The Sublime: In Alchemy, Aesthetics and Psychoanalysis

Abstract

A layman's lexicon of psychoanalytic terms will ordinarily include sublimation and subliminal. The layman will recognize that both words are related to sublime and will sense that sublimation-like the word sublime-has something to do with up, and that subliminal, oddly, has something to do with downunlike the word sublime. Sublimation has a number of definitions, generally denoting either elevation to a higher state or rank, or transmutation into a higher or purer condition; similar meanings attach to sublime: that which is lofty or elevated. Subliminal, on the other hand, was introduced into English in the late nineteenth century to translate the German term unter der Schwelle: the threshold (of consciousness). The standard etymologies for sublime and subliminal reinforce the absolute contradiction of their meaning while failing to clarify that contradiction. According to the Oxford English Dictionary,' both words derive from subplus limin (alternately limen). But in the case of subliminal, the Latin roots form below the threshold, while, in the case of sublime and all its derivatives, the Latin roots, qualified with a probably, give us up to the lintel. From this we are led to infer not only that the Romans had the same term for lintel and threshold but also that the civilization which invented the arch had one word to mean both down and up. Our investigations into the etymologies of words derived from suband limin (limen) have revealed alternative sources for these words and, in tracing the uses of sublime in all its forms, we have discovered reflections of significant shifts in cultural attitudes from the fifteenth century to the present.