On “Beholding the Feminine Sublime: Lee Miller’s War Photography”

I’m going to start off with my hard opinion on this. I don’t know if gendering sublime responses is necessarily valid or even needed. Liu’s analysis of Lee Miller’s photography initially struck me as simply an analysis of Miller’s style and skill. However, there is little to argue with about this analysis, so it has changed my mind a bit. From Liu’s perspective, the feminine sublime widens the scope a bit. Liu says that Burke’s sublime experience “is distinguished from the experience of absolute terror. . . by the viewer’s removal from immediate danger or possible extinction.” However, Miller’s photographs in some way force the viewer into the image and makes it impossible to view them at a distance. She places the viewer inside the room in a post-bombing photograph or denies the viewer any visual reprieve in a frame of corpses. Liu says that, “the viewer does not adopt sufficient distance to feel safe and to experience the delight of self-preservation elaborated by the Burkean sublime.” Viewers are forced to feel more than a masculine sublime would require of them, and there is something inherently feminine in the compassion these images require. Not to say that men lack compassion, but the more masculine iterations of sublime seem to have been viewed from a more comfortable distance, allowing the viewer to be both within and without. Lee’s feminine sublime somewhat removes the ability to be without. It speaks even more loudly to the insignificance of the individual, a tenet quintessential to the sublime.

Broken in Tbilisi

I jumped back onto the broken sidewalk, a sidewalk full of holes over five feet deep from which I went into the street to get away, as a honking coupe sped past me. Before the wind-whip could dissipate, a commuter shoved me back into the street as he walked by, causing me to dodge my second car of the minute. My first hour in Tbilisi, Georgia had already risked my life twice.

I finally made my way into a cafe. Having not eaten since the Istanbul airport, I was ready for a glut of local food. As I stepped into the dimly-lit basement cafe, every head turned in my direction. I carefully stepped down and looked to a server for guidance. A gorgeous girl in a black t-shirt said something in Georgian and motioned to a table. As I sat, the conversation of guttural Georgian grew around me once again. I opened the menu the server had slip to me, only to see the loopy scrawl of Georgian letters. No photos, no translations. My hunger faded into shame as I tried to sign to the server that I do not know the menu. She shook her head, said, “ar inglisuri”, shrugged, and walked away. I shuffled out of the restaurant, defeated and embarrassed. Tbilisi life moved on around me, as citizens hurried past me in every direction. The din of communication was one that I could not join into if I tried. I had the equivalent of twenty American dollars in my messenger bag, an empty stomach, and no place to sleep for the night. It was then that I realized what a mistake hopping a plane to an unknown country might have been.

As I walked along another pot-holed street, the hour struck eight. Above me, what looked like a normal wall sprang to life. An eighteenth-century three story clock built into that wall began to dance and chime the hour. A group of elderly men at a cafe nearby began singing the song being chimed, and I saw this city for the first time. An ancient bathhouse shared a wall with a modern bar called KGB, and above the roofs of both of those was the intricately Eastern blue and gold inlay doors to a 12th century, now-defunct cathedral. As I came out of the other side of this street, the Narikala Fortress, a 4th-century relic from which citizens of every Eurasian civilization in history protected their people and city, stood resolute above the mass of terra cotta roofs of Old Town.

Tbilisi, a city millennia-old, who has fought for the right to even exist, does not have time or desire to cater to a young American girl who came here on a whim. For perhaps the first time in my life, I was right where I needed to be.

Note: I attempted (rough as it may be!) John Muir’s apprehension, depression, exaltation style of sublime description here. If I missed the mark too much, or if you would like a more straightforward approach to the prompt, I would be happy to redo it!

Dance in the Sublime

I personally do enjoy running (or at least tell myself I do), for the half-marathoner’s approach. It is important to me health and my appearance. I rarely run to clear my head or truly enjoy. That enjoyment comes from other athletic pursuits. I am a dancer. I have danced since I was three years old, and it is more a part of my life than most things. The most beautiful image in the world is an empty dance studio, floors freshly waxed and waiting for dancing feet. I was never the best and I was never a professional dancer, but I have never felt more myself than when I am dancing.

Gorichanaz says, “In Kantian terms, running is beautiful because its form matches its purpose.” The same is true for dance. Dance is beautiful, but the purpose of dance is to create beauty. He also says, “ Kant described both the beautiful and the sublime as types of enjoyable feelings, but differentiated them in saying that, whereas the beautiful merely ‘charms,’ the sublime ‘touches’ (16).” I think that so often we feel that others do not understand our love of something for this very reason. These pursuits may seem charming to an outside observer, but to us they are so much more.

In fact, one of the things I have found most frustrating about my 20’s is the fact that hobbies now need to be treated as such. In my teens and in college, I dedicated myself completely to what others would call a hobby but what I called my life: dance. I was able to almost completely prioritize dance and my growth in technique. But when we become young professionals, time and energy to devote to conditioning, technique classes, choreography, performances, and everything in between falls away. I literally do not have time or funds to dance at that level of dedication right now. And if I did, I still do not think I could justify it. I no longer have national competitions or NCAA halftimes to train for. I no longer have to compete for a principal spot in a performance. Instead, I am in graduate school, competing for promotions at work and trying to be the best teacher I can be. That is where I can justify devoting the majority of my time. But I would be lying if I said I haven’t felt for a few years that I am missing the sublime in my life.

Tim Gorichanaz (2016) Beautiful and sublime: the aesthetics of running in a commodified world, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 43:3, 365-379, DOI: 10.1080/00948705.2016.1206826

Terror and the Sublime

Post 3- 6/25

Terror and fear evoke so many strong emotions in humans that it is understandable that they became part of some of the earliest modern conversations on the sublime. The most obvious connection to this that comes to mind is an adrenaline rush, though it seems even painfully so. People jump out of airplanes, climb up ice cliffs, and go to bondage clubs to get that sensation of fearful exuberance. Humans have worked themselves into adrenaline junkies. So, are we experiencing sublimity every time?

I am immediately struck in Cora’s introduction by the notion that “the affective qualities within the sublime are usually connected to the aesthetic categories of greatness, infinity and terror as well as to philosophical concepts of the transcendental”, because I think that transcendence could get at the heart of the argument that one needs fear in order to have sublimity. Fear and adrenaline can indeed lead to transcendental experiences.

This is some serious spit-balling here, but I am also interested in the notion of “radical openness”, as quoted by Lyotard and Bertens. Perhaps an instance of terror forces the experiencer to become, even for second, open to more of the world than he/she usually sees, and perhaps that can lead to sublime transcendence? This could potentially also account for Kant’s state of an astonished soul.

Perhaps catharsis plays a role in feelings of the sublime as well. Dennis even describes sublimity as “terror distanced”, and catharsis could be described at tragedy distanced. One feels the rush and release of terror (or tragedy), without necessarily feeling the effects of the true danger. Dennis also brings terror back to feelings of awe and wonder, which I think actually works quite well with Longinus’ views on the effects of elevated language. Sublimity is the effect of true elevation of spirit, and one cannot deny that that elevation could come from an adrenaline rush or from some form of terror. But I would like to think that they are not completely necessary to it.

Reference:

Cora, Z. (2015). From the Rhetoric of Longinus to the Poetics of John Dennis: The Role of

Terror in the Theories of the Sublime in the 18th Century | Et al. Retrieved June 22, 2017, from http://etal.hu/en/archive/terrorism-and-aesthetics-2015/cora-from-the-rhetoric-of-longinus-to-the-poetics-of-john-dennis/

Finding Sublime in The Goldfinch

“You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.”

― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

The sublime text that came to mind almost immediately was Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, which is perhaps a bit ironic because her earlier novel The Secret History follows a group of characters in a lot of ways try to achieve the physical sublime, but I digress.

I was out shopping with a few friends the other day when we walked past The Goldfinch in a bookstore. When asked what about The Goldfinch is so incredible (besides its Pulitzer), I said, “It’s gritty, it’s sad, it’s downright awful at times, but you will end this book a different person than when you started.” James I. Porter notes that the sublime “produces profound mental or spiritual disruption”, which a much more eloquent way of describing what I have always known happened to me during The Goldfinch.

So, how does Tartt do it? There is stunning style to her writing, no doubt. A certain dry darkness pervades every page, with passages like, “But sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.” Tartt not for one word of her writing shies away from the harsh reality of life, especially the emotionally elevated lives of her characters. And perhaps that is also where some of the sublimity comes in: in the elevation of the characters themselves.

However, what I always return to is simply the profound tragedy of situation in the novel. Theo’s life, from crisscrossing the United States as a young teen to never feeling truly settled or ever finding closure as an adult. Hobie’s kind friendship and desperate longing for his friend Welty back. Porter sets sublime apart from simply beautiful aesthetics by noting that sublime “has a bit of the rogue and dysfunctional family members to it,” and this is where Tartt truly crosses into the sublime.

I am also struck by a concept oft talked about in my undergraduate criticism classes, and that is the notion of a touchstone- a piece of literature, however large or small that snaps the reader out of his/her mind and body, if only for a moment. The Goldfinch felt like a touchstone from beginning to end, like I read it as an observer, outside of my own mind and soul.

Porter also speaks of the fallacy of the “assumption that ideas cannot preexist words that name them.” So, did I experience the sublime three years ago when I read The Goldfinch, even though I did not have the words to define it as such?  In my humble opinion, absolutely.

Initial Feelings on the Sublime

I would be lying if I said I was not deeply overwhelmed by my first few readings on the sublime. I have taught myself throughout my academic career to not commit Frye’s Fallacy of Reduction and not to try to reduce things that cannot be reduced. However, all I want to do is form a one sentence definition of the sublime and quick checklist- ‘is sublime’, ‘is not sublime’, when really what i need to do is bask in the vastness itself. My initial reaction is that the sublime’s beauty lies not in its understanding, but in its exploration and lack of definition. We still search for it, and therein lies so much of its power.

One of my biggest questions regarding the sublime is whether it is a truly personal experience, or a more universal one. I am drawn to what Doran says of Kant’s writings, referring to the “sublimity of mind – aesthetic, high-mindedness, heroic subjectivity”. This stuck out to me because it hints at an answer to this big question of mine; it suggest that sublimity can occur in the individual’s mind and therefore can be an essentially personal experience. We make our own sublime. This notion, however incorrect it may be, is a bit comforting to me. Sublimity in its practical form throughout our lives can perhaps be up to our own interpretation, but maybe it could also be a guiding force. If we truly experience a peak existence, won’t we live our lives in a way that gives chance to experience that again?

Doran’s introduction leads me to one more question. He discusses the fact that without Longinus’ initial explorations of hypnos and the sublime, we might never have the modern discourse that we do, which leads me to the old adage of the tree in the woods. If we as individuals have no means to define the sublime, have we experienced it? And my final and most pervasive question: Is it even an experience in the first place?