Sublime

Of high spiritual, moral, or intellectual worth. Exalted; lofty. Inspiring awe, impressive.

While studying for my poetry final, and trying to synthesize all of my scribbles into a coherent position on the works I was looking at, I came across a note in reference to this John Keats poem:

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

The poem is entitled "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," and the note scribbled below it is emphasizing the difference between the beautiful and the sublime. A couple of years ago, I blogged on the word beautiful, and the definition contained there was "marked by a quality or a combination of qualities that delights the senses or appeals to the mind." Let's leave aside for the moment that people do not take in sufficiently the fullness of the meaning of the word beautiful (because I talk about that more in the link above.) Obviously, there is a sense of something bigger going on when a person uses the word sublime. But really, when was the last time anyone used the word sublime?

Let me restate that- when was the last time anyone (in normal conversation) used the word sublime correctly? You know, without everyone around you giving you strange looks and thinking you're an ass for thinking that pop-trash song that just played on the radio was sublime? In class, when we were talking about the concept of the sublime, and the professor asked for examples of moments we could call sublime, very few hands went up. Due to the awkward silence involved, I offered up my wedding day. Walking down the aisle toward Anthony was a sublime moment in my life. (Now imagine 20 or so teenagers and 20-somethings staring at me in shock that there is a married student in the room. To be fair, I don't think most of them realized I was over 30, either.) There are books that, at the moment of completion, I have thought to be sublime. Pieces of music. But is anyone else out there noticing the sublime when it happens? Was the class too young to understand the significance of those moments?

Things to ponder. Poetry final tonight, so I am off to read some more.