Title: | Piers Plowman, the sublime |
Authors: | Wicher, Andrzej |
Keywords: | Piers Plowman; sublime |
Issue Date: | 1994 |
Publisher: | Katowice : Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego |
Citation: | T. Rachwał, T. Sławek (red.), ""The most sublime act" : essays on the sublime" (S. 74-96). Katowice : Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego |
Abstract: | The person who utters the proud and sublime words quoted at the head of
this page is the Satan himself, and this fact alone tells us a lot about Langland’s
sublime. It is indeed, to a large extent, on such upward flights of fancy that
Longinus based his notion of the sublime, hoping to arrive at the heart of
the mystery of artistic fame and immortality. The effects of hearing a sublime
piece of music or poetry he describes in the following terms: “For by some
innate power the true sublime uplifts our souls; we are filled with a proud
exaltation and a sense of a vaunting joy, just as though we had ourselves
produced what we had heard”. In eulogizing “the true sublime”, he was aware
that there are many pitfalls in such ambitious striving, and it is easy
to take pinchbeck for genuine gold, or to mistake the merely vulgar or
pompous for “the true sublime” . But he never questioned the desirability
and the supreme value of the sublime as the sublime. |
URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12128/4607 |
ISBN: | 8322605374 |
Appears in Collections: | Książki/rozdziały (W.Hum.)
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