4. Symbols of the Sublime: The Sea and the White Whale

Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………………...2


Main part:

1. 
   Edmund Burke’s ‘Terrifying’ Sublime……………………………………………4
   
2. 
   Immanuel Kant’s Moral Sublime…………………………………………………7
   
3. 
   The Romantic Sublime…………………………………………………………...10
   

4. Symbols of the Sublime: The Sea and the White Whale……………………….13
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………23
The list of used literature…………………………………………………………...25

Introduction

Capable of evoking the strongest of contradicting sensations in the beholder, its grandeur defies not so much any potential comparison as it does concrete measurement or formalisation; assuming both physical and metaphysical form, it can be as concrete as a mountain or abstract as an expression (Shaw 2006); it is inherent in various fields of humanities such as literature, art, and philosophy, whilst also being inherent, if not having its origin, in nature; it creates the impulse for desiring yet never attaining the infinite (Rosengarten 2012). It is what has been called the sublime. ¹ Herman Melville‟s enthralling deep sea narrative from 1851, Moby-Dick, is a novel that epitomises the sublime in more than one way. In its essence, Moby-Dick is “a deep psychological commentary” (Washington 2015) on nature, human nature, and the supernatural. The objective of this paper is to analyse the notion of the sublime in Herman Melville‟s Moby-Dick. I consider Ishmael, Ahab, and Moby Dick to be the three main characters that are involved in or are the sublime. Moby Dick is primarily the epitome of the sublime present in nature, that is, the physical dimension. However, the sublime transcendence which plays an essential role in Ishmael‟s and Ahab‟s respective character dispositions. I will put forth the claims that the sublime is of dynamic nature and that it is not part of a complementary pairing, thus being a quality or object in itself without an antithesis.
In the first section of my paper I shall provide a theoretical background to the notion of the sublime by examining it from a philosophical and literary point of view. I will begin by focusing on Edmund Burke‟s philosophical treatise which laid the foundation for future presentation of the sublime through the arts. Burke represents the sublime chiefly through images of natural phenomena. He elaborates that the sublime is any quality or object that is able to arouse the idea of terror and fear.