Abstract
THE KINSHIP BETWEEN DEFOE S NOVELS and the aesthetic of the sublime is not an obscure one. Robinson Crusoe and A Journal of the Plague Year both testify to their author's fascination with the power of natural catastrophes, and Maximillian Novak has observed that in this respect they anticipate such popular examples of the sublime as Thomson's The Seasons and the theatrical spectacles of Philip James de Loutherbourg.' Yet the sublime is more than just a taste for cataclysmic events; indeed, its ambiguities are a major theme of eighteenth-century writers. And while Defoe showed little interest in the kind of aesthetic speculation that intrigued so many other major figures of his era, Robinson Crusoe and A Journal of the Plague Year exhibit some striking parallels with the reflections of his contemporaries, which underline the larger cultural significance of their ideas. More specifically, I will suggest that these two narratives reveal a social and political dimension of the sublime that has too often been ignored in recent discussions. Perhaps the most prominent characteristic of the sublime moments in Defoe's narratives is fear; however, if the association of fear with
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