Sublime in the aesthetics of trauma

Abstract

The subject of this article is the concept of sublime. The author examines which transformations has experiences the aesthetic theory of sublime since the XVIII century. In the context of aesthetics of trauma, sublime is a specific form of aesthetical experience that emerges in the context of encountering traumatic experience of the history, where the key concomitant affect is horror. The forms of sublime, associated with encountering the historical trauma, are immeasurable by their influence, as the scales of catastrophe cannot be assessed rationally, and the experience of historical violence discredits the possibility of subjective routine. Research methodology is structured on the philosophical-aesthetic approach. Which is based on analysis of the concepts of sublime and negative sublime. The author comes to the conclusion that sublime in the XX century experiences crisis related to reconsideration of the modernistic values. However, discipline associate with the aesthetic reconsideration of traumatic historical events – the aesthetics of trauma, rehabilitates the concept of sublime, because representation of the traumatic through referring to sublime, opens an opportunity to comprehend the traumatic experience and overcome it.