Gothic Literature | Society, Culture, and the Gothic - Edmund Burke (Essay Date 1757)

EDMUND BURKE (ESSAY DATE 1757)

SOURCE: Burke, Edmund. "Part II: Sections I and II, and Part IV: Sections V, VI, VIII, and IX." In A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. 1757. Fourth edition, pp. 79-131, 197-254. Dublin: Sarah Cotter, 1766.

In the following excerpt from an essay first published in 1757, Burke explains his theory of the connection between the sublime, pain, and terror.

Part II.

SECT. I.

Of the passion caused by the Sublime.

The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor, by consequence, reason on that object which employs...

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