Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature's monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere.
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As to Don Juan, confess that it is the sublime of that there sort of writing; it may be bawdy, but is it not good English? It may be profligate, but is it not life, is it not the thing? Could any man have written it who has not lived in the world? and tooled in a post-chaise? in a hackney coach? in a Gondola? against a wall? in a court carriage? in a vis a vis? on a table? and under it?
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Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature's monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzy...
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While I know that the beautiful, the spiritual, and the sublime are today suspect, I have begun to stop resisting the constant urge to deny that beauty has a valid right to exist in contemporary art.
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As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.
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The musician is perhaps the most modest of animals, but he is also the proudest. It is he who invented the sublime art of ruining poetry.
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There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
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From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.
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The novel avoids the sublime and seeks out the interesting.
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