Burke's Sublime

The mind becomes more creative when we are imagining rather than perceiving infinite elements.

Best known for his political work Reflections of a Revolution in France, Burke became a reference point for many of the Gothic writers with his definition of the sublime.
A framework entitled Philosophical Enquiry in to the Origin of our Idea of the Sublime and Beautiful.  Within this framework are seven points, all concerning obscurity which are essential to an object gaining the description of ‘sublime’.


Here are some key quotes from the text:

Astonishment - “The passion caused by the great sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended with some degree of horror.”

Delicacy- “An air of robustness and strength is very prejudiced to beauty. An appearance of delicacy and even of fragility is almost essential.”

Terror - “No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. Whatever, therefore is terrible with regard to sight, is sublime too.”

Power – “Besides those things which directly suggest the idea of danger, I know nothing sublime which is not some modification of power. The emotion you feel is, lest this enormous strength should be employed to the purposes of rapine and destruction.”

Privation – “Vacuity, darkness, solitude and silence.”

Vastness – “Greatness of dimension is a powerful cause of the sublime. A perpendicular has more force in forming the sublime, than an inclined plane; and the effects of a rugged and broken surface seem stronger than where it is smooth and polished.”

Infinity – “Another source of the sublime is infinity. Infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of delightful terror, which is the most genuine effect and truest test of the sublime.”

Obscurity – “To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes.”


Obscurity itself branches off in to seven further points, for Burke names seven types of obscurity.

Meteorological: such as mist, fog, storms and tempests.

Topographical: which concerns impenetrable forests, ivy covered ruins, ice, deserts and boundless oceans.

Architectural: such as labyrinths, castles, abbeys, secret passages and doors, turrets and statues.

Material: is where we find people in disguise or hidden.

Textual: when we are puzzled by riddles, prophecies, broken text and intertextuality.

Spiritual: Catholic settings, rituals and occultism.

Psychological:which deals with the idea of the uncanny, dreams and doubles.

This method becomes formulaic in the Gothic novel ,and is parodied in magazines and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. 

As I am currently carrying out research in to the 'Gothic' expect many more related posts!



Here is a full copy of the piece. Burke's Sublime and Beautiful

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