Romantic literature focuses on manifestations and attainment. It is the notion of gender that asserts subject and object on both subjects and objects. It pervades all historical research. The idea can be subverted in conscious and unconscious ways by literature from the period, despite this fetishization. William Wordsworth’s poetic concept of sublimity, Charlotte Smith’s, has had a fractured effect on both the constructed nature and the sublime.
The sublime is commonly conflated in stereotypically masculine terms with’male’ traits. The sublime “…is the solemnity of a single person…the stronger feelings of terror …[and] an elation of height or loftiness …”(Trott72. The sublime is a presentational of an indeterminate conception of reason. “…Kant uses this metaphor to explain it. These definitions, while they may seem to be merely denoting the signifier at first glance, they reveal the true purpose of these distinctions. Sublimity is associated in Romantic culture with the male characteristics of reason, logic, and rationality. The males are able to grapple with abstractions and feel of intellectual terror, while the female is left to concrete matters. William Wordsworth’s thoughts on the sublime reflect a stereotypically masculine notion of this artistic construct. Tintern Abbey refers to the sublime as something that the speaker, a young man not trained in rationality, has never experienced. His inability to appreciate or perceive this quality in nature is due to “The coarser pleasures of…boyish days,/And their glad animal movements…”(Wordsworth 73-74). This inability to appreciate the beauty of nature is best compared to his youth. Because it lacks the’masculine trait of reason, his feverish pleasure is dismissed. Once the speaker learns to reason, the natural world becomes a template for abstraction and on it he places “A motion and a spirit, that impels/ All thinking things, all objects of thought…”(Wordsworth 100-101). The text makes an obvious masculine figure that functions as the sublime. This “soul” is only for males and those who are involved in society’s affairs. The speaker looks to “…in lonely places, and’mid /of towns and cities In hours weariness [for] feeling sweet,/ Feeled in the blood, and felt all the way through the heart …”(Wordsworth25-28 The speaker is tired of the urban grind and contemplates how he came across the sublime. These experiences invigorate and replenish his’masculine,’ and can be a source of inspiration. This does not allow for a discussion on the femininity and sublime. That would mean that females could have the mental faculties to perceive it. Wordsworth’s textual transcendent would seem to contain only the’male’ or’masculine.
This text is gendered beyond its explicit notions about sublimity. The speaker is seeking solace in his memories, but when he does, “…sensations become sweet. These feelings would be more commonly associated with passion or effusive emotion than rationality. The Romantic paradigm calls the sublime pleasure ‘feminine. This contradiction is obvious as the text also asserts sublimity’s’masculinity. It is still possible for the feminine to take over the text’s sublime by allowing his sister to be a part of its knowledge. She is able to begin to experience it because the male speaker and his sister share “The mind that is within [them]…”(Wordsworth 126). This could be taken to mean that the male has a ‘feminine mind’ or vice versa. In either case, gender is no longer an essential aspect of physical reality. It is also possible to find the sublime in the feminine. The speaker declares “…Nature never betrayed/ The heart that loved her …”(Wordsworth 122-123. Female is the entity that actually inspires the sublime. This is paradoxical, considering that sublimity is the only thing that is rational. “Tintern Abbey,” which simultaneously affirms and negates the sublime as an’masculine construct”, reveals that Romantic sublimity is also broken down.
Charlotte Smith’s texts take the concept and meaning of the sublime, as well as the male poets’ ideas, and try to redefine the sublime through a feminist perspective. Her texts do not contain a sublime of spiritual reflection or spiritual progress. It is merely the burden of rationality in a place and time that doesn’t recognize its owner. It is a subversion both of the sublime and the gender. “To Night” is a description of the sublime that the speaker experiences without enjoying it. The text is full of downtrodden rationality. It reveals that even though the ‘feminine’ sublime may seem simple, it has great perceptive difficulty. It serves to protect women in Romantic times from the preconceived notions about gender, which keep them inside the day. It is notable that the speaker, presumably a female, does not respond emotionally to this encounter, which further contradicts accepted notions of the feminine’. “Written by the Church-Yard of Middleton in Sussex”, this is a horrifying example of the sublime. The sublime can again be liberating but this time in an abstract way. This oppositional approach is in direct contradiction to the traditional view on sublimity. Smith’s manipulating of this conceptually significant concept gives rise to more ‘feminine.’
Smith’s texts also contain the male in an unusual form that breaks down both sublimity as well as’masculinity’. “Written in the Close of Spring” addresses the dominance of male over feminine. It refers “…tyrant passionate, and corrosive Smith 11) as damaging to the wife. This removes rationality’s role as a’masculine quality’ and replaces them with raw emotion. This text doesn’t directly address the sublime but it does challenge cultural norms regarding gendered characteristics. The Sea View, which is in a similar vein but more pertinent, explains how “…man corrupts Heaven’s glory works with blood! (Smith 15,). The male is unable to see the sublime or its ability to infuse reason on him, so he ruins it with his violent passion. Smith’s text is notable for its powerful inversion of gender. Because battle is the only dominion of males it is also conflated to the irrationality that is usually assigned to females. Smith’s texts challenge the idea of sublimity as well as gender in a way that makes it impossible to say either has any essence. The results that are fragmented show only the inaccuracy and arbitrariness of the constructs.
Wordsworth’s use of gender and sublimity in Smith’s text exposes their lack of continuity and causes them to become stale. The poems of both poets transmit ideas about the gendered sublime, which make them impossible to analyze, but this does not mean that they lack critical merit. All texts that are considered consider the sublime as both ‘feminine and’masculine’. The concepts of feminine and masculine are also shown to have been distorted. The Romantic society’s fetishization can thus be described as an attempt to make the male superior to the female. As a ghost of socially constructed genders, the sublime continues to exist in the present and beyond. These notions must be continuously decentered to avoid the arbitrary and essentialist ideas of past being retained in cultural consciousness.
Works citées
Smith, Charlotte. “The Sea View.” “Tonight.” “Written at The Close of Spring.” “Written by Charlotte Smith.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature Volume D The Romantic Period. W. W. Norton published New York in 2005. Print.
Trott, Nicola. “The Picturesque and Beautiful and Sublime” Companion to Romanticism (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture). Ed. Wu was the name of Duncan. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Blackwell Limited 1999. Print.
Wordsworth, William. “Tintern Abbey.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Volume B, The Romantic Period. W. W. Norton published the book in New York in 2005.
