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
2 ATTILA DEBRECZENI peine, un plaisir qui vient de la peine. A l'occasion d'un objet grand, le désert, une montagne, une pyramide, ou trés puissant, une tempéte sur l'océan, l'éruption d'un volcan, s'éveille l'idée d'un absolu, qui ne peut qu'étre pensée et doit rester sans intuition sensible, comme une Idée de la raison. La faculté de présentation, l'imagination, échoue ä fournir une représentation convenable de cette Idée. [...] Ce déréglage des facultés entre elles donne lieu ä l'extréme tension (P agitation, dit [Kant]) qui caractérise la pathos du sublime ä la différence du calme sentiment du beau." 4 As we know, the problem of expression and representation is not a crucial element of the intellectual world of Kant. Lyotard's idea that "L'avant-gardisme est ainsi en germe dans l'esthetique kantienne de sublime" 5, therefore, can be considered strong extrapolation. Scholars' postmodern interest in the notion of the sublime has enduced big development in typical historical research as well: several papers and volumes of essays were published under this subject matter: studies on the relationship between the sublime and painting were published in New 'Literary History (1985); the temporal dimensions of the concept were focussed on in Revue d'Histoire bitteraire de la France in 1986 from antique writers to the XXth century; while Merkur highlighted the sublime and modernity, the sublime and politics in 1989. A special 1995 issue of Enigma dealt with the notion of the sublime publishing relevant papers by Lyotard and Marc Richir in Hungarian for the first time. 2 Period or Discourse? Basic critical works dealing with the XVII—XVIIIth century history of the sublime, such as monographs by Samuel Holt Monk' and Théodore A. Litman' aimed at analysing periods of the development of the concept. On the other hand, the recent English and French literature I know mosdy agrees on describing various discourses of the sublime while accepting the existence of historical metamorphoses. This is due to the fact that the concept is regarded to have uncertain outlines, ones 4 "Le sublime et l'avant-garde," in op. cit., 109-110; cf. "Aprés le sublime, état de l'esthetique," in op. cit., 147-155; Bertalan Pethó, Postmodern , Budapest, 1992, 106-108, 291-296, 296-298. 5 "Le sublime et l'avant-garde," in op. cit., 110. 6 The Sublime. A Study of Critical Theories in XI'Ill-century England, The University of Michigan Press, 1960. 7 Le sublime en France (1660-1714), Paris, 1971.
