What does the sublime, or the absence of sublimity, mean during a quarantine? As of late, following the onset of the global pandemic that is COVID-19, many Americans are choosing, hopefully, to stay within their households cooped up avoiding nature and avoiding exploration in fear of (what feels like) a bio war-zone outside. Or rather, they fear the impending doom feeling associated with what seems like an inevitable contraction of this virus. Now that I am unable to seek out the sublime in my everyday life, I have come to realize on a more personal level how capturing the sublimity of nature in the “primary form” of experience is vastly more significant than the “secondary form” of rhetoric than I previously thought as “many English writers on the sublime agreed” before me (Nye 2). Indeed, experiencing the primary sublime is an American privilege taken for granted until we are locked within the confines of our homes reading old National Geographic copies in attempts to recreate the feeling of utter astonishment when viewing nature first hand. As Dr. Sample mentioned in his YouTube video regarding Kant’s dynamic sublime, we are even unable to experience the short, electric spurt of fear caused by an enveloping spring thunderstorm because we are within the safety of our households for who knows how long. Something cannot be truly sublime without a little fear.
Additionally, due to the confinement engendered by this pandemic, not even the technologically sublime fills the void created by the absence of experiencing primary sublimity; the senses are stunted. While playing Sea and Spar Between by Nick Montfort and Stephanie Strickland, even with the enormous number of the fish in the sea, 225 trillion, and therefore the enormous number of potential poems created by words from only two works of literature, it was clear to me that it does not pass the Longinus sublime test that Nye draws out: a work “cannot be an example of true sublimity—certainly not unless it can outlive a single hearing. For a piece is only truly great if it can stand up to repeated examination” (Nye, quoting Longinus, 3). Sea and Spar lost its intensity after one view. Therefore, I argue that human beings, as figments of nature, are inherently programmed to connect with the physical manifestations of nature’s majesty, and while we create computer programs that seek to simulate that exact majesty found within nature, our simulations fail to compare to the emotional response that occurs when viewing an indescribable landscape.
This idea that no experience compares to that of the primary, visceral experience of observing the sublime in the flesh is reaffirmed by what I am calling the resulting insignificance of trying to articulate or capture the ultimate experience and its effect on the viewer. For example, I am thinking specifically about my time in the Grand Canyon, or any other sublime geography such as amongst the Tetons or under a perfect sunset, and I try to capture the sublimity of the scene with a photo or with a description, and it never turns out as good as the real thing. Thus, I believe when trying to make artificial the connection between one natural being (us) to another natural being (forces of nature) the resulting product is necessarily insignificant. It is insignificant because that connection is so personal it cannot be replicated or reproduced. Indeed, it is simply “not only visual but also visceral” (Nye 12).