A fascinating essay. And one I will have to spend some time thinking about. I am relatively ignorant of Schiller. And this provides an excellent way in for me. Certainly the relationship between the Good and the Beautiful is very important but also very obscure. My chief concern in this area is that the Beautiful not be confused with the cosmetic. As it so often is in this hideous age. Beauty is never skin-deep but always shines out from the very depths of a beautiful object's being. I tend to forget about the Sublime. Or leave it to one side. But in doing so I am obviously mistaken. Partly it is the very age we live in that is responsible for that. Beauty can be only too easily travestied by cosmesis, but the Sublime always maintains its aloof integrity. What is the relationship between the Beautiful and the Sublime? Isn't this what Rilke is dealing with in his Elegies? Is the truly Beautiful always intimately related to the Sublime? Is that what we miss when we come to the merely cosmetic?
There is another wonderful quote from Schiller where he gives an example of the Sublime in action (I've added it into the body of the essay as well, along with an additional concluding thought).
Schiller takes his example from Homer's Odyssey:
''Beauty in the form of the goddess Calypso has enchanted the valiant son of Ulysses, and, through the power of her charms, she holds him for a long time imprisoned upon her island. For long he believes he is paying homage to an immortal deity, since he lies only in the arms of voluptuousness—but a sublime impression seizes him suddenly in the form of Mentor: He remembers his better destiny, throws himself into the waves, and is free.''
A fascinating essay. And one I will have to spend some time thinking about. I am relatively ignorant of Schiller. And this provides an excellent way in for me. Certainly the relationship between the Good and the Beautiful is very important but also very obscure. My chief concern in this area is that the Beautiful not be confused with the cosmetic. As it so often is in this hideous age. Beauty is never skin-deep but always shines out from the very depths of a beautiful object's being. I tend to forget about the Sublime. Or leave it to one side. But in doing so I am obviously mistaken. Partly it is the very age we live in that is responsible for that. Beauty can be only too easily travestied by cosmesis, but the Sublime always maintains its aloof integrity. What is the relationship between the Beautiful and the Sublime? Isn't this what Rilke is dealing with in his Elegies? Is the truly Beautiful always intimately related to the Sublime? Is that what we miss when we come to the merely cosmetic?
There is another wonderful quote from Schiller where he gives an example of the Sublime in action (I've added it into the body of the essay as well, along with an additional concluding thought).
Schiller takes his example from Homer's Odyssey:
''Beauty in the form of the goddess Calypso has enchanted the valiant son of Ulysses, and, through the power of her charms, she holds him for a long time imprisoned upon her island. For long he believes he is paying homage to an immortal deity, since he lies only in the arms of voluptuousness—but a sublime impression seizes him suddenly in the form of Mentor: He remembers his better destiny, throws himself into the waves, and is free.''