What Is the Sublime In Literature?

The sublime is a concept that one often comes across in literary writing, but it is often difficult to define or pin down. It may mean different things to different people. But more often than not, the sublime typically refers to a literary effect that turns the ordinary and commonplace into something elevated or ethereal.

We will attempt to define, explain, and provide examples of the sublime here. Let’s begin with a definition:

The sublime in literature refers to excellence in language achieved through careful and effective use of refined rhetoric and literary devices.

This does not mean to say that the sublime refers to pretty-sounding words and effects. Excellence in language is closely tied to meaning, sense, and theme. In most cases, excellence in language is indistinguishable from the intended meaning and effect that the writer is aiming for. 

So how do writers achieve the sublime? Edmund Burke associated the sublime with “infinity,” which he describes as follows: 

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

In this article, we will attempt to discover what the sublime is and how writers achieve it. In particular, we will explore Burke’s idea of infinity and how it relates to literature using examples from Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Frost. 

How do writers achieve the sublime?

There are several ways through which a writer can achieve the sublime. The first is a reliance on figurative language and associations, such as metaphor, analogy, and symbolism. 

The second approach that I will look at is putting transcendental experience in words, often through a process of defamiliarization. 

Now, this is by no means an exhaustive list. The definition of the sublime is already subjective enough as is. This is based solely on my personal observations and taste. Nonetheless, I will examine a few examples from each method to illustrate my point.

1. The sublime through transcendental experience 

Transcendental experience in and of itself is already sublime, which would make it one of the most straightforward ways to achieve this effect. This comes near to Edmund Burke’s idea of the sublime being associated with the “delightful horror” of the infinite. 

A good example of this, in my opinion, is Henry Vaughan’s “The Retreat” (published in 1650). The poem describes a state of innocence in childhood where the poet recalls being able to have a sense of the infinite, which he describes as “shadows of eternity”: 

When on some gilded cloud or flower

My gazing soul would dwell an hour,

And in those weaker glories spy

Some shadows of eternity;

Vaughan here is describing a child going into a delightful reverie over a beautiful flower or cloud, and he links this reverie to a sense of the infinite or understanding the relationship between man, nature, and God. Vaughan explicitly links this to his Christian religious philosophy. 

This is obvious when he describes his loss of this ability to connect with the infinite as being due to  “the black art to dispense / A several sin to every sense.” This means that as he grew older, he committed sins of the flesh, which carried him away from his ability to connect with God and the sense of eternity. 

William Blake, more or less, describes the same sensation in “Auguries of Innocence” (published in 1863) without Vaughan’s religious doctrinal approach regarding sin: 

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

Later in the poem, Blake expands this vision into a grand and even universal sense of compassion for animals, where a wrong done against the least of creatures is counted as a crime against heaven itself. This can be seen in lines such as the following:

A robin redbreast in a cage

Puts all Heaven in a rage.

A dove house fill'd with doves and pigeons

Shudders Hell thro' all its regions.

In both cases, the two poets describe a state of childhood and innocence in which ordinary things of nature are seen as hinting at a cosmic sense of the infinite or even God. This describes a realization of the nexus between man, nature, and heaven. The Romantic poets who came later, especially Wordsworth, excelled in this type of poetry.

This is definitely the case in “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal” (published in 1800):

A slumber did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:

She seemed a thing that could not feel

The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;

She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,

With rocks, and stones, and trees.

In this poem, Wordsworth is contemplating the meaning of Lucy’s death. The second stanza reflects on how Lucy has been both reduced and elevated into something with “no motion” or “force.” Being as dead as a stone or tree is, of course, a reduction from human nature. 

Nevertheless, there is a hint of the sense of the infinite and a world beyond human comprehension where Lucy is described as being “rolled round in earth’s diurnal course.” It is the adult and slightly more pessimistic version of the transcendental experience described by Vaughan and William Blake in their childhood innocence. 

What is even more pessimistic than Wordsworth’s depiction of nature’s ability to render humans into oblivion is Robert Frost’s “Desert Places” (published in 1934), where he depicts the harshness and loneliness of winter and its threat to smother all living things:

All animals are smothered in their lairs.

I am too absent-spirited to count;

The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness

Will be more lonely ere it will be less -

A blanker whiteness of benighted snow

With no expression, nothing to express.

The writer here is using the harsh winter and snow as symbolism for the eventual death that all humans and living things will eventually suffer. He employs polyptoton (i.e., repetition of the variation of a word's root) to emphasize the depths of loneliness, despair, and blankness that the snowy winter represents. It inspires a kind of silent horror in the poet, which is nowhere close to being “delightful.” 

2. The delightful horror of the infinite

It may be difficult to understand what Burke meant by the delightful horror of the infinite. However, Robert Frost’s famous poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (1923) gives an apt demonstration of this effect or emotion. We will simply quote the first and last stanzas of the poem:

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

 . . .

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep

This is different from the effect of “Desert Places,” where we are introduced to another snowy evening. However, the emotions expressed are those of desolate isolation and horror of nature and its power to render human life into nothingness. In this poem, Frost is describing the allure of nature. Nature is portrayed as dangerous and capable of reducing human endeavour, which is described as “promises to keep” into oblivion and meaninglessness.

Nonetheless, there is a sense of beauty, calm, and peace in his description of this dangerous nature. Some have accused Frost of engaging in suicidal ideation in this poem: the idea that he was seriously considering stepping into the woods to “sleep” and allowing himself to be buried under the snow. The poet himself rejected the idea when asked directly about it. Nevertheless, the poem gives the impression that the sense of the infinite that nature inspires may make us question whether or not the daily struggles of life are even worth it. 

3. The sublime through metaphor and associations

Another means through which the sublime can be achieved is through metaphors, symbolism, and association. A good example of this is The Great Gatsby (1925) by Fitzgerald and “The Fish” (published in 1946) by Elizabeth Bishop. Let’s begin with a quote from The Great Gatsby:

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling—and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

Here, the narrator of the story is introducing us to Daisy and her friend Jordan. Daisy is a woman married to Tom Buchanan, with whom Gatsby is in love and dreams of spending the rest of his life.  The author, in his poetic description, seeks to show how much of a fantasist Gatsby is. The house is portrayed as a fairy tale or fantasy space, and the women as lacking in material substance. In short, everything is wind or air and defined by air. This is an effective association, as air is substanceless. It cannot be held in one's hand. Using it as a metaphor for Gatsby's desires shows how impossible his dream is.

The short passage depicts the novel’s entire plot and themes in a kind of foreshadowing. Gatsby is in love with Daisy, a married woman. This is shown in the extravagant description of the ceiling as a “frosted wedding-cake," as well as the women being dressed in white. The dream-like description of the wind, women, and curtains suggests that Gatsby is engaging in a lurid make-believe or fantasy. Tom, Daisy’s husband, will dissolve the dream as suggested in the violent way in which he shuts the window and cuts off the wind, ensuring everything settles back to normal.  In short, Tom punches the hot air out of Gatsby's dreams.

Here, the sublime is purely an aesthetic effect. There is no sense of the infinite or connection to nature. It is simply the poet using a complicated scheme of metaphor, imagery, and associations to depict his themes and characters.  The following example from Elizabeth Bishop represents a different approach.

Whereas Fitzgerald describes beautiful luxury, Bishop gives what can be seen as the details of an objectively ugly fish that she caught in her poem "The Fish" (published in 1946): 

He was speckled with barnacles,

fine rosettes of lime,

and infested

with tiny white sea-lice,

and underneath two or three

rags of green weed hung down.

However, she sees that the fish has “ five old pieces of fish-line” hanging from his mouth — an indication that the creature has survived five attempts at being caught. This inspires a cosmic sense of empathy and admiration for the fish, which she lets go:

I stared and stared

and victory filled up

the little rented boat,

from the pool of bilge

where oil had spread a rainbow

around the rusted engine

to the bailer rusted orange,

the sun-cracked thwarts,

the oarlocks on their strings,

the gunnels—until everything

was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!

And I let the fish go.

Just like Fitzgerald, Bishop uses a lot of imagery and metaphor. However, unlike Fitzgerald's luxurious settings, she is describing an ugly creature and landscape, which is elevated and transformed into the beautiful and sublime by the immense sense of empathy and admiration that she shares with a fish of all things. Her sympathy for the fish resembles William Blake's empathy for the "robin redbreast in a cage."

Bishop relies on a process of defamiliarization, where ordinary and commonplace things are transformed into objects that represent something otherworldly. She does so aptly by describing the bright and many colors associated with an oil spill on water as a triumphant rainbow. The rainbow reference can be interpreted variously. A rainbow is typically associated with positivity and hopefulness.

More than that, it could be a Biblical allusion to God's promise after the Great Flood in Genesis 9:8-17 to never again destroy the Earth with a global flood. In short, it may symbolize a kind of common understanding or empathetic connection between humans, nature, and God, not unlike Vaughan's spying shadows of eternity while gazing on a flower.

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Cite this EminentEdit article

Antoine, M. (2025, September 19). What Is the Sublime In Literature? EminentEdit.  https://www.eminentediting.com/post/the-sublime