Jan Cohn and Thomas H. Miles -- The Sublime- In Alchemy, Aesthetics and Psychoanalysis

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The Sublime: In Alchemy, Aesthetics and PsychoanalysisAuthor(s): Jan Cohn and Thomas H. MilesReviewed work(s):Source: Modern Philology, Vol. 74, No. 3 (Feb., 1977), pp. 289-304Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/437116.

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2/17

The

Sublime: n

Alchemy,

esthetics

nd

Psychoanalysis

Jan

Cohn

and

Thomas H. Miles

...

"The.

ublime"

In

the

old

sense.

Wrong

rom

he

tart-

[EZRA OUND,

Hugh

Selwyn

Mauberley"]

A

layman's

lexicon

of

psychoanalytic

ermswill

ordinarily

nclude

sublimation

and

subliminal.

he

layman

will

recognize

hat both

words

are

related

to

sublime

and will

sense

that

sublimation-like

the

word sublime-has

something

o

do

with

"up,"

and that

subliminal,

oddly,

has

something

o do

with

"down"-

unlike the

word

sublime.

Sublimation

has a

number

of

definitions,

enerally

denoting

ither

levation to a

higher

tate

or

rank,

or

transmutationnto

a

higher

or

purer

condition;

similar

meanings

attach

to sublime:

that

which s

lofty

r

elevated.Subliminal, n theotherhand, was introducedntoEnglish n thelate

nineteenth

entury

o

translate

he

German

term

unter

der Schwelle:

below

the

threshold

of consciousness).

The

standard

tymologies

or ublime

nd

subliminal

reinforce he

absolute

contradiction f

their

meaning

while

failing

o

clarify

hat

contradiction.

According

to the

OxfordEnglish Dictionary,'

both

words

derive

from

ub-

plus

limin

alternately imen).

But in the

case

of

subliminal,

he

Latin

roots

form

below

the

threshold,"while,

n the

case of sublime

nd

all its deriva-

tives,

the

Latin

roots,

qualified

with

a

"probably," give

us

"up

to the

lintel."

From

this

we are

led

to

infernot

only

that

the

Romans

had the

same

term

for

lintel

nd

threshold

ut

also that the

civilizationwhich nvented

he arch

had one

wordto mean bothdown nd up.

Our

investigations

nto the

etymologies

of

words derived

from

sub-

and

limin

limen)

have

revealed

alternative

ources for these words

and,

in

tracing

the

uses of

sublime n

all

its

forms,

we

have

discoveredreflections

f

significant

shifts

n

cultural

ttitudes rom he

fifteenth

entury

o

the

present.

I

sublime-derivationrom

uper

imas:

"above

the

slimeor

mud

of

this

world."2

Tracing

the

etymology

of sublime

and

its derivatives

through

classical

Indo-European

languages,

we

discovereddifficultiesot

only

with he

compound

word

but

also with

each of

its

component

roots,

sub- and lim-.

The

American

Heritage

Dictionary,

or

example,

gives

imen

or

the

source

of

sublime

nd

limin

(an

alternative

pelling

for

imen)

forthe

source

of

subliminal.

imen s

defined s

"threshold"

nd

is

said to

be akin

to

limes,

boundary"

or

"limit,"particularly

boundary

between

fields.

Limen further

s said to

be

"connected"

with

limus,

1/See

Appendix

or

full

istof

dictionaries eferredo.

2/James eattie,Dissertations oraland CriticalLondon, 1783),p. 606,quotedin SamuelH.

Monk,

The

Sublime:A

Study

f

Critical

heories

n

XVIII-Centuryngland New

York,

1935),

p.

129.

Monk

finds

Beattie's

ontribution

chiefly

memorable"

or its

etymological

berra-

tions."

289


3/17

290

Modern

Philology

February 1977)

"sidelong,"

with

particular

eference

o

the

eyes. Happily,

unattachedto

any

of

the

bove is

limus,

slime or

mud."

Nevertheless,

ne is

leftwith

n

uncomfortable

feeling

of

having

discovered

a

multidimensional

word,

a kind of Einsteinian

Latin

root,

which means

not

only

horizontal

beams

marking

vertical

definitions

(threshold

nd

lintel)

but

spatial,

that

is,

horizontal,

borders

as

well

(boundary

or

limit) nd,

to

cap

this,

ven the

diagonal

line

sidelong

or

oblique).

Partridge,

n

Origins:

A

Short

Etymological

Dictionary

f

Modern

English,

gives

as

sources for ublimewords the

related

words

limes

boundary,

road)

and

limen

(threshold),

with

limus-liquis

the

source of

oblique,

hence

sidelong).

Limen,

ccording

o

Partridge,

means

both intel nd

threshold;

he

argues

further

that

intel tself

erives rom

imitellus,

he

diminutive

f

imes,

hus intellus

lintel.

Specifically,

hen,

for ubliminal e

posits

"below the

threshold,"

ut for

sublime,

he offers wo possibilities: 1) to come up fromunderthethreshold, r (2) from

liquis-limus,

o

climb a

steep slope.

With the

suggested

OED

etymology-above

the intel-

we

now have three

possibilities.

Other

standard

etymological

dictionaries

vary

in their definitions

f

the

lim-

morpheme

n

sublime

words. Skeat admits

that

sublime is

a "difficult"

word

etymologically.

His

tentative olution is

that

it

meant

passing

under

the

lintel

of

a

door,

hence

reaching up

to the lintel

limis-limen).

rom

the idea of

reachingup,

Skeat

suggests

n extensionof

meaning

to tall or

high.

Onions,

in

the

Oxford

Dictionary

of

English Etymology, upplies

sublimis-us

s the Latin

root

of sublime

nd sees the imis-us lement as

"variously

dentified"

with

limen

(threshold) nd limus oblique). The same entryhandles subliminal s based on

the

Latin

sub-

plus

limin-limen

threshold).

Klein's

Comprehensive tymological

Dictionary

f

the

English

anguage

dentifiesublime s sub-

plus

imen

with literal

meaning

of

"(coming) up

to

below

the intel."

["Been

down

so

long,

t feels ike

up

to me"

?]

Subliminal s also seen as made

up

of

sub-

plus

limen

threshold),

"probably

related to" limes

boundary).

Harper's

Latin

Dictionarygives

the

same three Latin

roots: limus

side),

limes

cross-boundary oad),

and limen

a crosspiece

t

the

top

or at

the

bottom:

hence intel r

threshold).

These are related o Greek

roots,

but there s

no one-to-

one

correlation.Limus is seen

as akin to

AEXptos

slanting),

AE'Xpt

crosswise),

and Aoo'dsslantingor crosswise).Limen is relatedonly to A4Xptsnd Ao'ds.

Limes

finds

cognate solely

n

AE'Xpts.3

or words

composed

of

sub-

plus

any

of

the lim-

roots,

Harper's

gives

several

etymologies:

ub.

limo-to lift

up

or

raise

on

high;

sub.

lime-lofty,

exalted;

sub. limis

or

-us)-elevated, uplifted;

with

a

tentative

up

to

the

lintel";

sub. limen-related to

the

hanging

up

of slaves

for

punishment.

These

etymologies,

whether

nglish

or

Latin,

accept

the

morpheme

ub-as

3/The

phonological similarity

between

Latin

limus,

limes

and

Greek

AXptog,

AXPtS>

and

Aoeds

may

seem

slight.

okorny,

owever,

inds heir

ources

n

Indo-European

oots

Uli-

and

Ji-,

eq-,bothwithmeaningsfbending rcrooked.Under di-,hegives imusschiefoblique]) nd

limes

Querweg

[oblique direction]),

tc.

(Limen,

also

included,

s translated

Tiirschwelle

[threshold].)

nder

ti-,

eq-

he cites

A'Xplog

schief,

uer oblique]),

AEXptL

quer),

and

AoSdo',

(schriig

diagonal];

also

verbogen

hidden, bscure],

verrenkt

dislocated]) JuliusPokorny,

Indogermanisches

Etymologisches Worterbuch,

pts.

in 3

vols.

[Bern,

1959],

1:1).


4/17

Cohn and

Miles/The

Sublime

291

meaning

ither

up"

or

"down,"

depending

on

whether ne

selects the

"lintel"

or

"threshold"

ource

for

imen-limis.While a

significant

umber f Latin

words,

formedwith

ub-, ertainly

ave

the

meaning

f a

movement

pward,

the

originalintention s

always

directed t the

concept

of a

change

in

a

position

from

below

to

above:

sublevo-to

raise

up;

subduco--to

ift

p;

subeo-to

come

up;

subvecto-

to

bringup.

A careless

definition f sub-

can

falsely

ndicate a

primary

meaning

of

"up"

or

"above"

in

compound

words.

The same

condition

applies

to

the

Sanskrit

pa

and

tipari,

he

first

ariously

defined

s

down,

up,

under,

nd

above;

the

second as

above and

over.

Greek,

on the

other

hand,

maintains

lear

distinc-

tions

between

the

cognate

words

67TOd

nd

6irrp;

rdT

means

under

and

beneath,

rrEp

ver

and

beyond.

The

fullest

discussion of the

Indo-European

roots

for

"up"

and

"down"

appears

in

Ernout and Meillet,Dictionnairetymologiquee la langue atine.The

primary

meaning

of

sub-

s

given

as under or at the

bottom

of,

and the

apparent

relation o

super-

n

derivatives

s

explained

as

a movement

rom

below to

above,

as

surgo--to

raise,

to

bring

o a

standing

osition

from elow.

Ernout and

Meillet

insist

that

the

opposition

of

meaning

between

sub-super

nd their

cognates

is

Indo-European

in

date,

extending

nto

rish,

Greek,

and

Gothic.4

Ernout nd

Meillet lso examine

with

great

are the

group

of

words onsidered

as

possible

sources for

sublime:

imen,

imes,

nd

limus.Limus has no

sure

ety-

mology,

means

sidelong

or

oblique,

and has

no clear

connection

with

imes

or

limen.

Limen

s

cited both

as limen

nferum

nd as limen

uperum,

ence

a

thres-

hold or lintel.Limes, a road bordering fieldand delimitingt, was confused

with imen

not

in

Latin

but

in

the

Romance

languages.

By

popular

etymology,

limen lso

became

connected

with

imus-limis. rnout

and

Meillet insist

on the

original

distinction

mong

the three

words,

each of

which had a

discrete rea of

meaning.

Since

Latin

words

constructed

ut

of

sub-

plus

im-

predate

he classical

period,

it

is safe to

assume that

sublimo and

related

words

predate

the

post-

classical

confusionof

the

three

roots.

The

etymological

onfusion

urrounding

ublime,

herefore,

epends

on

the

modern

confusion

surrounding

the

lim-

roots;

in

discussing

sublime

itself,

Ernout and Meillet

dismiss

any

etymologies

dependent

on

postclassical

con-

fusion.The derivation rom ub. imen hey ee as erroneous, ince tis based on a

confusion

of the three

roots.

In

short,

iting

he

etymology

f

Festus for

"up

to

the

lintel,"

they

reject

this

explanation

as

founded

on

a

pun.

The

etymological

solution

of

Ernout

and

Meillet

turns

nstead

to

limus-limis

oblique)

and

empha-

sizes the careful

working

with

sub-,

as

moving upward

froma

position

below:

hence,

rising diagonally,

or more

specifically

rom below to

above,

along

a

diagonal

path.

One

might uppose

that an

Indo-European root,

lim-

n

Latin

and

A'X-

in

Greek,

had a

general

meaning

f some kind of

lateral or

diagonal

line n

contrast

with a

vertical.This

might

well

explain

the

cross-references

etween

the

Greek

4/See

A. Ernout and A.

Meillet,

Dictionnaire

etymologique

de

la

langue

latine,

histoire des

mots,

4th

d.

(Paris,

1967),

for

full

discussion f

the

ub-super

istinction

n

Indo-European

angu-

ages

and for heir

reatmentf

nitial -

in

the talic

anguages.


5/17

292

Modern

Philology

February 1977)

and

the Latin words cited

n

Harper's

and

might

ccount

forthe

general

relation-

ship

n

meaning

hat

he

three atin wordshave

with ne another. uch

a

similarity

is

clearly

marked

n the imes-limen

air,

with the first

meaning piece

of

wood

or stone

placed

horizontally

nd thesecond a horizontal

boundary

ndicated

by

some

sort

of

physical

means.

The connection between

diagonal

and

horizontal

markers

r lines

may

be

less

immediate,

but

in the

Greek

Aofds

oth

meanings

are inherent.

Nevertheless,

rnout

and

Meillet

present

a

clear

case

for

the

distinction

among

these words

in

Latin;

their

etymology

or

sublime,

while

it dilutes

the

moral

imperative

f

"up

from

the slime" and

the moral threat

of slaves

hung

from

intels,

voids

the

obvious

confusion

of sub

with

super

nsisted

on

by

the

standard

tymology,

above

the

intel."5

II

...

ab

ipso

mortisimite-from

d0a6es

pirscwalde

wa=s

.cegende).6

The

Anglo-Saxons,

not

yet

the

proficient

word

borrowers

the

English

would

later

become,

chose

to translate ll

limen-limis ords

directly

nto

Old

English

roots

and

compounds.

Support

for Ernout-Meillet's

contention

that

confusion

among

the three

roots-lnmen,

limes, limus-postdated

the

Latin

period

and

can

be

attributed

to the later

period

of the

development

of

the

Romance

languages

comes from

vidence

n the

Anglo-Saxon

translations

f imen

and limis limes). There is no confusionbetweenthese words in Anglo-Saxon

glosses,

xcept

n the one

case

where

he West Saxon

translator

f Bede

moved

n

the

direction

f

metaphor

by

rendering

mortis

imite

s

birscwalde.

n all other

instances,

imen

is

understood

as

threshold-herexwold,

perscolde,

precswale,

or as

lintel-overslaye, oferdyre,

dde duru.

Limis is

understood

as

boundary

or

limit:

atsidgerif,

afudland.

Wright-Wiilcher,

t

is

worth

noting,

ontains

several

glosses

n which

he

Anglo-Saxon

wordfor

intel

ranslates

he

Latin

superliminare,

further

vidence,

f

uch

were

necessary,

hat

the Romans at

least did

not

confuse

sub and

super.

The sublime

words

themselves

first ntered

French,

as

they

would

enter

English,throughbooks of alchemy.The Dictionnairede I'acadimie frangaise,

1694,

cites

sublimation,

ublime,

nd

sublimer,

ll

of

which

re entered

s "termes

de

chymie."

Nevertheless,

ittr6 ites

seventeenth-century

ses

of sublime

n the

figurative

ense

in Corneille

and

Bossuet.

The Dictionnaire

tymologique

e

la

languefrangaise

ites

an

example

as

early

s

1212,

with he

meaning

f thatwhich

is

placed

veryhigh.

French must

also have

developed

the rhetorical

meaning

of

the

sublime

as the

grand

style,predating

Boileau who

is careful

to

distinguish

between

the

rhetorical

ense and

the

new emotional-aesthetic

meaning

he

gives

to sublime

n

his translation

f

Longinus.

5/One

wonders

why

he

meaning

f

elevation

nd loftiness

arried

n

the

word ublime hould

be

developed

from

root

with the

meaning

f

diagonal,

rather han

from more

dramatic

vertical

enotation;

his

problem

emains

nsolved.

6/Bede,

cclesiastic

History,

ETS,

nos.

95-96

London, 1890),

p.

398;

cited

n

OED.


6/17

Cohn

and

Miles/The

Sublime

293

German,

on

the

other

hand,

did not

experience

the

extension of

the

(al)chemical

meaning

of

sublime

nto

figurative

ses.

Modern

English-German

dictionaries ike

Cassell

do

show

sublim-

ources

n

chemical

terms:

das

Sublimat,

sublimiert,

ublimieren,

ut all aesthetic

nd

figurative

erminology

s translated

into

native

words:

erhaben,

erhihen,

veredeln.

Benecke

(Mittelhochdeutsches

Wdrterbuch)

ncludes

no sublim-words.

The New Muret-Sanders

gives

sublim-

words

in German

for

psychological

terms,

as sublimieren

or sublimate and

Sublimierung

or

sublimation,

with a

figurative

xtension

for

each.

However,

sublime

ppears

as erhaben

subst.

das

Erhabene),

hoch, tc.,

nd

the

psychological

term

ubliminal

s

unterbewusst

nd

unterschwellige.

The

Grimmsche

Worterbuch

ites

erhaben,

rhdhen,

tc.,

as translations

or

sublime

and

adds

auszerordentlich

nd

k6stlich

o this list.

It

also

gives

a few

examplesin whichthe Latin word is adopted into German withfigurativexten-

sion and

one

example

of

a

metaphoric

se from ate

Middle

High

German,

abeled

as

"rare."

The

context

s

religious

nd the

figurative

motif

lchemical:

hilff

mirden

tempel

werden

durch

wehen nd baliern

mit

arben

ublimiern

usz

diner

lchimy.

[H.

v.

SACHSENHEIM,

235,

it.

ver.]'

The

few

other

examples

of sublim-

words taken

into

German

in

the

Latin form

are found

n

citations

from

Goethe, Schopenhauer,

nd Nietzsche

and

represent

extraordinary

ses

of

sublime,

onfined

to aesthetic

or

philosophical

contexts.8

The

resistance

f German

to

the

adoption

of the

foreign

word sublime

for

any

but

a

chemical

vocabulary

s evidenced

n the German translations

f

Longi-

nus's

rTEpt

Yoovs,

translations

that

postdate

Boileau's

1674

Traite

du

sublime.

These

include

Verhandeling

ver de Verheventheitn

Deftigheit

es

Styls

...

(Amsterdam,

1719); Longin

vom

Erhabenen ..

(Leipzig,

1781);

Dionysios

oder

Longinos,

eberdas

Erhabene

..

(Kempton,

1895).

Before

Boileau,

English,

oo,

found

words other

than sublime

to translate

Longinus's

title,

but

afterBoileau

no

English

title ver

appeared

without

he word

sublime.9

7/We

have

followed,

ere nd

elsewhere,

he

concise itation orm sed

n

Grimm nd the

OED.

Interested eaders

an of course

pursue

the referencesurther

hrough

hose

major

sources.

8/One

uch

example

from

Grimm:

. ..

mag

hier und da das urtheil nd der

geschmack

er

einzelnen

elbstfeiner

nd sublimirter

eworden

ein.

[...

here and there

he

udgment

nd

taste

of

a

single

erson

may

becomefiner nd more

ublime"] Nietzsche,

895;

1:

318).

9/See

W.

Rhys

Roberts,

Bibliographical

Appendix,"

n

Longinus

n

the Sublime

Cambridge,

1907)

for

full ist f translations

f

Longinus

efore 900.

There

were wo

English

ranslations

before

Boileau's

work: John

Hall,

Of

the

Height f Eloquence

1622),

and John

Pulteney, f

the

Loftiness

f

Elegancy

of

Speech 1680).

After

Boileau,

all

English

titlesused the

word

sublime:

Anon.,

An

Essay

on the Sublime ...

(1698);

Welsted,

The Works

of

Dionysius

Longinus

on

the Sublime

...

(1712);

W.

Smith,

Dionysius Longinus

on

the Sublime

...

(1739);

Anon.,

A

Literal Translationof Longinus" Of theSublime" (182 1); Anon., Longinus on the Sublime (1830);

W.

T.

Spurdens,

Longinus

on the

Sublime

...

(1836);

D.

B.

Hickie,

Dionysius Longinus

on

the

Sublime

...

(1838);

T.

R.

R.

Stebbing,

Longinus

on the Sublime

...

(1867);

H.

A.

Giles,

Longinus,

an

Essay

on

the Sublime

...

(1870); Henry Morley, Longinus

on the Sublime

(1889);

H.

L.

Havell,

Longinus

on

the

Sublime

(1890).


7/17

294

Modern

Philology February

1977)

III

Elevate

hat

ripode;

ublimate

hat

ipkin;

lixate

our

ntimonie.10

In the ate Middle

English period,

the

translation f

alchemical

works from

Latin

into the

vernacular aw

the

first

ppearance

in

English

of

sublime

nd its

derivatives,

ornow

the

Germanic radition

f

translating

nd

compounding

with

native roots had been weakened

by

the new

English

trend toward

borrowing.

Furthermore,

he

arge percentage

f

borrowed

French words n the

vocabulary

of ate Middle

English

made Latin

words farfrom

oreign;

word

ike ublimation

would

appear

much

the

same

in

French,

Latin,

or in

the

Middle

English Anglo-

French

vocabulary.

Works

like

the

Quinte

Essence

introduced

hese words

into

English:

"Take

pe

best

wiyn

pat

3e may

fynde,

f

3e

be of

power,

and if

3e

be

ri3t

pore,panne takecorruptwiyn,pat is, rotyn, f a watery umour,but not egre,

pat

is

sour,

for

pe

quint

ssencia

perof

s

naturaly

ncorruptible,

e

which

3e

schal

drawe out

by sublymacioun.""1

uch medieval

sources

provide

two

legacies

for

later

English

uses of sublime.One of

these

s

the

continueduse of these words

n

scientific

erminology.

he

second is the

connection of

sublimationwith

related

alchemical terms nd

operations:

fire, iolence,

nd

pure

essence;

these terms nd

attributeswill

develop

most

fully

n

the

metaphorical

pplication

of

sublime.

From the

Latin verb

sublimare

to elevate)

and its

substantive

orm ubli-

matio,

English

borrowed

the

noun

sublimation nd

the

verb

to

sublime.Gower

(1390)

uses the

substantive

for the

(al)chemical

action

of

subliming,

that

is,

purifying;nd the same formand same meaning occur today. Meaning to

subject

to heat in

order

to

refine,

he

verb

form

ppears

in

Chaucer's Canon's

Yeoman's

Tale.

Although

this

form continues to

appear

sporadically,

he verb

sublimate

ften

replaces

it. Other

verb

formshad

short

ives;

sublimize xisted

briefly

n the

early

nineteenth

entury,

nd

a

noun-form

ublimification

late

eighteenth

entury) uggests

hat

a

verb

sublimifymight

lso

have existed.

Derivativesof sublime

moved

gradually

out

of the

province

of

alchemy

nto

other

developing

sciences. In the

sixteenth

century,

the

nouns

sublimatum,

sublimate,

nd

sublimy

re

all

used

to

mean

mercury

orrosive

sublimate,

the

product

of

refining. y

the seventeeth

entury,

ublime

appears

as a

medical

term ndicating ifficultespiration.n theeighteenthentury,he newscienceof

geology dopted

sublime o mean

higher

nd more

problematical.

n

this

science,

sublimate

ppears

as a termfor

a mineral

deposit, by

analogy

to

the

alchemical

process:

minerals

n

a

vapor state,

thrown

up

from

he

interior

f

the

earth,

re

deposited

near the earth's

surface

OED).

The

nineteenth

entury

pplies

the

term

ublime

o

anatomy

n

describing

hose

muscles which ie

near the

surface.

In

the ate nineteenth nd

twentieth

enturies,

he newest

cience,

psychoanalysis,

adopted

the

word

sublimation or its own

uses and added the

neologism

sub-

liminal.

10/Brathwaite,

himzyies,

etall-man

London,

1631);

cited

n

OED.

11/The

Book

of

Quinte

Essence,

or

the

Fifth

Being,

That Is to

Say,

Man's Heaven

(c.

1460-70),

ed.

Frederick

. Furnivall

London, 1866),

p.

4.


8/17

Cohn and

Miles/The

Sublime 295

About

fifty

ears

after

he

verb sublime nd the

noun

sublimation

ppeared

in

English

in

an

alchemical

context,

these

words

began

to

develop figurative

meanings.

n the middle

of thefifteenth

entury,

ublimation

ppeared

as elevation

to

high

rank

i.e., promotion)

nd sublimate

s

raised or

exalted:

"This man

with

sedicious

knytis

was sublimat

n the

empire"

(Capgrave,

Chronicles,Rolls,

93;

cited n

OED).

It seems

unlikely

hat these termshad as

yet

any

metaphysical

r

spiritual

onnotation,

or,

ven

n

the

sixteenth

entury

ublimate till

means

quite

specifically

o honor or

raise

to

a

high place. By

the

end of the sixteenth

entury

and into the

seventeenth,

wide

connotationalfield

pened

for

he ublimewords.

Donne's uses of

these

words

suggest

his

sense

of

their

trong

lchemical flavor:

"To

all

whom loves

subliming

ire nvades"

("Valediction

of

the

Booke,"

line

13;

cited

n

OED).

Beaumont

uses the

same

figure:

So sublimate

nd

so

refining

as

thatFire,that all the Gold it turn'dto Dross" (Psyche,X, xiv; cited n OED).

The

inclusion

of

sublime

n

Cawdrey's

Table

Alphabeticall.

.

of

Hard

Vsual

English

Wordes

1604)

proves

that it

remained

a

"hard"

word;

his

definitions

not

alchemical

but

metaphoric:

to

set on

high

or lift

up. Cawdrey

reflectswhat

must have been

the

general comprehension

of

the

word,

ignoring

ts

atypical

application

in

The

Faerie

Queene,

a

decade

earlier,

where

Spenser

used

it to

mean

haughty

nd

proud,

with

pejoration.

Shortly

fter

Cawdrey's

citation

f

the

word,

ts

meaning

xpanded,

until n

the

seventeenth

entury

tcame

to

be

applied

to

height in

the sense

of

the

acme),

to

flight,

nd to architecture ith he

pecific

meaning

of loftiness nd

perhaps

of

grandeur.

But themodernmeaningsof sublimedeveloped not fromthese connota-

tions

but

from

ts more

piritual

nd

metaphysical ense,

s

used

n the

eventeenth

century.

rom the

alchemical

meanings

of

purification

nd from he

idea, again

from

lchemy,

of

elevation,

came

religious

and secular

meanings

of

purity

nd

loftiness.

ven as

early

s the end of the fifteenth

entury

we

can find:

"O

spowse

of Criste

immaculate,

Aboue

alle

aungellis

sublimate"

Ryman,

Poems,

VI,

7;

cited

in

OED).

Further,

the

religious

experience

tself

could sublimate: "Let

your

thoughts

e

sublimed

by

the

spirit

f

God"

(Benson,

Sermon

7

May,

1593;

1609;

cited

in

OED).

And the

rites nd sacraments

f the

hurch

were

hemselves

"sublimed":

"[Jesus]

hallowed

marriage.

.

having

new ublim'd

t

bymaking

t

a

Sacramentalrepresentmentf theunion of Christ nd .

..

thechurch" J. Taylor,

Gt.

Examp.

II,

x, 1649;

cited

n

OED).

In

these

theological

pplications

and

their

derivative orms

an be found

the

first

ndicationof the

confusion

bout

where

the sublime

ay

and

what the

ct

of sublimation

ffected;

hat

s,

whether

ublima-

tion

s

a state or a

process

and

whether t

is

a

property

f the

defined

bject

or of

the

evolving

ubject.

Beyond

the

religious

uses of the word and the

general seventeenth-century

meaning

f

the

ofty

nd

purified,

e

find n this

period

thefirst

elation

between

sublime

nd the

art

of rhetoric: he

expression

f

ofty

deas in an

elevatedmanner.

The

OED

cites

the first

hetorical se

of

the

word in

1586,

the

point

at which

sublimeenters he realm of aesthetics n English.By the eighteenthentury he

uses of

sublime n aesthetics

revealed

the same

confusion that the

theological

applications

had shown

in

the

seventeenth.While

the

sublime

resided first n

the

style

n which

elevated

ideas were

expressed,

t

eventually

ame to mean the


9/17

296

Modern

Philology

February

1977)

elevated deas themselves.

his

shift

ccomplished,

t

was

not

difficulto

find

he

source

of such

loftiness

ot

only

n

art

but

in

nature.

The most

mportant

ltera-

tion of

meaning, owever,

ccurs

when the ublime

s

used

byEnglish

critics n the

Longinian

sense

to

describenot theexternal ause

of

a

particular

esthetic

tate

in

the

beholder,

but

that

state

itself;

the sublime

has moved

from

he

object

to

the

subject.

Contemporary olloquial

usage

of

sublime

represents

debased

version of

the earlier aesthetic use.

There

are,

however,

n

the

nineteenth

entury

few

additional

developments.

With

Hardy,

particularly

nd

perhaps peculiarly,

sublimations used

to indicate

an ecstatic

state

of

mind.

With

pejorative ntent,

the

verb

ublimate

may

mean a

refinementnto

nonexistence:

While he

... sub-

limated

the

popular

worship

nto a harmless

ymbolism" Lecky,

Europ.

Mor.

I,

342, 1869; cited n OED).

To

summarize

the

complicated

history

of

sublime and

its

derivatives,

he

word entered

English

at the

end

of

the fourteenth

entury

with

a

specific

l-

chemical

meaning

and remained available for new

sciences

as

they developed.

In the middle of the fifteenth

entury

figurative

se

appeared

with

generalized

meaning

f

ofty

nd

with

pecific

pplications

o

theology

nd

rhetoric-aesthetics.

Currently,

he

aesthetic

use

of

the word sublime s limited

primarily

o discussions

of literature nd criticism

rom he classical and

pre-Romantic

eriods.

Sublima-

tion

has a

contemporarymeaning

n

the

terminology

f

psychoanalysis.

here

has,

furthermore,

een

a

general tendency

rom

he

eighteenth entury

n to

control

thekinds offunctional hift hat ublime nd itsderivativesrecapable of under-

going.

Sublime

has lost ts verb

function, nd,

as

a

result,

words

such

as

subliming

and sublimed

have

disappeared.

Sublimate exists

as a

noun

with a

specialized

scientific

meaning

and

has

lost

its

participial

force.

Finally,

such whimsical

constructions

s

sublimary,

ublimator,

ublimification,ublimy,

nd

sublimish

have

disappeared.

AfterBoileau's

publication

of Traits du sublime

1674),

sublime

ssumed a

new

cultural

mportance

n

English.

In the

eighteenth

nd

nineteenth

enturies,

the

"sublime"-words

became vehicles

for

aesthetic nd

philosophical

theories,

o

that

n

an

author's

use of

these

words

re

revealed

ignificant

ultural

ssumptions.

From Addison and Burketo theEnglish translations f Kant and Freud, the

changing

onnotations

of sublime

mirrorman's

gradual rejection

f

the

marvel-

ous

hope

that self-love nd

social are

the

same.

IV

Er besteht

arin,

ass

die

Sexualbestrebung

hr

uf Partiallust

der

Fortpflanzungslust

erichtetes

iel

aufgibt

nd

ein

anderes

nnimmt,

welches

enetisch

it em

ufgegebenen

usammenhingt,

ber

elbst

nicht

mehr

exuell,

ondern ozial

genannt

erdenmuss.

Wir

heissen

denProzess

,Sublimierung",

obei

wir ns

der

llgemeinen

chitzungfiigen,welche oziale Ziele

hSher

tellt ls die im Grunde elbst-

silchtigen

exuellen.

[Sublimation]

onsists

n the

sexual

trend

bandoning

ts

aim

of

obtaining

component

r a

reproductiveleasure

nd

taking

n


10/17

Cohn

and

Miles/The

Sublime

297

anotherwhich s related

enerically

o the

bandoned

ne but s tself

no

longer

exual

nd

must e describeds

social.

We

call

this

rocess

"Sublimation,"

n

accordance

with he

general

stimate

hat

places

social aimshigherhanthesexualones,which re at bottom elf-

interested.

Sigmund

reud,

Some

Thoughts

n

Development

nd

Regression-Aetiology"]

2

In the "Preface" to Traitedu

sublime,

Boileau

insists hat

Longinus

had not

intended

by

"sublime" what the orators called

the

"sublime

style"

but "cet

extraordinaire

t

ce merveilleux

ui frappe

dans

le

discours,

et

qui

fait

qu'un

ouvrage

enl6ve,

ravit,

transporte."13

The

extraordinary

nd marvelous which

ravishes,

elevates,

and

transports

need not

be

found

in

anything tylistically

grand;

on

the

contrary,

t

may

exist

n a

single

thought,

single

figure,

single

turn

of

phrase.

Boileau's work would

carry

nto

English

two

significantspects

of the

word sublime tself:

he

sense that

the

sublime

need not and

indeed

should

not

reside n a

deliberately rand style,

nd

the

implication

hat

the

measure

of

the

sublime would

lie in

the

effect

t

had on an audience.

In

The Sublime:

A

Study

of

Critical Theories

n

XVIII-Century England,

Samuel Monk has traced

the

development

n

English

of

the criticaluses

of

the

word

sublime;

he has shown

how the

termmoved

from label for a

rhetorical

device to one for n aesthetic

xperience.

The sources

of the

sublime,

lso traced

by

Monk,

change

from

works

of art

to

nature and

at last to the mind tself.

t

becomes

possible

to

conceive of

the

sublimeas

a

mental,

esthetic,

sychological

state-induced by hemind ndexperienced y hemind.Kantsumsthisprocessup

in The

Critique

f JudgmentSecond

Book.

"Analytic

of

the

Sublime"):

"...

.

dass

die wahre

Erhabenheitnur

m

Gemuithe

es

Urtheilenden,

icht n

dem Naturob-

jecte,

dessen

Beurtheilung

iese

Stimmung

desselben

veranlasst,

mtisse

gesucht

werden"

"....

true

sublimity

must

be

sought only

in the mind

of

the

udging

Subject,

and not n the

Object

of

nature

hat

occasions

this ttitude

y

theestimate

formed f

it").14

It

is

unnecessary

o

recapitulate

Monk's

thorough

tudy.

n

sum,

the

English

tradition ame to

distinguish

he

sublime

first rom

he

beautiful

nd second

from

things

hat

give

pleasure.

Subsequently,

he

ublime

xperience

ecame

associated

withthingspainful,demanding,or frustrating. s the sublime lost the earlier

sense of

simple

sensuous

and aesthetic

satisfaction,

t

became

more

and more

closely

allied with

the will

and

with

moral

imperatives, inally

ntering

he field

of

psychoanalysis,

t

which

point

the ultimate

conception

of

the

sublime

has

moved

away

from

an

experience

meaningful nly

to

the

individual

toward one

significant

or the

community

s a whole.

By considering

he

treatments

f the

12/Sigmund

Freud,

Gesammelte

Werke:

Chronologische geordnet,

19 vols.

in

18

(London,

1940-68),

11:358;

and

The

Standard

Edition

of

the

Complete Psychological

Works

of Sigmund

Freud,

ed. James

Strachey.

3

vols.

(London,

1955-64),

16:345.

Subsequent

references

o

Freud'sworkwillbe cited nthetext, he GermanprecedingheEnglish ources.

13/Nicolas

oileau-D6spreaux,

Preface:Trait6du

sublime,"

n

Oeuvres

e

Boileau,

d.

M. Amar

(Paris, 1856),

p.

363.

14/Immanuel

Kant,

Gesammelte

Schriften

Berlin,

1913),

5:256;

translation from

Kant's"Critiques

of

Aesthetic

udgement,"

d.

and

trans.James

Creed Meredith

Oxford, 911),

p.

104.


11/17

298

Modern

Philology

February

1977)

sublime

or

of

sublimation

n

Addison,

Burke, Kant,

and

Freud,

such

a line

of

development

an

be revealed.

English

aestheticians

arlyseparated

the

sublime from he

beautiful. n The

Pleasures

of

the

magination,

ddison ntroduced

his

distinction

n his

comparison

of

Homer and

Virgil.

Homer

is best at Battle or

Multitude,

Virgil

with

"copying

out

an

entertaining

icture."

Homeric

epithets

re

createdfor

he

"great";

Virgil's

forwhat s

"agreeable."

Homer's

persons

re "God-like and

Terrible,"

while

Virgil

takes

particular

are to make his

heroes "beautiful." "The

Aeneid,"

Addison

tells

us,

"is like a

well-ordered

Garden,"

but

"Homer

fills his

Readers

with

Sublime

deas."15

Although

Addison

has

selected echnical

spects

of Homer and

Virgil

o

compare,

his final

udgment

of Homer rests

not on his

style

but

on the

ideas of

the Greek

poet, echoing

Boileau's contention hat the

sublime does

not

reside n style.

In

Of

the

Sublime

Burke

also

distinguishes

he

attributes f the

sublime

from those

of the

beautiful,

creating

ists of

antithetical haracteristics. he

beautiful

s

small, smooth,

polished, light,

and

delicate.

The

sublime is

vast,

rugged

nd

negligent,

trongly

eviating

rom he

correct

ine,

dark and

gloomy,

solid and

massive.

He concludes that

"they

are

indeed ideas of a

very

different

nature,

one

being

founded on

pain,

the

other on

pleasure.

...

."16

In

an earlier

passage,

Burke

describes

the

sources

of the sublime n termswhich

underline

he

aspect

of terror nd

pai i:

"Whatever

is

fitted n

any

sort to

excite the ideas of

pain

and

danger,

that

s

to

say,

whatever

s in

any

sort

terrible,

r is

conversant

withterrible bjects,or operates n a manner nalogous to terror,s a source of

the

sublime;

that

s,

it

is

productive

f

the

strongest

motions which

the mind

s

capable

of

feeling.

say

the

strongest

motion,

because

I am satisfied he deas of

pain

are much

more

powerful

han those

which

enteron the

part

of

pleasure.""7

In

the

Critique

f

Judgment,

ant

too connects

the

sublime and the terrible

or

painful

nd

attempts

o

analyze

the

relationship

etween

he

awareness

of "dis-

pleasure"

and the more

positive

motional

component

of

the

sublime

experience.

He

attributes

he

"displeasure"

to

one's

awareness

of the

inadequacy

of

the

reason

to

cope

with the

experience.

At the same

time,

there s

pleasure

in the

awareness

of

having escaped

the confines f reason:

Das Gefiihl es Erhabenenst lso einGefiihl erUnlust usderUnangemessenheiter

Einbildungskraft

n

der

isthetischen

rbssenschitzung

u der

Schitzung

durch

die

Vernunftnd

eine

dabei

zagleich

rweckte ust

aus

der

Ubereinstimmung

ben dieses

Urtheils er

Unangemesseiheit

es

grbssten

innlichen

ermigens

mit

Vernunftideen

sofern

ie

Bestrebung

u

denselben

och

for

uns Gesetz

st.

The

feeling

f the ublime

s,

therefore,

t

once a

feeling

f

displeasure,rising

rom he

inadequacy

f

the

magina:ion

n

the esthetic stimation

f

magnitude

o

attain o its

estimation

y

reason,

nd a

simultaneously

wakened

leasure, rising

rom

his

very

judgment

f

the

nadequacy

f the

greatest aculty

f

sense

being

n

accordwith

deas

of

reason,

n

so

far s the fforto attain o these s for

us

a law.'"

15/Joseph

ddison,

The

Speciator,

d. Donald F.

Bond,

vol. 3

Oxford, 965),

no.

417,

pp.

564-65.

16/Edmund

urke,

The Workv

f

Edmund

urke,

2

vols.

Boston,

1904),

1:205-6.

17/Ibid.,

.

110.

18/Kant,

.

257;

Meredith,

.

106.


12/17

Cohn and

Miles/The

Sublime 299

The

imagination,

unable

in the wake

of

the

sublime

experience

to

judge

and

control ts

aesthetic

response

n accord withthe

reason,

feels

imultaneously

he

pain

of

the oss of reason

and the

power

of

its new

freedom.

The

ideas,

inherent

n Burke and

Kant,

that there

s a

negative aspect

to

pleasure,

that

there

s an aesthetic

xperience

which nvolves

pain,

and that

this

pain

or

displeasure

s

a

particularly

trong

motional

experience,

eem

to

point

ahead

to

concepts developed

by

Freud,

concepts

which

depend

on the

theoretical

antithesis

between

some

aspects

of

human

consciousness and the

demands

of

human

society.

But there

s

a

further

tep

in the

development

of the aesthetic

sublime that will

contribute o the cultural

limate

n

whichFreud's work

would

be done.

The

sublime

had

continued,

in aesthetic

discussion,

to

be

conceived

in

relationto individual xperience.This was truewhether hesublimewas compre-

hended

as

inherent

n

the

object-and

that

object

itself ither

s art

or as

nature,

or

as in the

subject;

but

obviously

subjective iew,

nd the

Romantic

framework

in

which

it

developed,

tended

to

intensify

he

significance

f

the

individual's

emotive

and moral

experience.

With

Addison,

the

ublime

resided n the

object,

n worksof

art; furthermore,

it made

its

impression

n the viewer

because of a

natural

affinity

n

the

human

mind,

or

soul,

to

what

s

good

or

great

n man:

"Such

stupendous

Works

temples,

places

of

worship,

magnificent uildings

where the

deity

resides]

might,

t the

same

time,

open

the Mind

to vast

Conceptions,

and fit t

to

converse with the

Divinityof thePlace. For every hing hat s Majestick, mprintsn Awfullness

and Reverence

on

the

Mind of the

Beholder,

and

strikes t with

the Natural

Greatness of the

Soul.""1

For

Addison,

the

individual mind is a

typical

mind,

since it reflects he

general

harmony

of the

universe. n the

mind,

in

art,

in

Nature,

and in

God residethe

"Natural

Greatness,"

the

essential

goodness,

which

is the

unifying

lement n the

world. The

individual

s

more or less

passive;

a

natural and

innate element

n

his

spirit

s

awakened

by

the

sublime

object

he

beholds.

Burke's

analysis

of

the

sublime

does

not

rest

on such a

set of

assumptions,

of course. His

thrust s

psychological;

he

addresses

himself

o

the

dilemma of

finding elight n thesublime, "passion ... whichhas pain for tsobject." The

use

of

"delight"

is

peculiar

to

Burke

who

defines

pleasure

as a

positive

emotion

and

delight

s

"the

sensationwhich

ccompanies

the

removal of

pain

or

danger."

His

solution

emphasizes

equilibrium,

the

state

of rest that

follows

exertion.

Creating

an

analogy

between

emotional

and

physical

exertion,

Burke

explains

that

"as

common

labor,

which s a

mode

of

pain,

is the

exerciseof the

grosser,

mode

of

terror s the

exerciseof the finer

art

of the

system.

...

."20

The function

of the

ublime

s the

xercising

f the

finer

aculties f the

human

ystem.

here

s

an

echo

here

of

the

Aristotelian

heory

f the

value

of

catharsis nd a

suggestion

f

the

future

evelopment

f

Freudian

theory.

The individual value of the sublime in Burke's aesthetic s revealedby his

19/Addison,

o.

415,

p.

555.

20/Burke, p. 214,

108,

216.


13/17

300

Modern

Philology

February 1977)

explanation

of the collective

value

of the

beautiful,

which s

a

quality

that

draws

men,

unlike

animals,

toward

a

sexual

object

and,

hence,

toward

procreation.

Beauty

is "that

quality,

or those

qualities

in

bodies, by

which

they

cause

love."

Therefore,

I call

beauty

a social

quality."21

For

Kant,

on

the

contrary,

eauty

s self-centerednd

egotistic;

he

ublime,

disinterested

nd selfless.With

this

discrimination

etween heaims

and

functions

of the sublime

and the

beautiful,

Kant

moves out

of the realm of

aesthetics.

nd

into

the

realm of moral

philosophy.

Though Kant,

unlike

Burke,

s

not concerned

with ndividual

psychology,

is abstractmoral

philosophy

refigures

he

Freudian

idea of

sublimation.

The

sublime,

n Kant's

view,

eads to the

comprehension

f the

moral

law,

a

law

which

can be

known

only

to

him

who

willingly

makes

sacrifices,

ndergoes

deprivation. he sublime xperiences unpleasantfrom n aesthetic ointofview,

but

our surrender

o this aesthetic

deprivation opens

the

way

for

a

positive

intellectual

nd

moral

experience:

...

und

da

diese

Macht

sich

eigentlich

urdurch

Ausopferungen

sthetischkenntlich

macht

welches

ine

Beraubung, bgleich

um Behufder nnern

reiheit,st,

dagegen

eine

unergriindliche

iefedieses

tibersinnlichen

ermogens

mit hren

ns

Unabsehliche

sich

rstreckenden

olgen

n

uns

aufdeckt):

o ist

das

Wohlgefallen

on der

sthetischen

Seite

in

Beziehung

us

Sinnlichkeit)

egativ,

.i.

wider ieses

nteresse,

on der ntellec-

tuellen

ber

betrachtet,

ositiv

nd mit inem nteresse

erbunden.

Now,

since

t

s

only hrough

acrificeshat

his

might

which

he

moral aw exerts ver

us]

makes

tself

nown

o

us

aesthetically,and

this

nvolves

deprivation

f

omething-

thoughnthe nterestsf nner reedom-whilstnturntrevealsnus an unfathomable

depth

f

this

upersensible

aculty,

he

consequences

f which

xtend

eyond

eachof

the

ye

of

ense,)

t

follows hat

he

delight,

ooked

t from he esthetic

ide

in

reference

to

sensibility)

s

negative.

.e.

opposed

to this

nterest,

ut

from he

ntellectual

ide,

positive

nd bound

up

with n

interest.22

In Kant's

view there

s

no

Addisonian sense of the

natural

goodness

of

man;

on

the

contrary

ach

man must

struggle,

y

efforts f the

reason,

to force the will

to

engage

in

goodness.

It

is

through

he

experience

f the

sublime

that

man can

develop

the

strength

f reason

and will:

...

weil die menschliche

atur

nicht o von

selbst,

ondern ur

durch

Gewalt,

welche

die Vernunft erSinnlichkeitnthut,u jenemGutenzusammenstimmt.mgekehrt

wird

uch

das,

was

wir

n

der Natur usser

uns,

oder

auch

in

uns...

erhaben

ennen,

nur

ls

eine

Macht des

Gemuths,

ich

uber

gewisse

Hindernisse er

Sinnlichkeit

urch

moralische

rundsatze

u

schwingen,

orgestellt

nd

dadurch

nteressant

erden.

... forhuman

nature

oes

not

of

tsown

proper

motion

ccordwith he

good,

but

only

by

virtue

fthedomination

hich

eason

xercises

ver

ensibility.

onversely,

hat, oo,

whichwe call sublime

.. is

only epresented

s

a

might

f

the

mind

nabling

t

to over-

come

this r thathindrance

f

sensibility

y

means f

moral

rinciples,

nd

t

s from

his

that

t derives

ts

nterest."3

No

longer

an aesthetic

ategory

which,

n

art, nature,

or the human

subject

operatesupon

the

mind,

Kant's

sublime becomes

an

active,

almost

a

muscular,

engagement

f

the

spirit

perating

for moral ends. For

Kant,

Burke's "exercise"

21/Ibid.,

p.

165,

15.

22/Kant,

.

271;

Meredith,

.

123.

23/Ibid.


14/17

Cohn and

Miles/The

Sublime 301

does not

have its

end

in

individual mental

health,

but in the

development

f

such

socially

valuable

attributes s

disinterestedness

nd

"anti-egotism."

The

moral

agent

and the moral

goal

are still

confined

within

the

individual,

to be

sure,

butthe

mplied

ffectfsuch moral

uplift

s societal.

From the

point

of view

of

Freudian

psychology,

Kant's

process

necessitates

he

repression

of certain

aspects

of the

human

spirit,

what

he calls

"sensibilities,"

ut

what we

might

more

typically

abel

the

senses,

n the nterest f

some

highergood.

When we turn

o

Freud and

his

theory

f

sublimation,

we

recognize

irst

hat

he

has taken

the term

rom chemical-scientific

ocabulary,

orhe uses

Sublimier-

ung

rather han

any

of

the

native

German

words which

had

been

developed

for

the

figurative

ses

of

the

concepts

of sublime

nd

sublimation. n the

one instance

that Freud does

use

the

aesthetic erm

sublime,"

in his

essay

on

"The

Uncanny"

(Das Unheimlich),

e

chooses, as had Kant, to use the termErhaben X, 269;

XVII, 219).

Freud

conceives of his

use

of

the

word

Sublimierung

sublimation)

s

an

innovation;

the German text ets the

word

in

double

spaces,

the

equivalent

of

italics for

emphasis,

and Freud

customarily

efines he term

as

he

employs

t.

The

definitions

eveal

subtle

but

highly

ignificant

hanges

in

Freud's own con-

ception

of

the

term and

the

social

meaning

of

the

process.

An

early

use and

definition

f

sublimation

occur

in

"'Civilized'

Sexual

Morality"

(1908):

"Man

nennt

diese

Fihigkeit,

das

urspriinglich

exuelle Ziel

gegen

ein

anderes,

nicht

mehr

exuelles,

ber

psychisch

mit

hm

verwandtes,

u

vertauschen,

ie

Fdihigkeit

zur Sublimierun g" ("this capacity to exchangeits originalsexual aim for

another

one,

which s

no

longer

exual

but which s

psychically

elated

o the

first

aim,

is called

the

capacity

for sublimation

Sublimierung]")

VII, 150;

IX,

187).

The sexual

aim

for

Freud,

unlike

Burke,

s

not social and

is

at

best

controlled.

ike

Kant,

Freud

sees

as

a

necessary

human

capacity

the

ability

to

repress

an

un-

acceptable

urge

or

goal,

and to

replace

it

with nother im.

By

1909,

Freud was

able

to label this

secondary

im

as

"higher."

n "Five

Lectures

on

Psycho-Analysis,"

he

says

".. . dieser Wunsch

wird

selbst auf

ein

h6heres

und darum einwandfreies iel

geleitet

was

man seine

Sublimierung

heisst)" ".

.

.

the wish tself

may

be

directed o a

higher

nd

consequently nobjec-

tionable aim [this is whywe call it sublimation]") (VIII, 25-26; XI, 27-28).

Consciously

or

not,

Freud

has

now set the

term,

ublimation,

nto

its

original

context

of

elevation

and

purification.

In

still ater

work,

Freud

begins

to connect

ublimationwith he direction

f

energy

toward

goals

that are

satisfying

ocially

rather

than

individually.

Each

such

step

brings

us further rom he

Addisonian view of

harmony mong man,

nature, ociety,

nd

God.

In

"Some

Thoughts

on

Development

and

Regression-

Aetiology"

1917),

Freud discriminated exual

from ocial

aims;

the

process

that

"places

social aims

higher

than

the

sexual

ones"

is

called sublimation.The

emphasis

s

again

on

elevation,

on a

scale of values which

places

the social

above

thesexual whichFreud,echoingKant, labels as "self-interested""selbstsiichti-

gen") (XI,

358-9;

XVI, 345).24

24/Philip

oth,

nterviewed

y

Alan

Lelchuk

"On Satirizing residents,"

tlantic

Monthly

28

[December 971]:

81-88),

defines

atire

y

reference

o Freud's

heory

that ivilized

ife

began

when the first

ngry

man chose invective nd verbal

abuse over

physical

violence."

Roth


15/17

302

Modern

Philology

February

1977)

In "Civilization

and Its Discontents"

1930),

Freud states

that

sublimation

transfers

ur

aims from

the level

of

individual

gratification

o that of cultural

development:

Die

Triebsublimierung

st

ein

besonders ervorstechender

ug

der

Kulturentwicklung,

sie

macht es

m6iglich,

ass h6here

psychische

itigkeiten,

issenschaftliche,

iinst-

lerische,

deologische,

ine

so

bedeutsame

olle

im

Kulturleben

pielen.

Sublimation

f nstinct

s

an

especially onspicuous

eature

fcultural

evelopment;

t s

whatmakes t

possible

or

higher sychical

ctivities,cientific,

rtistic

r

deological,

o

play

suchan

importantart

n civilized ife.

XIV,

457; XXI,

97]

Given

the

values of

sublimation,

t

may

not be the

vicissitude

t

appears.

Freud's view

takes

us far from the seventeenth-

nd

eighteenth-century

English

uses

of

sublime,

elf-love nd

social are

no

longer

the same.

Both Kant

and Freud see a

bestial

quality

n

man;

the

aesthetic

ublime

or the

psychological

act of

sublimation

ontrols nd

represses

he beast in

the

nterests

f

civilization.

While Kant's

Erhabencand

Freud's

Sublimierung

ecome

words of

the sublime

family

n

English (where

these

words have maintained

a

long

history

f

both

scientific nd

figurative

ses),

the introduction nto

English

of

the

particular

meanings

carried n Kant

and

Freud has altered the

native

fieldof

connotation

for

ublime

by nsisting

n the

superiority

f

the

societal

over

the

ndividual

im.

In

English,

the

sublime n all

its

figurative

ses,

aesthetic

s

well as

theological,

focused on

the

individual

experience

nd

response.

Even

Burke,

with

his aware-

ness

of the

perverse

value of

pleasure-pain,

was concerned

with

the

individual

exerciseof thepsyche nd withthe individualhealthof the finer acultieswhose

"sacrifices,"

f

any,

were

only

vicarious.

In the word

sublime

ie

partial

histories

of

English

word

building,

word

borrowing,

esthetics, cience,

and

philosophy.

Afterthe

Anglo-Saxon

period,

when

native roots were

compounded

for

careful

translation

f the

Latin words

for limit"

and for

threshold-lintel," nglishbegan

tscareer

of word

borrowing.

First

in

the field

of

alchemy

and

then

with extended

metaphorical

meanings,

sublimewords

entered

English

with

variety

f

meanings

nd connotations.

The

vocabulary

of rhetoric

ept

sublime

o a

fairly

igorous

definition

f

loftiness n

style.

Theological

usage pushed

the

metaphoric

associations

further,

nd

in

general peechtheword floundered hrough he sixteenth enturywithmeanings

as diverse

s

promoted

nd

prideful.

After

oileau,

the sublime became

a

fieldfor

aesthetic-critical

riting;

here

ts

focus

shifted rom

rt to

nature,

nd

from

he

object

to

the

subject.

In

Burke

and

in

Kant,

the

extensions

were widened

and

altered,

reating

inally

wordwhose

meaning

mplied

levation f

soul,

specifically

in

Kant the

throwing

ff

f

the

bestial

n

man,

clear evidence

of a

moral act of

the

will.

Freud's

word,

takingSublimierung

rom

scientific

ocabulary

and

adding

to

English

a

new

meaning

for

the

already

overloaded

sublimation,

eveloped

the

Kantian attitude

further;

ublimationbecame

a

mental

process

of

suppressing

man's

lower

desires nd

substituting

or them

highergoals.

Implicit

hroughout

goes

on to

explain

hat what

begins

s

the desire o

murder

our

enemy

withblows

.. is

most

horoughly

ublimated,

r

socialized,

n

the

rtof

atire"

p.

86).

Here

aggression

ecomes

the

dangerous

ersonal

passion

that

s,

for ocial

ends,

ublimated.


16/17

Cohn and

Miles/The

Sublime

303

this

ater

development

s the

anti-Romantic

ssumption

hat

man,

unlike

Rous-

seau's

1?mile,

s

basically

dangerous,dangerous

especially

n relation o the

goals

of

his

society.

The

higher ood

becomes the

ocial

good,

and the

ct of

sublimation

is a

moral act

in which selfish nds are

sacrificed

o social:

the ndividual

psyche

controlledfor

the

"progress"

of

civilization.

V

Live

a

saintly

ife.

.

prayers

nd matins

nd

all

that,

nd

the

subconsciousmind hikes

you

out of

bed at

night

o

steal under-

muslins ubliminal

heft,

o to

speak.

[MARY

ROBERTS

RINEHART,

The Man in Lower

Ten]

The

peculiar

history

of the

vocabulary

of

English

reflectsnot

only

our

penchantforborrowingwords fromother anguages,but forcoiningwords out

of

borrowed

roots. Such

a coined word is

subliminal,

pparently

nvented

by

J. A. Ward in the

nineteenth

entury

o translate

he

phrase

"unter

der

Schwelle"

from he

German educational

psychologist

ohann

Friedrich

Herbart.25

Ward,

a

British

Horatio

Alger

who

began

as

a

grocer's

son

and

became a

Cambridge

scholar,

coined subliminal

with

fine ense

of

the

meaning

of

the Latin rootssub-

and limin-limen

nd

an

equally

fine

disregard

for its

similarity

n form and

opposition

in

meaning

to the

derivatives f

sublime n

English.

French

psychologists

avoided this

problem by

translating

"under

the

threshold"

of

consciousness)

s

infraliminaire;

erman

psychologists

onstructed

new words out of native rather than borrowed roots. In G. T. Fechner,the

nineteenth-century

sychciphysiologist

nd

experimental

esthetician,

he word

appears

as

Bewusstseinss,

welle

consciousness

threshold).

The related terms

Unterbewusstsein

nd

Unbewusste

lso

appear

for the

subconscious

and the

unconscious. Freud

consistently

voids terms or

subconscious,

using

them

only

to

quote

the

work of

others,

nd

in his

later

writing

ttacks

the

word and the

related dea:

Wenn

emand

vomUnterbewusstsein

pricht,

eiss ch

nicht,

meint r es

topisch,

twas,

was

in

der Seele

unterhalb

es

Bewusstseins

iegt,

der

qualitativ,

in

anderes ewusst-

sein,

in

unterirdisches

leicisam.

If omeone alks fsubconsciousnessUnterbewusstsein],cannot ellwhetheremeans

the

term

opographically----i

indicate

omething

ying

n the

mindbeneath he con-

sciousness--or

ualitatively-

o indicate

nother

onsciousness,

subterranean

ne,

as

it

were.

XIV,

225;

XX,

1981

Thus,

it is

a

uniquely

British

development

hat

gives

us

the

parallel

terms ub-

limation

nd

subliminal or

antithetically

ifferent

oncepts. Only

in the

nk-horn

terms

f the

nineteenth-century

ritish

cholar-scientistsoes a new value

appear

for

a word

connected

with

ublime;

only

in

subliminal oes

the

full

meaning

of

"below"

appear

and does the

connotationof the

dark and

subterranean

eplace

the

meanings

of loftiness

nd

purification.

25/The

933

Supplement

f the OED adds

the dverb

ubliminally

ith

1919

citation.Here

also

is an

additionaldefinition

or

ublimation,

ntroducing

ts

psychoanalytic

eaning

nd

citing

Dr.

Constance

E.

Long's

edition

nd

translation

f

Carl G.

Jung's

ollected

apers

n

Analytic

Psychology London,

1916).


17/17

304 Modern

Philology February

1977)

It

is

ironic that the

etymological

ense

of

J.

A.

Ward

was

accurate,

for

the

semanticsof

the

new sciences reflects

heirdrift

way

from

the central core

of

theirsociety:the naive empiricism f thesescientists xpresses tselfn themost

literalist

kind of Latin

borrowing.

n the

same

encyclopedia

article in

which

"subliminal" is said to have

first

ppeared,

one

can

find s

well

extensity,nvolution,

innervation,

rradiation,

deation,

ercept,

nd

the

most bizarre

neologism

of the

lot:

oblivescence.

All are

scientific ermsfrom he

nineteenth

entury

nd a

few,

amusingly,

had once

been

terms

contrived

by

ink-horn

xperts

of

the

sixteenth,

terms hat

subsequently

ellnot

into oblivescence

but into total

oblivion.

Carnegie-Mellon

University

nd West

Virginia

University

Appendix

List ofDictionariesConsulted

American

Heritage Dictionaryof

the

English

Language.

Edited

by

William Morris.

New

York,

1969.

Anglo-Saxon

and Old

English

Vocabularies,

rom he

lists

of

Thomas

Wright.

Edited

and

collected

y

R.

P.

Wulcher.

vols.

London,

1884.

An

Anglo-Saxon

ictionary.

y

Joseph

osworth,

dited nd

enlarged

y

T. Northcote

Toller.

London,

19-.

A

Comprehensive

tymological

Dictionary

of

the

English

Language.

By

Ernest Klein.

2

vols.

New

York,

1967.

Deutsches

Wbirterbuch

on

Jacob Grimmund Wilhelm

Grimm.

Leipzig,

1854-1954.

A Dictionaryof Selected Synonyms n thePrincipal Indo-European Languages. By Carl

Darling

Buck.

Chicago,

1949.

Dictionnaire

lphabitique

et

analogique

de

la

languefrangaise.

By

Paul Robert.

Paris,

1966.

Dictionnaire

de

I'acadimie

frangaise.

Preface

by

F.

Charpentier.

4

vols.

Paris,

1694.

Dictionnaire

de

la

langue

frangaise.

By

E.

Littr6.

Paris,

1863.

Dictionnaire

de

la

langue

frangaise

du

seizidme

iedcle.

y

Edmond

Huguet.

Paris,

1966.

Dictionnaire

tymologique

de la

langue

frangaise.

By

Oscar

Bloch.

Paris,

1932-.

Dictionnaire

ktymologique

e

la

langue

latine,

histoire

des

mots.

By

A.

Ernout

and

A.

Meillet.

aris,

967.

An

Etymological

Dictionary

of

the

EnglishLanguage.

By

Walter William Skeat.

Oxford,

1910.

A Greek-Engli

Documents

Jan Cohn and Thomas H. Miles -- The Sublime- In Alchemy, Aesthetics and Psychoanalysis