WARNING: V. Nerdy Post
Aug. 27th, 2002 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annundrielAn interesting bit about the sublime and the beautiful was brought up in the Playgroup recently. I thought it was really rather interesting so here it is. All from Kant's Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime. (Not that I've read it, it just gave me something new to ponder.)
"The sublime moves, the beautiful charms."
"The sublime is in turn of different kinds. Its feeling is sometimes accompanied with a certain dread, or melancholy; in some cases merely with quiet wonder; and in still others with a beauty completely pervading a sublime plan. The first I shall call the terrifying sublime, the second the noble and the third the splendid."
"The sublime must always be great; the beautiful can also be small. The sublime must be simple; the beautiful can be adorned and ornamented."
"Understanding is sublime, wit is beautiful. Courage is sublime and great, artfulness is little but beautiful."
"Sublime attributes stimulate esteem, but beautiful ones, love. People in whom especially the feeling for the beautiful rises seek their sincere, steadfast, and earnest friends only in need, but choose jesting, agreeable and courteous companions for company. There is many a person whom one esteems much too highly to be able to love him. He inspires admiration, but is too far about us for us to dare approach him with the familiarity of love."
"Friendship has mainly the character of the sublime...on the other hand, gay jest and familiarity heighten the hue of the beautiful in this emotion."
Anywho, it was all brought up in the context of Merry and Pippin and which was sublime and which beautiful. The sublime, to me, seems more untouchable than the beautiful. What Merry achieves in the books is not necessarily something I can relate to, but what Pippin does is something I can relate to on certain levels. And then there is the fact that Pippin touches individual people on a level that we aren't shown that Merry does. I'm not saying Merry doesn't affect people, we just aren't shown him in the same way.
That's my major thought of the day anyway. Woo. And, because I'm rather obsessed with Tolkien, here is one of my favorite songs in the books composed by the loverly Sam:
In western lands beneath the Sun
the flowers may rise in Spring,
the trees may bud, the waters run,
the merry finches sing.
Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night
and swaying beeches bear
the Elven-stars as jewels white
amid their branching hair.
Though here at journey's end I lie
in darkness buried deep,
beyond all towers strong and high,
beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun
and Stars for ever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
nor bid the Stars farewell.
"The sublime moves, the beautiful charms."
"The sublime is in turn of different kinds. Its feeling is sometimes accompanied with a certain dread, or melancholy; in some cases merely with quiet wonder; and in still others with a beauty completely pervading a sublime plan. The first I shall call the terrifying sublime, the second the noble and the third the splendid."
"The sublime must always be great; the beautiful can also be small. The sublime must be simple; the beautiful can be adorned and ornamented."
"Understanding is sublime, wit is beautiful. Courage is sublime and great, artfulness is little but beautiful."
"Sublime attributes stimulate esteem, but beautiful ones, love. People in whom especially the feeling for the beautiful rises seek their sincere, steadfast, and earnest friends only in need, but choose jesting, agreeable and courteous companions for company. There is many a person whom one esteems much too highly to be able to love him. He inspires admiration, but is too far about us for us to dare approach him with the familiarity of love."
"Friendship has mainly the character of the sublime...on the other hand, gay jest and familiarity heighten the hue of the beautiful in this emotion."
Anywho, it was all brought up in the context of Merry and Pippin and which was sublime and which beautiful. The sublime, to me, seems more untouchable than the beautiful. What Merry achieves in the books is not necessarily something I can relate to, but what Pippin does is something I can relate to on certain levels. And then there is the fact that Pippin touches individual people on a level that we aren't shown that Merry does. I'm not saying Merry doesn't affect people, we just aren't shown him in the same way.
That's my major thought of the day anyway. Woo. And, because I'm rather obsessed with Tolkien, here is one of my favorite songs in the books composed by the loverly Sam:
the flowers may rise in Spring,
the trees may bud, the waters run,
the merry finches sing.
Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night
and swaying beeches bear
the Elven-stars as jewels white
amid their branching hair.
Though here at journey's end I lie
in darkness buried deep,
beyond all towers strong and high,
beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun
and Stars for ever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
nor bid the Stars farewell.
