Edmund Burke S Theory Of The Sublime And It S Reflection In Gothic Fiction Mary Shelley S Frankenstein

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, RWTH Aachen University, language: English, abstract: Many authors would agree that Frankenstein is one of the most famous Gothic tales of all time. It was first published in 1818 and is famous for its descriptions of landscape and nature, as well as its prophetic dimension. More than 60 years before the novel was published, Edmund Burke set out to analyze the sublime. By doing so, he actually took an important step towards founding the genre Shelley engaged in, in writing Frankenstein. His A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Beautiful and the Sublime published in 1757 became a great success. This term paper sets out to shed light on a number of problem areas concerning the connection between Shelley’s novel and Burke’s theory of the sublime. The paper arose out of the Proseminar ‘Gothic Literatur’ by XY, M.A. in the Summer Semester 2011 at RWTH University Aachen. During the course, different topics concerning the Gothic novel were discussed in combination with four of the most famous novels belonging to the genre. Among them was Frankenstein as a novel and ‘Burke’s Theory of the Sublime and Its Reflection in the Gothic Fiction’ as a topic. The central question to be examined in this paper is how Burke’s theory of the sublime is reflected in Shelley‘s Gothic novel. Further questions to be dealt with in this term paper are: what is the Burkean sublime? What was new and different about Burke’s concept of the Sublime – as the Sublime itself is by no means a groundbreaking, new concept. Does Shelley intentionally incorporate sublime features in her novel or comment on the use of Burke’s theory? Is there a social dimension to Burke’s theory? In what way does the novel reflect the sublime? Is a sense of the sublime only conveyed through descriptions of nature? ... The first part of the term paper presents Burke’s theory of the sublime, an analysis of the connection between Shelley and the sublime and an analysis of the social dimension of the sublime. The next part is going to shed light on how Frankenstein as a Gothic novel reflects elements of Burke’s theory of the sublime. A fuller discussion including an analysis of all scenes displaying sublime elements would go beyond the range of the paper. In this matter only five scenes were chosen. Those scenes are significant for the plot development, as well as they help to support the line of argumentation. Eventually, a conclusion will be drawn.

A graphic novel dealing with such subjects as alienation, empathy and understanding beyond appearance.

Edmund Burke was one of the foremost philosophers of the eighteenth century and wrote widely on aesthetics, politics and society. In this landmark work, he propounds his theory that the sublime and the beautiful should be regarded as distinct and wholly separate states - the first, an experience inspired by fear and awe, the second an expression of pleasure and serenity. Eloquent and profound, A Philosophical Enquiry is an involving account of our sensory, imaginative and judgmental processes and their relation to artistic appreciation. Burke's work was hugely influential on his contemporaries and also admired by later writers such as Matthew Arnold and William Wordsworth. This volume also contains several of his early political works on subjects including natural society, government and the American colonies, which illustrate his liberal, humane views.

This eloquent 1757 treatise on aesthetics explores how interactions with the physical world affect the formulation of ideals related to beauty and art. Edmund Burke's landmark study not only proved tremendously influential on the development of aesthetic theory, but also offered the first complete philosophical exposition for separating the beautiful and the sublime into their own respective rational categories. The beautiful, according to Burke, comprises that which is well formed and aesthetically pleasing. The sublime, on the other hand, possesses the power to compel and destroy. This distinction bears a noteworthy historical relevance, since the popular preference for the sublime rather than the beautiful indicates the transition from the Neoclassical to the Romantic era. Burke's dissertation is both a precursor of his later political writings and one of the first major works in European literature to explore the concept of the sublime—a topic as fascinating to eighteenth-century thinkers as it is to modern philosophers and critics.

A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) is a philosophical treatise published in pamphlet form by Irish statesman and thinker Edmund Burke. Following in the footsteps of generations of philosophers, especially Aristotle and Hume, Burke sought to describe the inherent difference between beauty and sublimity as emotional responses rooted in human perception. His work was incredibly influential for the growth of Romanticism in Europe and Britain especially, which sought to capture the sublime in both visual art, music, and literature. Burke begins with a section on the senses in relation to human individuality and society in order to illuminate the collective nature of passions—for which we may read emotions—and to argue that the power of the arts is to shape and effect those emotions. In the second part, Burke observes the passions caused by the sublime, including terror, as well as records the effects of certain sensory perceptions—of sound, light, color, and smell—on creating sublime feelings in the mind. Part three follows the same trajectory but describes the beautiful instead before ultimately comparing the two, and part four attempts to ascertain their causes in nature. Burke concludes his treatise with a brief section on the sublime and beautiful in poetry, laying the groundwork for Romanticism’s use of language, among other things, to purposefully invoke feeling in the reader or observer. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful is a classic of philosophy reimagined for modern readers.