the sublime
Terrifying, exalting beauty
The sublime is an experience of awe mixed with terror—beauty so vast or powerful it overwhelms ordinary perception.
Mountains, storms, and infinite spaces provoke the sublime.
In philosophy and aesthetics, the term distinguishes experiences that transcend mere prettiness: The sublime in nature reminds us of our smallness.
Something sublime may also simply be outstanding: The meal was sublime.
- ineffableBeyond verbal expression
- the infiniteThat without boundaries
- imaginationFaculty for forming ideas
- emotionComplex psychological state
- KantGerman Enlightenment thinker
John Keats · beauty · terror · nature · natural wonder · numinous · Lord Byron · infinity · transcendence · spiritual awakening · Mary Shelley · cosmos · starry night · rapture · metaphysics · existentialism · awe · mountains
- Gothicgargoyle, gothic fiction, pointed arch, gothic architecture, flying buttress
- inspirationinspiration, muse, affirmations, motivational quotes, inspirational quotes
- RomanticismWilliam Blake, J.M.W. Turner, Eugene Delacroix, emotionalism, sublime
- literary themesheroism, hero's journey, ennui, social realism, morals
- Mystic PoetryRumi, Hafiz, divine union, mystical union, sacred verse
- transcendenceascension, apotheosis, enlightenment, illumination, transfiguration