{"id":16,"date":"2020-01-01T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/waxwing.ltd\/?p=16"},"modified":"2023-02-05T07:52:51","modified_gmt":"2023-02-05T15:52:51","slug":"hawk-roosting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/waxwing.ltd\/?p=16","title":{"rendered":"The Sublime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite pain and danger, that is to say whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror is a source of the sublime…it is productive of the strongest emotions which the mind is capable of feeling.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, <\/em>1757<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

[While for earlier writers] the sublime is really a superior form of the beautiful, for Burke the two ideas are opposed and mutually exclusive. Burke starts from Longinus’ view that the sublime produces a violent effect but takes it much further in maintaining that the degree of violence is a measure for the value of the emotion….as for Longinus, the passion aroused by the sublime is astonishment, but Burke defines more precisely the qualities which go to arouse it: terror, obscurity, power, vastness, infinity, difficulty, magnificence, and darkness.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Anthony Blunt, The Art of William Blake<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawk Roosting<\/strong>
Ted Hughes<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The convenience of the high trees!
The air’s buoyancy and the sun’s ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth’s face upward for my inspection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly \u2013
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1960<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\n
Job’s Sons and Daughters Destroyed, <\/em>William Blake, 1825<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite pain and danger, that is to say whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror is a source of the sublime…it is productive of the strongest emotions which the mind is capable of feeling. \u2014…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-the-sublime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/waxwing.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/waxwing.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/waxwing.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waxwing.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waxwing.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/waxwing.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67,"href":"https:\/\/waxwing.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions\/67"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/waxwing.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waxwing.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waxwing.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}