Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 3. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 29)

Attila Debreceni: The Notion of the "Sublime" in Contemporary English, French and Hungarian Literary Criticism

TI IE NOTION OF THE "SUBLIME' 5 philosophique et dramatique. Ces discours, nous avons tenté de les analyser comme autant d'entités permeables sans doute l'une ä l'autre, mais néanmoins closes sur elle-méme et investies d'une cohérence que nous nous sommes attaché ä mettre en relief."

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6 Dominique PeyracheLeborgne achieves the same result on her own when she says: "Débordant les textes théoriques sur l'art pour informer des poétiques et des mythologies personelles, le sublime fonctionne, nous semble-t-il, á trois niveaux: il reléve d'une métaphysique et d'une philosophic de l'art; il peut étre un code implicite, un axe thématique ou idéologique propre ä un univers imaginaire; il participe enfin ä l'histoire des idées."

1' The notion of the sublime is divided in the various discourses, and it unites elements of the various discourses from another point of view. It is associated with other theories in the history of aesthetics: the notion of the sublime inevitably arises during the analysis of the notion of genius, creative imagination, originality etc. as can be observed in works by Roland Mortier, James Engell, Georges Gusdorf, Michel Delon and others.

1" Summerizing monographs by René Wellek, Meyer Howard Abrams and Jacques Chouillet treat it in the very same context.

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; 3 National Variants and Ranges of Interpretation The works mentioned above can be divided into two markedly distinct groups by reason of the fact that they approach the period analysed (the second half of the XVIIIth century) from the point of view of romanticism (perhaps preromanticism) or classicism (neoclassicism). I cannot touch upon the problem of this conceptual dichotomy and interpretation of literary period, which is generally represented by the differences in the traditions of interpretation in France and England as 1

6 Du Sublime (De Boileau á Schillerj, Strasbourg, 1997, 165. 1

7 La poétique du sublime de la fin des Lumiéres au romantisme; Paris, 1997, 14. 1

8 Roland Mortier, L 'originalité: Une nouvelle catégorie esthétique au Steele des Lumiéres.; Geneve, 1982; James Engell, The Creative imagination. Enlightenment to Romanticism, Harvard University Press, 1981; Georges Gusdorf, Fondements du savoir romantique, Paris, 1982; Michel Delon, L'idée d'énergie au toumant des Lumiéres (1770-1820), Paris, 1988. 1

9 René Wellek, A History of Modern Criticism: 1750-1950 I. The I^ater Eighteenth Century, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955; Meyer Howard Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition, Oxford, 1953; Jacques Chouillet, L'Esthétique des Lumiéres, Paris, 1974.