The Sublime

Related to ideas of the great, the awe-inspiring and the overpowering, the sublime has been debated for centuries amongst writers, artists, philosophers and theorists and has become a complex yet crucial concept in many disciplines.

This new edition of The Sublime looks at:

• The legacy of the earliest, classical theories of the sublime through the romantic to the post-modern and avant-garde sublimity
• The major theorists of the sublime such as Longinus, Burke, Kant, Nietzsche, Derrida, Lyotard, Lacan and Žižek, offering critical introductions to each
• The significance of the concept through a range of literary readings including the Old and New testaments, Homer, Milton and writing from the romantic era to the present day
• How the concept of the sublime has affected other art forms such as painting and film, from abstract expressionism to David Lynch’s neo-noir
• The influence of the sublime on recent debates in the fields of ecocriticism, theology, digital humanities, affect theory and psychoanalysis.

Offering historical overviews and explanations this remarkably clear study is essential reading for students of literature, critical and cultural theory.