Romantic literature focuses on manifestations of and the attainment of sublime. This notion, which asserts gender upon subject as well as object, pervades all historical learning. The idea can be subverted both in conscious and unconscious ways by literature from the period. William Wordsworth’s poetic concept of sublimity, Charlotte Smith’s, has had a fractured effect on both the constructed nature and the sublime.
The sublime is commonly equated with’male’ traits, because it is caught up in the’masculine-feminine” dialectic. The sublime “…is the most powerful feeling of terror or pain …[ and a sense or height …”(Trott72. In a philosophical setting “…Kant describes the sublime as “a presentation or indeterminate concept about reason”. (Trott 72). These definitions may look like they are simply denoting a signifier, but they reveal the agenda behind these distinctions. Sublimity is associated in Romantic culture with the masculine qualities of reason, logic, and rationality. The tasks of grappling with abstractions or feeling of intellectual terror are male, while the female must focus on concrete issues. William Wordsworth’s thoughts on the sublime reflect a stereotypically male view of this artistic construct. Tintern Abbey defines the sublime as something the speaker could not experience as a young person, without being educated in rationality. His inability to appreciate or perceive this quality in nature is due to “The coarser pleasures of…boyish days,/And their glad animal movements…”(Wordsworth 73-74). This inability to appreciate the beauty of nature is best compared to his youth. Because it lacks the’masculine trait of reason, his feverish pleasure is dismissed. Once the speaker learns to reason, the natural world becomes a template for abstraction and on it he places “A motion and a spirit, that impels/ All thinking things, all objects of thought…”(Wordsworth 100-101). The text makes an obvious masculine figure that functions as the sublime. This “strange spirit” affects only the men of society and those who are involved in their affairs. The speaker looks to “…in lonely places, and’mid /of towns and cities In hours of weariness [for] feeling sweet,/ Feeled in the blood, and felt all the way through the heart …”(Wordsworth 26-28. The speaker often ponders the moments when he was exhausted by urban life. These thoughts reenergize and restore the’masculine’ faculties. This doesn’t leave room for a discourse on the femininity or sublime. Females would have to be able to perceive the sublime. Wordsworth’s textual transcendent would seem to contain only the’male’ or’masculine.
This text is gendered beyond its explicit notions about sublimity. The speaker is seeking solace in his memories, but when he does, “…sensations become sweet. These feelings are usually associated with passion, effusive emotion, and rationality. In Romantic thought, the sublime pleasure is called ‘feminine. This contradiction is obvious as this text also asserts sublimity’s’masculinity. The speaker’s sister shares in the knowledge of the sublime, but the feminine continues its intrusion upon it. She is able to begin to experience it because the male speaker and his sister share “The mind that is within [them]…”(Wordsworth 126). This could either mean that the male is able to have a feminine mind, or vice-versa. In either case, gender is no longer an essential aspect of physical reality. It is also possible to find the sublime in the feminine. The speaker declares “…Nature never betrayed/ The heart that loved her …”(Wordsworth 122-123. Female is the entity that actually inspires the sublime. This is paradoxical, considering that sublimity is the only thing that is rational. “Tintern Abbey,” which simultaneously affirms and negates the sublime as an’masculine construct”, reveals that Romantic sublimity is also broken down.
Charlotte Smith uses the masculine concept of the sublime to create her texts. She attempts to reimagine the sublime through a feminist perspective. Her texts do not contain a sublime of spiritual reflection or spiritual progress. It is merely the burden of rationality in a place and time that doesn’t recognize its owner. It is a subversion both of the sublime and the gender. “To Night” is a description of the sublime that the speaker does not enjoy. The text conveys a sense that the feminine sublime is not without perceptive difficulty. It serves to protect women in Romantic times from the preconceived notions about gender that keep them inside the day. It is notable that the speaker, presumably a female, does not respond emotionally to this encounter, which further contradicts accepted notions of the feminine’. “Written in Middleton’s Church-Yard in Sussex” describes a scene in the Church-Yard where the sea has eroded the cemetery wall and the bodies have washed into a sea. The speaker is “….doom’d-by life’s long, stormy opprest/ To envy them in their gloomy repose” (Smith 14-15). The sublime is again liberating, but in a very abstract and hopeless way. This oppositional approach is in direct contradiction to the conventional view of sublimity. Smith’s manipulations of this concept are a basis for more ‘feminine space.
Smith’s texts also contain the male in an unusual form that breaks down both sublimity as well as’masculinity’. “Written in the Close of Spring” addresses the dominance of males over women. This is referring to the husband “…tyrant passionate, and corrosive Smith 11) as damaging to the wife. This removes any semblance of rationality, which was deemed’masculine, and replaces them with raw emotion. This text doesn’t directly address the sublime but it does challenge cultural norms regarding gendered characteristics. The Sea View, which is in a similar vein but more relevant, explains how “…man destroys Heaven’s glory works with blood! The male destroys the sublime and its ability of infusing reason upon him. Smith’s text is notable for its powerful inversion of gender. Because battle is the only dominion of males it is also conflated to the irrationality that is usually assigned to females. Smith’s texts challenge the idea of sublimity as well as gender in a way that makes it impossible to say either has any essence. The results that are fragmented show only the inconsistent and arbitrary natures of the constructs.
Wordsworth’s use of gender and sublimity in Smith’s text exposes their lack of continuity and causes them to become stale. Though both poets’ works convey ideas about the gendered transcendent, this doesn’t mean that they are not worthy of critical analysis. All the texts that were considered examined the sublime in terms of both’masculine ‘and ‘feminine’and found it to be neither. Both the notions of ‘feminine and’masculine are disregarded and given a meaningless function. The Romantic society’s fetishization can thus be considered a tool to maintain male superiority over women. As a ghost of socially constructed genders, the sublime continues to exist in the present and beyond. These concepts must be constantly decentered to stop the arbitrary essentialist views of the past from remaining in the cultural consciousness.
Works cited
Smith, Charlotte. “The Sea View.” “Tonight.” “Written at The Close of Spring.” “Written by Charlotte Smith.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature Volume D The Romantic Period. W. W. Norton published a book in New York in 2005. Print.
Trott, Nicola. “The Picturesque and Beautiful and Sublime” Companion to Romanticism (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture). Ed. Duncan Wu is the name of the person. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Blackwell Limited 1999. Print.
Wordsworth, William. “Tintern Abbey.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Volume B, The Romantic Period. W. W. Norton published a work in 2005 in New York.
