The sublime — English definition
An overwhelming grandeur — in a storm, a mountain, or the vastness of nature — that both terrifies and exalts, a central preoccupation of Romantic writers.
Where it is taught
- Literary Movements & Context — Close Reading & Literary Analysis, English 12: Complex Texts, Independent Inquiry & Public Voice, Grade 12
In use
Reacting against both Enlightenment rationalism and the smoke of the new factories, poets such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, and Keats exalted feeling, imagination, nature, and the sublime — that overwhelming grandeur which dwarfs the human and stirs awe.
Literary Movements & Context
Questions using the sublime
Problem 1
Which movement most exalted nature, imagination, intense feeling, and the sublime, in reaction against Enlightenment reason and the new industrial economy?
- Realism
- Modernism
- the Enlightenment
- Romanticism
Answer and explanation
Romanticism
Romanticism (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Keats, Mary Shelley) prized nature, imagination, feeling, and the sublime, defining itself against Enlightenment rationalism and industrial society.