Chasing the Sublime

A journey to White Moor stone circle, Dartmoor. 

‘The sublime is in turn of different sorts. The feeling of it is sometimes accompanied with some dread or even melancholy, in some cases merely with quiet admiration and in yet others with a beauty spread over a sublime prospect. ‘ (1764, 2:209 Kant)

Yesterday I walked across the moor to Little Hound Tor and White Moor stone circle. Along the way I met a group of people while we navigated our way in opposite directions over two streams . ‘Are you alone? ‘ one of the group asked. I thought it was pretty obvious I was, there’s no where to hide out there, and no one else here, then I wondered if she could see the moorland spirits furtively following me, but disappearing whenever I looked behind.

If it wasn’t for the wind I would think I was on the moon or some other distant planet. The landscape is vast, barren and lonely at this time of year. The peak of every hill appears to be closer than it is. The land seems to expand when you are about to reach the next slope. 

I’ve been exploring the Romantic sublime in the landscape, and according to 18th century philosopher Edmund Burke the sublime can be not only awesome but also terrifying. He writes:

‘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. ‘  (1757 , p.53)

Of terror he writes: