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Articles

Burke, Kant and the Sublime

by Gur Hirshberg

“…my first observation… will be found very nearly true; that the sublime is an idea belonging to selfpreservation. That it is therefore one of the most affecting we have. That its strongest emotion is an emotion of distress, and that no pleasure from a positive cause belongs to it.” (Burke, p.79)

An inquiry into the sublime is worthwhile if only because the observation above seems counterintuitive: in current parlance, the ‘sublime’ is often taken to describe one or another sensual pleasure, as in a ‘sublime piece of music’, a ‘sublime kiss’, or even, to quote The New York Times food critic, “at Chez Pushcart, the cuisine is sublime.

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