Sublime Shakespeare Outrageous Oxford
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From a Context-bound to an Essentializing Conception: A Study of Longinus’s Treatise On the Sublime
AMRITA BHATTACHARYYA
Glorifying Bourgeois Hero: Megalophrosyn: A Marker of Movement?
The dual transcendence-structure of sublime is to a large extent, determines the attitude toward the great social revolution of modernity. The historical discourse of sublimity witnesses a significant shifting point from the decline of the feudal nobility to the emergence of a middle class. This shift denotes a shift from a culture promoting aristocratic-warrior ethos to another reflecting bourgeois-mercantile values. The intricate connection with affect and the possibilities for a secularized existence enable the experience of the sublime to speak about an evolving democratizing society. Doran views, “In effect what thinkers such as Boileau, Burke and Kant achieve through the sublime is a *bourgeois appropriation of aristocratic subjectivity (the heroic cast of mind)*.” (The Theory of Sublime 20)
Aristotle mentions the concept of “megalopsuchos”, the man of great soul as a key element in the Book IV, section 3 of Nichomachean Ethics. Longinus used “megethos” (grandeur) as synonymous with hypsous. Megalo encompasses both the talent or ability of the writer and his or her moral superiority (nobility of mind). Curtius in European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages views: “the Greeks did not know the concept of the creative imagination. They had no word for it. What the poet produced was a fabrication. Aristotle praises Homer for having taught poets ‘to lie properly’. For him, as we know, poetry was mimesis... But is Aristotle really the last word of antique literary criticism? Fortunately, we have the treatise On the Sublime.” (398)
The concept of megalophrosyn thus marks a movement, a shift from the context-based concept of a hero to the essentializing concept of a hero. In “The Morality of the Sublime: To John Dennis”, Jeffrey Barnouw shows that through the notion of megalophrosyn, Longinus did not indicate anything other-worldly; rather, the ideas associated with ‘greatness in mind’ are interrelated with political oratory and “touches the concerns of reputation and interest in civic life” (“The Morality of the Sublime: To John Dennis” 32). Longinus’ treatise unfolds a tension between the mystical-religious and the secular poetic.
Doran exposes the explicit relationship between the social change/revolution occurred from the Fronde of 1650 – 1653 (French civil war paving the way for concomitant destruction of the feudal order) to the French Revolution (1789-99) which consolidated the power of the bourgeois as the dominant social class; and, the peak period holding interest in the theory of sublimity from Boileau’s translation of 1674 to Kant’s third critique published in 1790 (Doran 20). Boileau extols the heroic nature of Cassius Longinus, the 3rd century philosopher and critic. He associates the qualities of the 17th century figure of the honnete homme (a man possessing high sensibility, refinement, and probity) with the mental elevation of Longinus. It might sound appropriate if we correlate this term with an evolving social category (by and large associated with the middle class, though not necessarily) with a progressing mental disposition.
Ekstasis (ecstasy), Ekplexis (astonishment, amazement) and Thaumasion (wonder, awe): Sublime in Experiencing the Shift from Aesthetic to Cultural
The history associated with the word thaumazein bears much significance in this context. Since Aristotle, this word bears a sense closer to the verb “to wonder”. Aristotle had used this verb “to wonder” (thaumazien) in Metaphysics, to describe the starting point of philosophy: “For from wonder (thaumazein) men, both now and at the first, began to philosophize, having felt astonishment (thaumazein) at things which were more obvious, indeed, amongst those that were doubtful” (982b). Socrates’ dictum in Plato’s Theaetetus also echoes the same: “This is an experience which is characteristic of a philosopher, this wondering (thaumazein): this is where philosophy begins and nowhere else” (155d). Later Edmund Burke cited this idea as “confused images” (images that excite by their lack of clarity) in his Enquiry to describe Milton’s portrayal of Satan in Paradise Lost as being productive of the sublime.
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Republican Milton on Shakespeare:
And so sepulchred in such pomp doth lie
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die
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APOLLO from his SHRINE/ Can no more divine,/
With hollow shreik the steep of DELPHOS leaving. - Milton
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King's Book/King's Shrine
Shakespeare's Book/Oxford's Shrine
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Milton, Eikonoklastes
...And here may be well observed the loose and negligent
curiosity of those, who took upon them to adorn the setting out of
this book; for though the picture set in front would martyr him and
saint him to befool the people, yet the Latin motto in the end, which
they understand not, leaves him, as it were, a politic contriver to
bring about that interest, by fair and plausible words, which the
force of arms denied him. But quaint emblems and devices, begged from
the old pageantry of some twelfthnight's entertainment at Whitehall,
will do but ill to make a saint or martyr: and if the people resolve
to take him sainted at the canonizing, I shall suspect their calendar
more than the Gregorian. In one thing I must commend the openness, who
gave the title to the is book, Eikon Basilike, that is to say, the
King's Image; and by the SHRINE he dresses out for him, certainly
would have the people come and worship him. For which reason this
answer is entitled, Eikonoklastes, the famous surname of many Greek
emperors, who, in their zeal to the command of God, after long
tradition of idolatry in the church, took courage and broke all
superstitious images to pieces.
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Performing early modern trauma from Shakespeare to Milton
By Thomas Page Anderson
In the "Preface" to Eikonoklastes, Milton establishes his strategy to
disarm the book in a disingenuous offer of praise. He "commends" the
King's "op'ness" in giving the title of The King's Image to the book.
And he complements as well the appearance of the project: "by the
SHRINE he dresses out for him, certainly would have the people come
and worship him" (EK, p.68). Milton's reference to the shrine echoes
Protestant writings that worked to debunk notions of the sacred altar
central to the Catholic sacraments. By acknowledging the altar-like
status of the text, Milton associates the book's appeal to its
putative efficacy. However, he qualifies the king's SHRINE by
suggesting that its altar-like status is the product of effective
staging or "dress[ing] out."
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I sing the starry axis and the singing hosts in the sky, *and of the
gods suddenly destroyed in their own SHRINES*. -- Milton, 1629
