behavior of people during the siege of Leningrad.
Crossroads of words and concepts
With the concept of "exalted", which is related to the state of mind, consists in "kinship" turnover "exalted position." This adjective in this case correlates with the figurative meaning of the noun "position", meaning the meaning, status of a person in society or in society.
The continuation of this topic will be the verb “exalt”, to which an outdated concept is found in Ushakov’s dictionary: to be appointed to a higher post. The meaning of the word “elevate” can be understood in a slightly different way: “to create a significant position for someone in society”, as well as “to give weight and social status to someone”.
Another phrase needs comments: "raise the price of something." Examples: "prices are higher for food", or "prices are higher" are obsolete expressions and mean that prices for something, and in this case, for food, transportation are increased or increased.
In the works of the classics of Russian literature, the expression "elevate to oneself" is found. It means that someone who is at a relatively high level of spiritual, material or social elevates someone to his position, thereby making the subject equal to himself.
Opposite words are "lower or lower."
Talk about the highest
Another concept requires explanation - sublime love. If we combine the meaning of the word about which we spoke above and "love", we can assume that they experience reverence, delight, admiration, adoration for the subject of high feelings. In a word, the beloved in this context becomes an idol, which the worshiper is ready to love exalted "to the grave."
And we can add to this that the polarities arise here: "bestower - acceptor" or "higher - lower", "master - slave," because there can be no equality in such relations by definition. Sooner or later, a breakdown in relations follows, and, it should be noted, not always at the initiative of the “master-idol,” since any person needs feedback. The paradox of the situation is that the idol is so accustomed to being a consumer of love that it becomes dependent on it, and when it is deprived of “feeding”, it is a miserable sight.
And in conclusion, let us recall the statement of Bishop Ambrose of Mediolan, ranked among the saints, who warned that it is necessary to ascend to the higher, for it is better to ascend than to descend. And he considered the sign of an “exalted soul” the desire to approach the Creator, giving priority to the Spirit, and only then to the body.