Lecture 7

He bursts upon them all,Bursts as a wave that from the clouds impends,And swelled with tempests on the ship descends;White are the decks with foam; the winds aloudHowl o’er the masts, and sing thro’ every shroud :Pale, trembling, tired the sailors freeze with fears,And instant death on every wave appears.

For the mind is naturally elevated by the true Sublime, and so sensibly affected with its lively strokes, that it swells in transport and an inward pride, as if what was only heard had been the product of its own invention.

Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime.

The Handel Commemoration 1784

All The multitude of angels, with a Shout

Loud as from numbers without number

JohnMartin,Joshua

commandingthe sun tostand stillat Gibeon

1816

The nations tremble at the dreadful sound,Heav’n thunders, tempests roar, and groans the ground.

Haydn, The Creation 1799

And God said “Let there be light”, and there was light.

William Blake,The Ancient of Days

1794

Rossini, Guillaume Tell 1829

Voici le jour!Pour nous c’est un signal d’alarmes.De victoire!Quel cri doit y répondre ?Aux armes!

Richard Kissling,Statue of William Tell

1895

J.M.W. Turner, Shipwreck 1805

Meyerbeer, L’Africaine 1865Designs:Charles-Antoine Cambon and Joseph-François-Désiré Thierry ,Paris Opera 1865

Wagner, Wagner, Götterdämmerung Götterdämmerung 18761876

Staging:Harry Kupfer,Bayreuth1991

Reflective judgment

The infinite The powerful

Human creativityHuman moral

autonomyHuman freedom

Subject-matter

arouses

Affective feelingevokes