Toward an Ecological Sublime

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Toward an Ecological Sublime

Author(s): Christopher HittSource: New Literary History, Vol. 30, No. 3, Ecocriticism (Summer, 1999), pp. 603-623Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20057557 .

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Toward

an

Ecological

Sublime

Christopher

Hitt

I

In his recent essay "The Trouble with Wilderness," William Cronon

offers

a

provocative critique

of

the

contemporary

inclination

to

idealize wild

nature,

an

inclination

that,

as

he

righdy

notes,

is

largely

indebted

to

the

aesthetic of the

sublime

popularized

by

European

Romanticism.1

Calling

into

question

the

"habits of

thinking

that

flow

from this

complex

cultural construction

called wilderness"

(TW 81),

Cronon

suggests

that

in

the sublime

tradition

nature comes

to

represent

an

enticing

"flight

from

history":

"the

false

hope

of

an

escape

from

responsibility,

the

illusion that

we can

somehow

wipe

clean

the

slate of

our

past

and

return

to

the

tabula

rasa

that

supposedly

existed before

we

began

to leave our marks on the world. The dream of an unworked

natural

landscape

is

very

much

the

fantasy

of

people

who have

never

themselves had

to

work the land

to

make

a

living"

(TW 80).

For

Cronon,

the

fundamental

problem

with

the

concept

of

sublime

wilderness

is

that

it

depends

on

and

reinscribes

the

notion

of

nature's

otherness,

of

the

separation

between the

human

and

nonhuman

realms.

Although

Cronon

supposes

his

environmentally-conscious

readership

will find

his

view

"heretical"

(TW

69),

his

impulse

to

critique

the

sublime

is

hardly

new.

Indeed,

it

has

been

the

overwhelming

tendency

of

literary

criticism

over

the

past

few

decades

to

evaluate

the

aesthetic

of

the

sublime

primarily

as

an

expression

of

asymmetrical

power

relationships:

between

human and

nature,

self and

other,

reader

and

text,

male

and

female,

conqueror

and

oppressed.

Thus,

historically-oriented

critics

such

as

Laura

Doyle

and

Sara

Suleri

have

posited

a

relationship

between

the

ideology

of

the

sublime

and

eighteenth-century

British

imperialism;

the

Marxist

Terry Eagle

ton

has

exposed

the sublime

as an

instrument of

the

bourgeois subject;

and

feminist

critics such

as

Patricia

Yaeger,

Anne

Mellor,

and

Barbara

Claire

Freeman

have

indicted

the

sublime

for

its

endorsement

of

masculine

power.2

Even

those

writing

from less

overtly

political perspectives acknowledge that the discourse of the sublime has

operated

to

confirm the

authority

and

autonomy

of

a

subject

over

and

against

a

threatening

other.

Paul

de

Man,

though

his

eventual

aim

is

to

New

Literary

History,

1999,

30:

603-623







604

NEW

LITERARY

HISTORY

show how such

descriptions

are a function of their

linguistic

structures,

notes

that

in

Kant's formulation

of

the

sublime,

the

imagination

"takes

on

the

form

of

a

reconquered

mastery,

a

reconquered

superiority

over

a

nature

of

which

the

direct

threat is

overcome."3

Responding

to

(but

also

writing

in

the tradition

of)

this

deconstructionist

reading,

Frances

Ferguson

makes

a

similar observation: "the

sublime,"

she

declares,

"establishes

nature

as

the instrument for

the

production

of

individual

ity."4

And

Neil

Hertz,

in

an

essay

informed

by

psychoanalysis,

concludes

that

the

experience

of

the

sublime

can

be

seen

as

a

"strateg[y]

designed

to

consolidate

a

reassuringly operative

notion

of the

self."5

This

brief

sampling

of

scholarship,

while

far

from

exhaustive,

is

generally

represen

tative

of

the

tenor

of

recent

literary

criticism

on

the

sublime.

Still,

as

a

sustained

critique

of

sublimity

from

a

position

of environ

mental

advocacy,

Cronon's

analysis

has

few

precedents.

Perhaps

the

only

literary

critic

to

consider

explicitly

and

at

some

length

the

relationship

between

the

ideology

of the sublime and

our

conception

of the natural

environment

is

Donald

Pease,

writing

in the

mid-1980s,

before

eco

criticism

had

begun

to

crystallize

into

a

coherent

field.

His

essay

"Sublime

Politics"

argues

in

part

that the sublime

as

it

was

understood

in

the nineteenth-century United States served to authorize a policy of

environmental devastation:

"Through

the subtle

turns

of

the

American

sublime,

the liberal

in

taking

axe

and

hammer

to

the

virgin

land

could,

with

childlike

innocence,

proclaim

that

only

through

destruction

of

Nature's

bounty

could he

feel

by

doing

what

nature

commanded

as

if

he

were

truly

in

touch

with nature's

will."6

If

we

accept

Cronon's

premise

that the Romantic

aesthetic of the sublime continues

to

inform

our

present-day conceptions

of

the natural

world,

then

critiques

like

Pease's

would

seem

all

the

more

essential

to

ecocriticism,

a

discourse

that

generally

professes

(along

with,

for

example,

feminist

and Marxist

studies)

a self-conscious interest in its relevance to "real"

contemporary

political

issues.

Yet

ecocritics,

even

those

(few)

who

also

identify

themselves

as

scholars of

British

Romanticism,

have had

surprisingly

little

to

say

about

the sublime.

Jonathan

Bate

makes

virtually

no

mention of

it in his book

Romantic

Ecology:

Wordsworth

and

the Environmental

Tradition;7

likewise

Karl

Kroeber,

in

his

Ecological

Literary

Criticism: Romantic

Imagining

and

the

Biology

of

Mind,

entirely ignores

the sublime

except

to

register

his

complaint

that it is

undeserving

of

the

generous

critical

attention

it

receives:

critics'

"fascination"

with

it,

he

muses

in

a

footnote,

"seems

to

me

another manifestation

of the Cold

War

mentality,

particularly

in

its

excluding

serious consideration

of

beauty."8

This

dismissal

of the

sublime

is

in

fact

consistent with

Cronon's

stance,

a

point

that is

more

clear

in

Kroeber's

protest

that,

"[c]ontrary

to

the

claims of these

en







TOWARD

AN

ECOLOGICAL

SUBLIME

605

thusiasts of

'the

sublime,' romantic poets

at

their best.

.

.

were

neither

seekers after

an

unattainable transcendence

nor

anxiety-ridden

proph

ets

of

nihilism"

(ELC2).

Regardless

of whether

we

accept

Kroeber's

apparent

association of

sublimity

with Cold War

polemicism

and

world-denying

"nihilism,"

the

reluctance of ecocritics

to

engage

literary

representations

of

the sublime

seems even more

like

a

shortcoming

when

we

consider

the

centrality

of

nature's role

in these

representations.

Nature,

indeed,

seems

inextrica

bly

woven

into

the fabric

of

the sublime

as

presented by

its

two most

influential

eighteenth-century

theorists,

Edmund

Burke

and

Immanuel

Kant. Burke, in his

Philosophical Enquiry

into the

Origin of

Our Ideas

of

the

Sublime

and

Beautiful,

describes

the

sublime

experience

in terms

of

predominantly

natural

imagery:

it

"comes

upon

us

in

the

gloomy

forest,

in

the

howling

wilderness,

in

the

form

of

the

lion,

the

tiger,

the

panther,

or

rhinoceros."9

Kant's

Critique

of

Judgment

goes

one

step

further

by

stipulating

the

necessity

of

nature

(or

representations

thereof)

to

the

sublime

experience, granting

that

art

can

evoke

a

feeling

of the

sublime

only

insofar

as

it

recapitulates

nature.10 At

the moment

of

the

sublime,

Kant

writes,

we

"measure

ourselves

against

the

apparent

almightiness

of

nature":

"Bold,

overhanging,

and,

as

it

were,

threatening

rocks,

thunder

clouds

piled

up

the

vault

of

heaven,

borne

along

with

flashes and

peals,

volcanoes

in

all

their

violence

of

destruction,

hurricanes

leaving

desola

tion in their

track,

the

boundless

ocean

rising

with rebellious

force,

the

high

waterfall

of

some

mighty

river,

and

the

like,

make

our

power

of

resistance

of

trifling

moment

in

comparison

with

their

might"

(CJ110).

Thus both

Burke

and

Kant

envision the

sublime

as

a

disorienting

or

overwhelming

confrontation

with

a

natural

object.

It is

this

version

of

the

sublime,

involving

a

dialectic between self

and

nature,

which

is

most

visible

in

the

Romantic

sublime

exemplified

by

the

poetry

of

Wordsworth,

and which Cronon has in mind when he traces the genealogy of our

modern

notions of

wilderness.

It

seems,

then,

that there

has

been

a

scholarly

neglect

on

the

part

of

ecocriticism

to

interrogate

the

discourse of the

sublime.

If

critics

are

right?if

in

fact

the

sublime

encounter

with

the wild

otherness of

nature

has

functioned

to

reinforce

or

ratify

our

estrangement

from

it?then

surely

it

is

important

that

we

try

to

understand

why.

More than

merely

redressing

that

neglect,

however,

I

want

to

argue

that

we

would

be

premature

to

dismiss

wholesale

the

aesthetic

of

sublimity

that

we

have

inherited.

For

although

the

sublime

is

not

without its

ideological

freight,

I am far from convinced that this

ideology

is

fundamentally

or

intrinsically

maleficent. On

the

contrary,

I

believe

the

concept

of

the

sublime

offers

a

unique

opportunity

for

the

realization

of

a

new,

more

responsible

perspective

on

our

relationship

with

the natural

environment.

It

is







606

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

revealing that even Cronon, at moments throughout his essay but

especially

in the

following

passage,

betrays

his

ambivalence about

renouncing

the ideal

of

sublime

nature:

"On

the

one

hand,"

he

begins,

the notion

of

wilderness

is

dangerous

because

it

underwrites

humans'

separateness

from,

and

ultimately

superiority

over,

the natural world.

"On

the other

hand,"

he

continues,

I also think that it is

no

less

crucial for

us

to

recognize

and honor

nonhuman

nature

as

a

world

we

did

not

create,

a

world with

its

own

independent,

nonhuman

reasons

for

being

as

it is. The

autonomy

of nonhuman

nature seems

to me to be an

indispensable

corrective to human

arrogance.

Any

way

of

looking

at nature

that

helps

us

remember?as

wilderness tends

to

do?that the interests

of

people

are not

necessarily

identical

to

those of

every

other

creature

or

of

the

earth

itself is

likely

to

foster

responsible

behavior.

To

the

extent

that wilderness

has served

as

an

important

vehicle

for

articulating deep

moral

values

regarding

our

obligations

and

responsibilities

to

the nonhuman

world,

I

would

not want to

jettison

the contributions it

has

made

to our

culture's

ways

of

thinking

about

nature.

(TW

87;

italics

in

original)

What

are

we

to

make of this

rather

starding

concession? Cronon's

own

answer is essentially to qualify (or clarify) his original claim: "Wilderness

gets

us

into trouble

only

if

we

imagine

that

this

experience

of wonder

and

otherness

is limited

to

the

remote

corners

of

the

planet,

or

that

it

somehow

depends

on

pristine

landscapes

we

ourselves

do

not

inhabit"

(TW

88).

But this

answer

appears

vulnerable

on

both

theoretical

and

practical grounds:

theoretical,

in that it does

indeed

seem

"heretical"

to

recommend

(as

Cronon

proceeds

to

do)

that

a

tree

in

a

garden

be

granted

equal

status

to

a

tree

in

an

ancient

forest.

This

sounds

to

me

like

an

open

door

to

unlimited

clear-cutting.

Practical,

in that

it

seems

extremely

unlikely

that

a

man-made

garden

could

ever

be

capable

of

inspiring

the sense of wonder, awe, and otherness that an

old-growth

forest

could.

Rather,

I

think Cronon's

vacillation

is best

understood

as

instantiating

a

fundamental

incongruity

that

has

always

characterized

the

structure

of

the

sublime,

at

least in its

conventional

versions.

Crudely put,

the

contradiction

of the sublime

is

that

it has tended

to

include

both

humbling

fear and

ennobling

validation

for

the

perceiving

subject.

Ever

since the

eighteenth

century,

critics and

readers

alike

have

generally

paid

more

attention

to

the latter than

to

the former.

But

humility

before

nature

has

consistendy

been

an

elementary

part

of the natural

sublime. Kant

writes

that

in

experiencing

the

sublime

we

perceive

"our

faculty

of

resistance

as

insignificandy

small in

comparison

with

[nature's]

might,"11

recalling

Burke's

statement

that

"we shrink

into

the

minuteness of

our own

nature,







TOWARD

AN

ECOLOGICAL SUBLIME

607

and

are,

in

a

manner,

annihilated"

(PE 68).

Kant

adds

that "the

irresistibil

ity

of the

might

of

nature

forces

upon

us

the

recognition

of

our

physical

helplessness

as

beings

of

nature"

(CJ

111).

Part

of the

sublime

experience,

in

other

words,

is

the realization

that

we are

mortal

creatures,

"beings

of

nature" whose

lives

are

entirely

dependent

on

forces

greater

than

we are.

The

mere

fact

that

humility?which

Kant calls

a

"sublime

temper

of

the mind"

(CJ

114),

and which

we

could

justly

call the

cornerstone

of

any

environmental ethic?is

cited

as a

prerequisite

to

the

sublime

would,

perhaps,

by

itself

suffice

to

justify

a

r??valuation

of

the

current

ecocritical

stance.

That wonder

and

awe are

also

part

of the

package,

to

say nothing of the consequent "admiration" and "respect" cited by both

Burke

(PE

57)

and Kant

(CJ

91),

can

only

enhance the

possibility

that

the

sublime

may,

after

all,

be

worth

saving. My

starting point,

that

is,

for

proposing

a

reconfigured

version

of the

sublime12?an

"ecological

sublime"?is

the

recognition

that the

traditional

natural

sublime,

for

all

its

problems,

involves

what

look

to

us

like ecocentric

principles.

In

imagining

an

ecological

sublime,

we

would

need

to

preserve

these

(and

any

other)

positive

aspects

of

the

conventional sublime

while

identifying

and

critiquing

its

negative

aspects.

In

order

to

do

so,

however,

it is

necessary

to

confront

head-on

the

problem posed by

its

contradictory

structure.

II

Theorists

of the

sublime from

Longinus13

onward

have

conceived of

the sublime

in

oxymoronic

terms.

Burke

had

ample precedent

in

classifying

"delightful

horror"

as

"the

most

genuine

effect,

and

truest

test

of

the

sublime"

(PE

73),

as

did

Kant

in

defining

the

sublime

as

"at

once

a

feeling

of

displeasure

...

and

a

simultaneously awakened pleasure" (CJ

106).

Of

the

eighteenth-century

theorists,

it is

Kant

who

offers what

is

perhaps

the

most

illuminating

(if

deeply problematic)

explanation

of

this

modulation,

and

it is

instructive

for

us

to

examine

his

"Analytic

of

the Sublime"

in

The

Critique

ofJudgment

In

a

well-known

passage,

Kant

writes

that

the

sublime

is

"brought

about

by

the

feeling

of

a

momentary

check

to

the

vital

forces

followed

at

once

by

a

discharge

all

the

more

powerful"

(CJ

91).

This

account

implies

(against

his

use

of

the word

"simultaneously"

above)

that

the

experience

is

diachronic?a

"move

ment

of

the mind"

(CJ

121),

as

he

later

puts

it,

rather

than

an

instantaneous reaction. De Man has commented on the

artificiality

of

Kant's

tendency

throughout

the

Critique

to

narrativize the

sublime

moment

in

this

way;14

yet

artificial

or

not,

this

temporal

model

provides







608

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

a useful heuristic device for a consideration of the

paradoxical

character

of

sublimity.

In

his

study

The Romantic

Sublime,

Thomas Weiskel

elaborates

on

the

"structure

of

Romantic

transcendence"

as

it

is

mapped

out

by

Kant

by

dividing

the

sublime

moment

into three

"phases

or

economic states":

a

normal,

essentially

pre-sublime

stage

in

which

"the

mind

is

in

a

determinate

relation

to

the

object";

then

a

sort

of

rupture

in

which

a

disequilibrium

between

mind

and

object

is

introduced;

and

finally

a

"reactive

phase"

in

which

equilibrium

is

restored.15

Reading

Kant

with

this

structure

in

mind

helps

us

to

isolate

the

moment

of

peripety

in

Kant's narrative?the

moment

when the

"disequilibrium"

of

humility

gives

way

to

a

compensatory

reaction-formation.

In

effect,

it

allows

us

to

salvage

a

good

part

of

Kant's

analytic,

to

avoid

throwing

out

the Kantian

baby

with

the

bathwater.16

According

to

the

Critique,

the

sublime

experience

begins

with the

apprehension

of

a

natural

object

which

the

imagination

is

unable

to

grasp.

The result

is

a

kind

of

cognitive

dissonance,

a

rift between

perception

and

conception.

This

rift

is

then

overcome

by

the

triumphant

emergence

of

reason,

revealing

to

us,

finally,

our

"pre-eminence

over

nature"

("

Ueberlegenheit

?ber

die

Natur")

(qui).

In

Kant,

therefore,

we

see

a

general

trajectory

of the

sublime

that,

as

it

turns

out,

is

characteristic

of

nineteenth-century

literary

representa

tions

of

sublimity.

In

Wordsworth's

The

Prelude,

for

example,

the

poet

claims

to

have

grown

up

"Fostered

alike

by

beauty

and

by

fear,"17

learning

"By

the

impressive

discipline

of

fear,

/

By

pleasure

and

repeated happiness"

(P

1.631-32).

In

this

way,

he

says,

his

sublime

"Haunting"

by

nature

becomes

his

"ministry"

(P

1.494-5).18

What

the

poet ultimately

learns, however,

by

the

end

of The

Prelude

is

"how

the

mind of

man

becomes

/

A

thousand

times

more

beautiful

than the

earth

/

On which he dwells . . .

[and]

of fabric more divine"

(P

13.446

52).

This

is

exemplary

of

what

Keats

(despite having

never seen

The

Prelude)

was

famously

to

call

Wordsworth's

"egotistical

sublime."19

A

remarkably

similar

movement

is

evident

in

a

text

that

reflects

the

transatlantic reach

of

Romanticism,

Emerson's

Nature.

In

one

of

the

most

famous

passages

in

American

literature,

Emerson

reports

"[c]rossing

a

bare

common"

and

feeling "glad

to

the brink

of

fear."

Suddenly

he

is

stopped

in

his

tracks

and

experiences

(to

borrow

Kant's

phrase)

a

"momentary

check

to

the

vital forces": "all

mean

egotism

vanishes.

I

become

a

transparent eyeball;

I

am

nothing."

This

moment

of

self

abnegation,

however,

is

short-lived,

for Emerson

continues,

"I

see

all;

the

currents

of

the Universal

Being

circulate

through

me;

I

am

part

or

particle

of

God."20

Humility

is

thus

transformed

into

self-apotheosis,

validating

the

individual's

dominion

over

the

nonhuman

world:

"Nature







TOWARD AN

ECOLOGICAL

SUBLIME

609

is

thoroughly

mediate.

It is

made

to

serve.

It

receives

the dominion of

man

as

meekly

as

the

ass

on

which

the saviour

rode.

It

offers all its

kingdoms

to

man as

the

raw

material which

he

may

mould

into what is

useful"

(AT 0-51).

These

three

examples

all

depict

the

sublime

experience

as

a

temporal

movement

from

the diminution

to

the

aggrandizement

of the

subject.

Breaking

down

this

process

according

to

Weiskel's

model,

we can

isolate

the

third

stage

as

being

of

concern

to

the ecocritic?the

stage

when,

as

Kant

puts

it,

nature

"sink[s]

into

insignificance

before

the

ideas

of

reason" ("dieNatur als gegen die Ideen der Vernunft.

.

.

verschwindlet]") (CJ

105).

However,

it is

not

sufficient

to

say

that

in

imagining

an

ecological

sublime

we

could

simply

eliminate this

stage.

For if the

experience

were

derailed

prior

to

the

moment

of

"transcendence,"

there would be

no

epiphany,

no

joyful

"lifting

up"

(what

Longinus

would

have

called

hypsous)

of

the

subject.

And

it

seems

to

me

that

to

deprive

the

sublime

of

some

kind

of

revelatory

experience

would be

to

water

it

down,

to

dim its

luster.

I

am not

even sure

that

we

would

be

justified

in

continuing

to

use

the word

"sublime"

in

such

a case.

Ideally,

then,

an

ecological

sublime

would offer

a

new

kind of

transcendence

which would

resist the

traditional

reinscription

of humankind's

supremacy

over nature. But I

am

getting

ahead

of

myself.

My

point

is

that

we can

afford

to

remain

fairly

faithful

to

the

conventional

formulation of the sublime

through

its

first

two

stages.

As I

have

been

implying,

one

of

my

principal assumptions

here

is

that

a

retooled

version

of

an

old

aesthetic

concept,

if

that

is

the

goal,

would

be

more

likely

to

take

root

the

more

closely

it

resembled its

precursor.

I

have

already

indicated

my

agreement

with

William

Cronon's view

that

the

contemporary

attitudes of

Western

culture toward the

natural world

are

indebted

to

the

concept

of

the

sublime,

notwithstanding

Weiskel's

assertion that

it is

a

"moribund

aesthetic"

(RS 6).

If

our

project

is

to

be

one

of

reconfiguration

rather than

of

mere

renaming,

we

must

concede

that the

sublime,

as

elusive and

protean

a

concept

as

it

is,

has

finally

an

essential

structure

which

must

provide

the

framework for

an

updated

model.

Otherwise

we

are

doing

nothing

more

than

putting

an

old

word

on

an

entirely

new

idea. This is

not to

deny

the

historicity

of

the

sublime

or

to

imply

that

we

could

reproduce

it in

its

historical

specificity

if

we

so

wished.

Obviously,

as a

literary

or

aesthetic

term,

it is

mediated

by

impenetrable

layers

of

discourse?cultural,

historical,

linguistic.

Yet

our

inability

to

know it perfectly does not preclude

us

from trying to

understand

it

better.

In

any

case,

I

consider

the

sublime

to

be

a

particular

cultural

and/or

literary expression

of

something

that

is

indeed

universal: human

beings'

encounters

with

a

nonhuman

world

whose

power

ultimately

exceeds







610

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

theirs. The

basic

structural

similarity

of

the

accounts

of

Kant,

Wordsworth,

and Emerson

is

important

less

as a

record of

literary

influence

(Wordsworth

never

read

The

Critique

of

Judgment,

and Emerson

had

not

yet

read

The

Prelude)

than

as a

sign

of

a

certain

consistency

in

the

way

"canonical"

writers

(all

of

course

white,

male,

Euro-American,

and

of

a

particular

economic

class)?who

have

had,

for

better

or

worse,

the

strongest

impact

on

hegemonic

culture?responded

to

and

represented

this universal

experience.

These three

texts

are

among

the

cultural

artifacts

that

helped

define

and refine

a

tradition of

the sublime which

still has relevance today.

The

legacy

of this

tradition

tends

to

be

especially

evident

in

contempo

rary

American

nature

writing.

Annie

Dillard's

Pilgrim

at

Tinker

Creek2?

for

example,

bears

comparison

to

Wordsworth's

Prelude22

in

that

both

docu

ment

an

individual's

process

of

self-discovery through

an

evolving

rela

tionship

with

nature,

which unfolds

"in

eddies

of

separation

and

reunion"

(RS 6).

The

"separation"

for Dillard

reaches

its

peak

in

the

chapter

entided

"Fecundity,"

which

can

be

read

in

the

context

of

the Kantian

sublime. Kant divides

the

sublime into

two

main

categories:

the math

ematical,

which

stupefies

with the

seeming

infinitude

of

number;

and

the

dynamic,

which overwhelms with sheer

physical

presence.

The math

ematical

sublime

abounds

in

"Fecundity,"

as

when the

speaker

contem

plates

the

number

of

"flecks

of

skin"

that

must

be

shed

by

a

"million

million"

rock barnacle

larvae:

"My

brain

is full

of

numbers;

they

swell

and

would

split

my

skull

like

a

shell"

(PTC 170).

But where

the

sublime is

concerned

there is

a

fine

line

between

astonishment

and

horror,

as

Burke

observes23

and

as

Dillard

demonstrates.

Noting

nature's "infinite

variety

of

detail and

the

multiplicity

of

forms,"

she

writes,

"In

this

repetition

of

individuals

is

a

mindless

stutter,

an

imbecilic

fixedness

that

must

be

taken

into

account.

The

driving

force behind all this

fecundity

is

a

terrible

pressure

I

also

must

consider,

the

pressure

of

birth and

growth,

the

pressure

that

splits

the bark of

trees

and

shoots

out

seeds,

that

squeezes

out

the

egg

and bursts

the

pupa,

that

hungers

and

lusts

and

drives

the

creature

relentiessly

toward

its

own

death"

(PTC 164).

This

sublime

moment

prompts

her

to

see

the

world

in

a new

light?or,

to

be

more

accurate,

in

a

new

darkness.

Suddenly,

"the

shadows

are

deeper.

Extravagance

takes

on a

sinister,

wastrel

air"

(PTC

183).

Think

ing

about

the

"million

million" barnacle

larvae,

she

writes:

"Can

I

fancy

that

a

million million

million human infants

are more

real? What if

God

has the same affectionate disregard for barnacles? I don't know if each

barnacle larva

is

unique

and

special,

or

if

people

are

essentially

as

interchangeable

as

bricks"

(PTC

170).

She

is

faced

with

the

unsetding

realization that

human

beings

may

not

be

at

the

center of

the universe.

And

although

she herself

is

in

no

physical

danger,

she

comes

face

to

face







TOWARD

AN

ECOLOGICAL

SUBLIME

611

with her own

mortality:

"I

myself

am not one, but

legion.

And we are all

going

to

die"

(PTC

162).

This is

a

classic

example

of

the Kantian

rupture

between

our

perception

of

phenomena

and the failure

of

our

imagination

to

get

a

handle

on

it.

But its

significance

in

the

context

of

the

ecological

sublime

is

that

it

ultimately yields

a

heightened

understanding.

As

the

chapter

winds

down Dillard

writes,

"I

saw

how freedom

grew

beauty

and

horror from

the

same

live branch"?a line

that

reprises

the familiar

oxymoronic

structure

of

the sublime.24

Continuing,

she

acknowledges

that

her

own

death and

the

death of

a

jellyfish

are

"two

branches

of the

same

creek,

the creek

that

waters

the world.

Its

source

is freedom

and

its network

of

branches is infinite."

Seeing things

now

from

a

broader,

holistic

perspective,

she

accepts

that

death is

simply

the

price

we

pay

for

life. And

to

be

part

of

life

is

to

be

part

of

a

"network"

of

interrelations:

"The

graceful

mockingbird

that

falls

drinks

there

and

sips

in

the

same

drop

a

beauty

that

waters

its

eyes

and

a

death

that

fledges

and

flies.

The

petals

of

tulips

are

flaps

of the

same

doomed

water

that

swells and

hatches

in

the ichneumon's

gut"

(PTC

184).

In

her

apparent

refusal

to

be

tempted by

the

third

stage

of

the

sublime,

Dillard

provides

us

with

an example of a text that gets us closer to a model of ecological

sublimity.

We

must

be

careful,

however,

before

embracing

a sense

of

humility,

mortality,

and

dependence

as

either

a

panacea

for

our

environmental

predicament

or as

the

defining

element

of

an

ecological

sublime. The

difficulty

is

that the

consistent

response

of

Western

civilization

(espe

cially

since

the

scientific

revolution of

the

seventeenth

century)

to

this

recognition

of

vulnerability

has

not

been

eventual

acceptance,

but

dogged

resistance. The

unfathomable

otherness

of

nature unnerves

us,

and

the

idea

that

we

are

somehow

part

of

this alien

entity

shocks

us.

Hence

we

devise

ways

to

circumvent,

deny,

escape,

or

overcome

it.

Such

efforts,

indeed,

constitute the

story

of

the

conventional sublime?a

story

which

describes the validation of

the

individual

through

an

act

of

transcendence

in

which

the external

world

is

domesticated,

conquered,

or

erased.

One of Kant's few

concise

definitions

of the

sublime

provides

an

instructive

example.

He

writes,

"The

sublime

may

be

described

this

way:

It

is

an

object

(of

nature)

the

representation

of which

determines

the mind

to

regard

the

elevation

of

nature

beyond

our

reach

as

equivalent

to

a

presentation

of

ideas"

(CJ

119).

Such

a

description

implies

the

effective

dissolution

of

phenomenal reality

into the

domain

of the

ideal.

As

Weiskel

comments,

the

Kantian

sublime

"implies

the

conversion of

the

outer

world

into

a

symbol

for

the

mind's

relation

to

itself

(RS

85).

Nature

is

reduced

to

a

"mere

nothing,"

to

use

Kant's

phrase,25 leaving only

the

self

in

all

its

glory.







612

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

III

Pondering

this

problem,

one

may

be

tempted

to

conclude

that the

sublime is

not

worth the risk. After

all,

it

depends

on

an

experience

of

hyperbolic

alienation,

a

sense

of the

inexorable otherness of

nature.

Isn't

such

an

attitude

dangerous

to

begin

with?

Environmental

philoso

phy

teaches

us

that

estrangement

from

nature

is

the

problem,

not

the

solution.

Shouldn't

we

endorse

those

concepts

which

foster

harmony

with

the

natural

world?

My

response

is

that

we

most

certainly

should,

as

a

rule, strive to recognize our kinship with nature. At the same time,

however,

it is

my

belief

that

we

will

never

be

able

fully

to

realize this

ideal?not

as

long

as

there

are

mountains

that

tower

over

us,

oceans

that

separate

us,

hurricanes that could

kill

us.

On

an

even more

basic

level,

as

long

as

there

is

an

"I,"

there

will

always

be

an

"other."

Even

if

we

could

change

this

situation,

it

seems to me

unconscionable

that

we

might

want

to

neutralize

completely

nature's

"sublime"

otherness.

Some

ecocritics, indeed,

are

working

from

a

perspective

in

which

the

separate

status

of

nature

is

assumed

and

even

endorsed.

Scott

Slovic,

for

example,

in his book

Seeking

Awareness in American Nature

Writing,

condemns the "facile sense of

harmony,

even

identity,

with one's

surroundings"

that

is

"often ascribed

to

rhapsodic

nature

writing."26

He

writes:

"By

confronting

face-to-face

the

separate

realm

of

nature,

by

becoming

aware

of

its

otherness,

the

writer

implicitly

becomes

more

deeply

aware

of

his

or

her

own

dimensions,

limitations

of

form

and

understanding,

and

processes

of

grappling

with the unknown.

...

It is

only

by

testing

the boundaries

of self

against

an

outside

medium

(such

as

nature)

that

many

writers

manage

to

realize who

they

are

and

what's

what

in

the

world"

(4).

Slovic's

general impulse

seems

sensible

to

me;

and

yet

I

cannot

help feeling apprehensive

about

a

critical

approach

that

appears

to

accept

with

such

acquiescence

the

division

of

subject

and

object?one

which

seems

unabashedly egocentric,

as

the

tide

of

his

book

reflects.

I

think

it

is

worth

asking

whether nature's

otherness

might

be

theorized

in

a

way

which

somehow avoids

this

hierarchical

binary

opposition.

As

it

happens,

the

discourse

of

environmental

philosophy

has

already

begun

to

ask this

question.

Neil Evernden's book

The

Social

Creation

of

Nature

makes

an

important

contribution

to

answering

it.

In

Evernden's

view,

Western

culture's

traditional

conception

of the

physical

world

can

be divided into

two

general categories,

two

"rival Natures":

"nature-as

object,"

and "nature-as-self."27

The former

is

manifestly

dualistic,

posit

ing

humankind

as

being

in control

of

and

responsible

for

the

physical

environment,

which exists

as

an

entirely

separate

entity.

The

latter,

meanwhile,

is

along

the

lines of the

Deep

Ecology

position:

once

we







TOWARD AN

ECOLOGICAL

SUBLIME

613

realize that we are "literal participants in the existence of all

beings,

then

we

will realize

that

to harm nature is

to

harm

ourselves. Nature

is,

then,

an

extended

self,

and

is

entided

to

the

same

concern as

any

other

person"

(SC

101).

Evernden

rejects

both alternatives

on

the

grounds

that

they

"are

not

as

different

as

they

may

seem"?for both

rely

on a

dualism in

which

"the

centrality

of the

perceiving

human

subject

is

apparent"

(SC

101-2).

Thus,

in

the final section of his book

Evernden

proposes

a

different

approach.

He

suggests

an

oudook

which would

decenter

the

subject

and

"liberate"

nature,

leaving

it

outside

the domain

of

mind?neither

as an

object

nor

as

a

"wider

self but

as

a

mysterious,

alien

"divine

chaos"

(SC

120).

This

move

would

involve

seeing

nature

independent

of

any

conceptual categories,

to

"take

seriously

Merleau-Ponty

's

adage:

To

return to

things

themselves is

to return

to

that

world which

precedes

knowledge'"

(SC

110).

Whereas

our

everyday

perception

of

phenomena

is

governed

by

the

strictures of

language

and

reason,

if

nature

is

"accepted

in its

full individuality,

as a

unique

and

astonishing

event,

our

encounter

is

entirely

different,

and is

perhaps

fundamentally religious

in

the

nonecclesiastical

sense.

In

such

instances,

we

experience

what

Rudolf Otto called the 'wholly other': 'that which is quite beyond the

sphere

of the

usual,

the

intelligible,

and

the

familiar,

which

therefore

falls

quite

outside the

limits

of

the

"canny,"

and

is

contrasted

with

it,

filling

the

mind with

blank

wonder and

astonishment'"

(SC

117).

Peter

Reed,

in his

essay

"Man

Apart:

An

Alternative

to

the

Self-Realization

Approach,"28

also

appeals

to

Otto's idea

of

the

"wholly

other"

(with

its

pun

on

the word

"holy")

as a

favorable

alternative

to

our

more

traditional

conceptions

of nature.

In

the face

of

the

holy,

Reed

writes,

"we

stand

dumb,

overcome

by

an

encounter

with

something

that

is

so

obviously

beyond

our

ability

to

capture

in

words"

(MA

58).

Like

Evernden, Reed seeks to

explain

how we

might

accomplish

what would

surely

be

a

neat

trick:

preserving

the

radical

alterity

of

nature

while

resisting

its

objectification

or

reification.

He

goes

on

to

oudine

the

ethical

implications

of this

perspective,

contending

that

its

realization

would

pave

the

way

for

human

beings'

acceptance

of the

intrinsic

value

of

nature

(MA 61-63).

We

may

well

find this

third

way

appealing?not

only

as

a

new

way

of

imagining

our

relationship

with

the

natural

world,

but

also

as

the

final,

crucial

piece

of the

puzzle

in

our

formulation

of

an

ecological

sublime.

Indeed,

in

describing

it

both

Evernden

and

Reed

use

words

that

literary

critics will

recognize

as

belonging

to

the

lexicon

of

the

sublime:

"wonder,"

"awe,"

"mystery,"

"chaos,"

"astonishment."

Nevertheless,

trou

bling

questions

remain.

First,

how

is

the

notion

of

the

"wholly

other"

fundamentally

different

from the

kind of

alienation

we

have

seen

in







614

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

Kant?

The

answer

appears

to

lie

in

its

status

as

something

that is

possible

only

outside the

realm

of

conceptualization.

Reed

emphasizes

that

in

such

an

encounter

with

nature

"there

is

no

room,

no

time,

for

reflection.

We

are

seized

by

the

relationship;

we

cannot

think about

it

as we

would

an

object.

It is

here,

now,

and while

it

lasts,

there

is

only

now.

Since

we

have

no

time

to

ourselves

to

think

about

the

relationship,

there is

never

any

question

of

doubting

its

reality.

...

[It]

is

outside

the

thinker,

not

inside

her

or

his

own

consciousness"

(MA

57;

italics

in

original).

Evernden

would

seem

to

agree:

It

might

be fair

to

say

that

the

experience

of

radical

otherness is

at

the

base

of all

astonishment

or

awe,

all

"numinous"

experience.

It is

that shock of

recognition

that

generates

the

acknowledgment

of

mystery

that

we

can

characterize

as

religious.

Otto

suggests

that "in

the

last

resort

it

relies

on

something

quite

different from

anything

that

can

be

exhaustively

rendered

in

rational

concepts,

namely,

on

the sheer absolute wondrousness

that

transcends

thought,

on

the

mysterium,

presented

in its

pure,

non-rational form.

All

the

glorious

examples

from

nature

speak

very

plainly

in

this sense."

(SC

117)

By

contrast,

the

estrangement

of

subject

and

object

mandated

by

the

Kantian

sublime

depends,

as

a matter

of

course,

on

logos?on

the

emergence

of

what

Kant calls

"reason."

In

the

scenario

that Reed

and

Evernden

envision,

there

can

be

no

subject

or

object,

since

this

very

dualism

is

a

conceptual

construction.

We

have

long

been conditioned

by

structuralist

theory

to

be

skeptical

of the notion

that

an

unmediated

experience

might

be

possible,

that

we

might

step

outside

the

confines

of

language.

Yet

the

discourse of

the

sublime

seems

to

be

predicated

on

something

like

this

possibility.

The

sublime

for

Kant

occurs

in

that

space

in

which

phenomenal

nature

exceeds the capacity of our sensible or cognitive faculties, at that

moment

when

"with

the

advance

of

apprehension

comprehension

becomes

more

difficult

at

every

step

and

soon

attains

its

maximum"

(CJ

99)

P

There

is

a

moment

of

blockage

in

which

conceptualization

fails;

we

are

temporarily

jarred

loose

from

our

linguistic

moorings,

and

because

these

define

our

sense

of

self, it,

too,

is threatened

at

this

moment.

This,

at

any

rate,

constitutes

the second

phase

of the

Kantian

sublime,

before

the

compensatory

third

phase.

It

might

be

accurate

to

describe this

moment

as an

unmediated

experience

of

nature?unmedi

ated,

at

least,

by

conventional

rational

concepts,

and

thus

also

by

a sense

of

"subject"

and

"object."

The discourse of

the

sublime,

in

other

words,

seems

to

offer

a

precedent

for the

Reed-Evernden

model

by

theorizing

the incommensu

rability

between

actual

"nature" and

that which

logos

would

purport

to







TOWARD

AN ECOLOGICAL SUBLIME

615

define

and

contain.

To

repeat

Otto's words

above,

it

"relies

on

some

thing quite

different

from

anything

that

can

be

exhaustively

rendered

in

rational

concepts."

The

symbolic

order,

after

all,

is

a

limited

human

construction

that

never

fully

accounted for

the

wholeness

of

"reality"

in

the first

place.

The sublime

would

seem

to

adumbrate the

ontological

autonomy

of

the

nonhuman

by

forcing

us

to

recognize

this

limitation.

IV

What

I

am

calling

the

ecological

sublime

is

perhaps

most

fully

illustrated

in

Thoreau's

"Ktaadn,"

the

best-known

essay

from

his collec

tion

The

Maine

Woods. "Ktaadn" is

Thoreau's tale of his

trip

to

the

New

England

wilderness

and

ascent

up

mile-high

Mount Katahdin.

Surpris

ingly,

the

emotional climax

of

the

narrative

occurs

not

with

the

author's

triumphant

conquest

of

the

mountain's

summit,

but

on

his

way

down?

after

failing

even

to

make

it

to

the

top.

Traversing

downhill

through

the

"Burnt Lands"

region

of the

woods,

Thoreau's

speaker

experiences

an

epiphany

which

culminates

in

these

famous lines:

What is it

to

be admitted

to a

museum,

to see

a

myriad

of

particular things,

compared

with

being

shown

some

star's

surface,

some

hard

matter

in

its

home

I

stand

in

awe

of

my

body,

this

matter

to

which

I

am

bound

has

become

so

strange

to

me.

I

fear

not

spirits,

ghosts,

of which I

am

one,?that

my

body

might,?but

I

fear

bodies,

I

tremble

to

meet

them.

What is

this Titan

that

has

possession

of

me?

Talk

of

mysteries ?Think

of

our

life

in

nature,?daily

to

be

shown

matter,

to

come

in contact

with

it?rocks,

trees,

wind

on our

cheeks

the

solid earth the

actual world the

common

sensel

Contac?

Contac?

Who

are

we?

where

are

we?

(K 150)

To

understand this

passage

better,

it is

essential that

we

return to

the

speaker's

disappointment

on

Katahdin's

ridge,

for the

two

episodes

are

intimately

related.

The

solitary

ascent

is

a

classic

example

of

the

Burkean

sublime,

as

Ronald

Wesley

Hoag

shows

in

an

essay

on

"Ktaadn."31

For

our

purposes

a

quick

overview of

the

natural

imagery

of

the

scene

will

suffice

to

make

this

point:

there

is

"the

deep

and

narrow

ravine,

sloping

up

to

the

clouds,"

the

"impenetrable

thickets" of

vegetation,

the

mountainside

"a

giant's stairway,"

the

"masses

of

bare

rock,"

the

"bleak

sky,"

a

"dark

and

cavernous

region,"

and

everything

enveloped

by

the

"hostile ranks of clouds" (K 139-40). Thoreau describes the trek as

"scarcely

less

arduous than

Satan's

anciently

through

Chaos"

(K

140);

the

landscape

"savage

and

dreary,"

"wildly

rough,"

and

"desolate"

(K

141);

and

nature

"Vast,

Titanic,

inhuman"

(K

144).







616

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

But

the salient

point

for

Thoreau,

and for

us,

is not so much the

difficulty

of

the

terrain

but

the

very

otherness

of

nature,

in

all

its

rawness

and

brutality.

"I

cannot

pity

nor

fondle

thee

here,"

he

imagines

nature

telling

him,

"but

forever

relendessly

drive

thee

hence

to

where

I

am

kind"

(K 144).

As

he tells

it,

the

experience

renders

him

overwhelmed,

bewildered,

humbled,

and

profoundly

estranged

from the

nature

he

thought

he knew.

And

this

sense

of

the sublime

persists,

at

least

latendy,

into

the later

passage.

As

Thoreau

writes

upon

entering

the

"Burnt

Lands,"

"Perhaps

I most

fully

realized

that this

was

primeval,

untamed,

and forever

un

tameable Nature,

or

whatever

else

men

call

it"

(K 149).

The

word

"nature,"

once

a

familiar

concept,

no

longer

seems

to

apply;

the result

is

a

"collapse"

of the

"linguistic apparatus,"32

a

disjunction

between

res

and

verba.

"It

is the

unfamiliar,"

Evernden

says,

"that shakes

[our]

complacency

and makes

us

doubt

the

adequacy

of conventional

vocabularies"

(SC

132).

Faced

with

the

limitations

of

language,

Thoreau

"can

only

describe

the

scene

before

him in

terms

of

its

denial

of

human

categories"33?that

is,

by saying

what

it is

not

"Here

was

no

man's

garden,

but the

unhandselled

globe.

It

was

not

lawn,

nor

pasture,

nor

mead,

nor

woodland,

nor

lea,

nor

arable,

nor

waste-land.

It

was

the

fresh

and natural surface of the

planet

Earth . . .Man was not to be associated

with

it.

It

was

Matter,

vast,

terrific,?not

his

Mother

Earth that

we

have

heard

of.

.

."

(K149).

David

Robinson observes

that

Thoreau's

recurrent

use

of

the

word

"Matter"

is

important

in

that

it

suggests something

which

is

"beyond

the

power

of

mind

to

project

or

control"

(TK

220).

I

would

add

that

"Matter,"

in

its

relative

generality

and

neutrality

as

a

semiotic

term,

is

about

the

best Thoreau

can

do

with

language

to

denote

the ineffable

"solid

earth,"

the

recalcitrant

"actual world"

that

he

perceives.34

The

"contact"

he

makes

with

the

world

is

wholly

beyond

the

realm

of

language,

reason,

logos.

Max

Oelschlaeger,

in The Idea

of

Wilderness,

writes

that

in

"Ktaadn,"

Thoreau

"denies

the

unquestioned

validity

of

conven

tional

categories,

which

ostensibly

define

the

forest,

animals,

and

all wild

nature.

The

true

meaning

of

the

wilderness,

he

insists,

is rooted

in

the

spirit

of

living

nature

and

in the

relation

of

human consciousness

to

that

world,

not

in human

categorization

or

use

of

both.

. . .

Thoreau

is

revealing

a

presence

concealed

by

language."35

Thoreau's

description

of

the

moment of

"Contact "

with

nature

suggests

a

new

way

of

imagining

"transcendence."

For

this

is

a

kind

of

transcendence?but

not

transcen

dence

of the

physical

world.

Rather, by crossing

the

threshold

of

discursive

conceptualization,

the

speaker

transcends

logos.

Thoreau's

narrative

thus

points

us

toward

a

potential

redefinition

of

the

problem

atic

third

phase

of the

sublime.

In

a

sense,

"Ktaadn"

turns

Critique

of

Judgment

on

its

head:

for whereas

in Kant

the

discovery

of

reason







TOWARD

AN

ECOLOGICAL

SUBLIME

617

abrogates

the natural

world,

in Thoreau the

discovery

of nature abro

gates

reason.

To

be

more

precise,

a

sublime

encounter

with

nature

seems to

have

the

power

to

jolt

us

momentarily

out

of

a

perspective

constructed

by

reason

and

language,

a

perspective

that,

in

modern

Western

culture,

has

rendered

nature mute.

On

a

broader

level,

Thoreau's

reconception

of

the sublime

in

"Ktaadn"

is

relevant

to

ecological

literary

criticism

in

that

it underscores

the

value

of

a

theoretical

approach

that

is

attentive

to

questions

of

language

and

representation?questions

that Lawrence

Buell,

in

The

Environmental

Imagination,

considers

in

his

chapter

entitled

"Represent

ing

the

Environment."

Buell

weighs

the various

options

available

to

ecocritics

in

confronting

the

problem

of

linguistic depictions

of

nature,

given

that "our reconstructions

of

environment

cannot

be other

than

skewed

and

partial"

(?784).

On the

one

hand,

Buell

notes,

an

ecocentric

criticism would

naturally

want

to

emphasize

the

"realness" of the world

as

opposed

to

its

constructedness?a

position

that

seems

to

invite the

privileging

of

a

"realistic"

or

mimetic

form

of

representation.

On

the

other

hand,

"mimesis

itself threatens

nature

by tempting

us

to

accept

cozening

copies

for

the

real

thing"

(?7103).

Buell's

solution is

a

kind of

compromise:

ecocriticism, he

suggests,

should insist on a "dual account

ability

to matter

and

to

discursive

mentation"

(?792),

which

might

entail

demonstrating

(as

he himself

does

in

a

discussion of

Mary

Austin)

how

distortion

and

stylization

can

actually

bring

the reader

closer,

imagina

tively,

to

the

"thing

itself."

Buell's

main

claim

is

convincing;

yet

I

believe

he

understates

the

extent

to

which ecocriticism

might

benefit from

a more

rigorous

and

sustained

engagement

with

critical

theories

that

focus

on

the

instability,

indeterminacy,

and

opacity

of

language.

He

is

correct

in

observing

that

"literary theory

has

been

making

the idea

of

a

literature devoted

to

recuperating

the

factical

environment

seem

quaintiy

untheoretical.

All

major

strains

of

contemporary

literary theory

have

marginalized

literature's referential

dimension"

(?7 86).

However,

in

explaining

ecocritics'

general

resistance

to

theory

as a

backlash

against

this

cli

mate?"it

seems

to

me

more

urgent,

being

more

scandalous

to

current

critical

orthodoxy,

to stress

writerly

interest

in

fidelity

to

the

world

of

objects"

(?7 463)?Buell

seems

to

let

them off

the

hook

too

easily.

I

believe that

ecocriticism would

strengthen

its

theoretical

base

(not

to

mention

its

professional

legitimacy) by

including

more

approaches

that

highlight

the

symbolic, tropological,

and

discursive

dimensions

of

language.

To

the

extent

that

literary

portrayals

of

sublimity

such

as

"Ktaadn"

(or,

I

would

argue,

Shelley's

"Mont

Blanc")

imply

the

limits

of

referentiality against

the

solidity

of

the

real

world,

they

demand

such

a

methodology.







618

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

V

The

rapidly

increasing impact

of

technology

on

the

world

has

only

heightened

the

urgency

of

the

need

to

reconsider the

sublime.

In

an

age

in

which

humankind,

in its

moments

of

hubris,

imagines

that

it

can

ensure

its

own

survival

through technological

means?that it

will

ultimately

win

its

war

with nature?the

sublime

is

more

relevant than

ever

before. The situation

has

changed

dramatically

since the

time of

Romanticism,

when

nature was

often

seen as an

emblem

of

permanence

against the transience of human life. A passage from Byron's Childe

Harold's

Pilgrimage,

which

intersperses

celebrations

of

nature

with

medi

tations

on

the

ruins

of

human

cultures,

nicely

illustrates this differ

ence.36

In

an

apostrophe

to

the

ocean,

hailed

as

"boundless,

endless,

and

sublime,"

Byron

draws

a

contrast

between

the

durability

of the

ocean?

an

"image

of

Eternity"

(IV. 183)?and

the

mortality

of

human

beings,

who

wreak

destruction

upon

themselves:

Man

marks

the earth

with ruin?his

control

Stops

with the

shore;?upon

the

watery

plain

The wrecks are all

thy

deed,

nor doth remain

A

shadow

of

man's

ravage,

save

his

own,

. .

.

His

steps

are not

upon

thy

paths,?thy

fields

Are

not

a

spoil

for

him,?thou

dost

arise

And shake him from

thee;

the

vile

strength

he wields

For Earth's destruction

thou dost

all

despise,

Spurning

him from

thy

bosom

to

the skies?

And send'st him

shivering

in

thy

playful

spray

And

howling,

to

his

Gods,

.

.

.

(IV. 179-80)

Although

we

might regard Byron

as

being

ahead of his

time

in

noting

humans'

capacity

to

effect

"Earth's

destruction,"

I

find this

passage

most

striking

for the

obsolescence

of its sentiment.

In

an

era

of acid rain

and

oil

spills,

man's ruin

no

longer

"Stops

with

the

shore."

Inasmuch

as

these

lines

represent

the old

Romantic

sublime,

it

is indeed

a

"moribund

aesthetic."

If nature's

sublimity

has

traditionally

been defined

in

large

part

by

its

permanence,

its

sovereignty,

its

inviolability,

then

the decline of

this

version

of

the sublime should

be

cause

for

concern.

Undoubtedly,

the

fact that

through technological

advances

we

do

have

more

control

over

nature

than

ever

before

has

contributed

to

the

antiquation

of the

traditional

natural

sublime.

Furthermore,

in

addition

to

altering

funda







TOWARD

AN

ECOLOGICAL

SUBLIME

619

mentally our relationship with the natural world, technology has as

sumed

an

integral

role

in

the

ideology

of the

sublime

as

it

informs

that

relationship.

The

sublime

is

not

disappearing

along

with the

disappear

ance

of

wild

nature;

its

grounds

are

merely

shifting.

This

shift is the

subject

of

Jonathan

Bordo's

essay

"Ecological

Peril,

Modern

Technology,

and

the

Postmodern

Sublime."37

Drawing

on

Jean-Fran?ois

Lyotard's

theory

of the sublime

in

The Postmodern

Condition,

Bordo

notes

that

if the

"postmodern

sublime" is

the

condition

of

being

overwhelmed

by

the

threatening

and

bewildering

effects of

technology,

then

ecological

catastrophe

(as

the result

of

technology)

becomes

a new

source

of the

sublime. That

is,

the sublime

in

this

case

is

evoked

not

by

natural

objects

but

by

their

devastation. Human

beings

still

experience

a

humbling

sense

of

fear and

awe

before

nature,

but

in

this

case?in

contradistinc

tion

to

conventional

accounts

of

the

sublime?the

threat

is

of

their

own

making.

And

worse,

the

danger

is

all

too

real.38

That the threat of

ecocatastrophe

could be

a new

version of

the

sublime

may

at

first

seem

an

innocuous

point.

If

anything,

one

might

argue,

surely

it is

a

good thing

that

we

might

be

so

affected

by

the

gravity

of

the

environmental crisis

to

imagine

that

it

poses

a

threat

to

us

personally. This is similar to the line of reasoning Buell pursues in

advocating

a

rhetoric of

environmental

apocalypticism:

if

we can

be

made

to

imagine

such

a

cataclysm,

then

we

might

be scared into

preventing

the real

thing

(?7280-308).

Yet

the

ideology

of

the

sublime

presents

an

obstacle

to

this solution.

Referring

to

ecocatastrophe,

Bordo

writes,

"It

is

a

grave

and

ironic

paradox

that its

'management'

has

come

to

fall

within

the

province

of

its

cause,

technology"

(EP

172).

In other

words,

we

fancy

that

the

situation

can

be

controlled

by

the

very

thing

that

caused

it

to

spiral

out

of

control

in

the first

place.

In

this

scenario,

technology plays

the role that

reason

plays

for

Kant

in

The

Critique

of

Judgment:

both are called in to save us, in deus ex machina

fashion,

from

a

threatening,

unfathomable

external

force. Kant de

scribes

this

as

a

process

of

"subreption"

in

which

the

power

of

the

threatening

other

is

converted into

our

own

power.

Of

course,

what

we

did

not

realize

was

that

the

power

belonged

to

us

all

along:

the

source

of

the

sublime

was

ultimately

the

same

thing

that

allowed

us

to

emerge

victorious from

the skirmish. Thus

our

reliance

on

technology

to

deliver

us

from crisis is the

familiar

third

stage

of the

sublime in

a new

guise,

a

stage

which

is

supposed

to

end in

a

glorious

conquest.

So

we

wait,

secure

in

the

notion that

a

happy ending

is

guaranteed.

As Bordo

observes,

our

trust

in

technology

thus

takes the form

of

denial,

the

vague

"assurance

that

actions

are

already

being

taken"

(EP

175).

And

in

the

meantime,

things

are

only

getting

worse.

The

technological

solution

is

ultimately

a

dead

end

because,

contrary







620

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

to

Kant,

reason can

never

master

nature.

There

will

always

be

limits

to

our

knowledge,

and

nature

will

always

be,

finally,

impenetrable.

An

ecological

sublime

would

remind

us

of

this lesson

by

restoring

the

wonder,

the

inaccessibility

of

wild

nature.

In

an

age

of

exploitation,

commodification,

and

domination

we

need

awe,

envelopment,

and

transcendence.

We

need,

at

least

occasionally,

to

be confronted

with

the

wild

otherness

of

nature

and

to

be

astonished, enchanted,

humbled

by

it.

Perhaps

it

is

time?while

there is

still

some

wild

nature

left?that

we

discover

an

ecological

sublime.

University

of

Oregon

NOTES

1

William

Cronon,

"The

Trouble

with

Wilderness;

or,

Getting

Back

to

the

Wrong

Nature,"

in

Uncommon

Ground:

Rethinking

the

Human

Place

in

Nature,

ed.

William

Cronon

(New

York,

1996),

pp.

69-90;

hereafter cited

in

text as

TW.

2

Laura

Doyle,

"The

Racial

Sublime,"

in

Romanticism,

Race,

and

Imperial

Culture,

1780

1834,

ed. Alan Richardson

and

Sonia Hofkosh

(Bloomington,

1996),

pp.

15-39;

Sara

Suleri,

The Rhetoric

of

English

India

(Chicago,

1992);

Terry Eagleton,

The

Ideology

of

the

Aesthetic

(Oxford, 1990);

Patricia

Yaeger,

"Toward

a

Female

Sublime,"

in

Gender

and

Theory,

ed.

Linda Kauffman

(New

York,

1989),

pp.

191-212;

Anne

K.

Mellor,

Romanticism

and

Gender

(New

York,

1993);

and Barbara Claire

Freeman,

The Feminine

Sublime: Gender

and

Excess in

Women's Fiction

(Berkeley,

1995).

3 Paul

de

Man,

"Phenomenality

and

Materiality

in

Kant,"

in

The

Textual Sublime:

Deconstruction

and Its

Differences,

ed.

Hugh

J.

Silverman and

Gary

E.

Aylesworth

(Albany,

1990),

p.

103.

4

Frances

Ferguson,

Solitude and

the Sublime

(New

York,

1992),

p.

130.

5 Neil

Hertz,

"The

Notion

of

Blockage

in

the Literature of the

Sublime,"

in

his The

End

of

the

Line:

Essays

on

Psychoanalysis

and the Sublime

(New

York,

1985),

p.

53.

6

Donald

Pease,

"Sublime

Politics,"

in

The

American

Sublime,

ed.

Mary

Arensberg

(Albany,

1986),

p.

46.

7 Jonathan Bate, Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition (New York,

1991).

8 Karl

Kroeber,

Ecological Literary

Criticism:

Romantic

Imagining

and

the

Biology of

Mind

(New

York,

1994),

pp.

173-74n9;

hereafter

cited

in

text

as

ELC.

9

Edmund

Burke,

A

Philosophical

Enquiry

Into the

Origin of

Our

Ideas

of

the

Sublime

and

Beautiful

(1759),

ed.

James

T.

Boulton

(Notre

Dame,

Ind.,

1986),

p.

66;

hereafter

cited

in

text

as

PE. It is

true

that

Burke

devotes

part

5

of

his

treatise

to

the rhetorical sublime?to

the

sublime effect

(and affect)

of

"Words."

But

this section?which

is

relatively

brief

and,

indeed,

reads rather

like

an

afterthought?is

also

anchored

in

nature;

virtually

all

of

Burke's

examples

of sublime

literature describe

scenes

and

images

from the natural

world.

10

Immanuel

Kant,

The

Critique

of Judgment

(1790),

tr.

James

Creed Meredith

(Oxford,

1992);

hereafter cited

in

text

as

CJ.

In

the

introductory

section

to

the second book

of

Critique

of

Judgment,

Kant

writes,

"we

here

confine

our

attention

in

the first instance

to

the

sublime

in

Objects

of

nature,

(that

of

art

being

always

restricted

by

the

conditions

of

an

agreement

with

nature)"

(p.

91).

The

original

reads:

"wir

. . .

hier

zuv?rderst

nur

das

Erhabene

an

Naturobjecten

in

Betrachtung

ziehen,

(da?

der Kunst wird

n?mlich

immer

auf

die

Bedingungen

der

Uebereinstimmung

mit

der Natur

eingeschr?nkt)."







TOWARD AN

ECOLOGICAL

SUBLIME

621

11

I

quote

here from

an

alternate

translation

of The

Critique

of

Judgment,

that

of

J.

H.

Bernard,

in

Critical

Theory

Since

Plato,

ed.

Hazard

Adams,

2nd

rev.

ed.

(New

York,

1992),

p.

390.

12

Other

critics,

especially

those

writing

from

a

feminist

perspective,

have

recently

embarked

upon

this

project

of

"imagining]

a

reconfigured

sublime

metaphysics"

by

"deconstructing

traditional

notions

of

sublimity,"

in the

words

of

Laura

Doyle

("The

Racial

Sublime,"

p.

17).

In

addition

to

Yaeger,

Freeman,

and

Mellor

(see

n.

2

above),

see

also

Yaeger's

"The

Language

of Blood':

Toward

a

Maternal

Sublime,"

Genre,

25

(Spring

1992),

5-24.

13

I

have almost

entirely ignored

Longinus's

Peri

Hypsous

in

this

paper,

in

part

because

its

focus

is

(at

least

overtly)

on

the rhetorical

rather

than

the

natural

sublime;

and

in

part

because, although his role was seminal, his contribution

to

what became the "traditional"

Romantic

sublime

is

largely

subsumed

by

Kant,

Burke,

and

the Romantic

poets.

In

taking

this

position

I

am

following

the

precedent

set

by

earlier criticism

on

the

sublime:

Samuel

Holt

Monk's

The Sublime:

A

Study

of

Critical

Theories

in

XVIII-Century England

(New

York,

1935),

and

Marjorie

Hope

Nicolson's Mountain

Gloom,

Mountain

Glory

(Ithaca,

1959).

For

an

account

that

differs

markedly

from these

and

privileges

the

"Longinian

tradition"

in

the

eighteenth-century

discourse

of the

sublime,

see

the introduction

to

The

Sublime:

A

Reader

in

British

Eighteenth-Century

Aesthetic

Theory,

ed.

Peter

de Bolla and Andrew

Ashfield

(Cambridge,

1996);

as

well

as

de

Bolla's

The Discourse

of

the Sublime:

Readings

in

History,

Aesthetics

and

the

Subject

(London,

1989),

especially

pp.

32-40.

For

a

discussion

which

focuses

more

closely

on

the

text

of

Peri

Hypsous

itself,

see

Neil

Hertz,

"A

Reading

of

Longinus,"

Critical

Inquiry,

9

(1983),

579-96.

14 De Man

posits

that The

Critique

of

Judgment

is less a

"tight

analytical

argument"

than a

"story,

a

dramatized

scene

of

the mind

in

action"

("Phenomenality

and

Materiality

in

Kant,"

p.

104).

Noting

Kant's

tendency

to

anthropomorphize

the faculties

of

"imagina

tion" and

"reason,"

de

Man

concludes,

"We

are

clearly

not

dealing

with mental

categories

but with

tropes

and

the

story

Kant tells

us

is

an

allegorical fairy

tale"

(pp.

104-5).

15

Thomas

Weiskel,

The

Romantic

Sublime: Studies

in

the

Structure

and

Psychology

of

Transcendence

(Baltimore,

1976),

pp.

23-24;

hereafter

cited

in

text

as

RS.

16

I

have

no

particular objection,

from

an

ecocritical

perspective,

to

Kant's

emphasis

on

epistemology

over

ontology.

I

find

plausible

Frances

Ferguson's

view

that

"though

the

Kantian

separation

of the aesthetic

has

repeatedly

been

seen as

an

escapist

attempt

to

make

reality

less

real,

it

seems

to

me

that the Kantian boundaries

achieve

precisely

the

opposite

effect"

(Solitude

and

the

Sublime,

p. 3).

For

a

concise discussion

of Kantian

philosophy

within

the

context

of

ecological

ethics

see

Murray

Bookchin,

"Toward

a

Philosophy

of

Nature:

The Bases

for

an

Ecological

Ethics,"

in

Deep Ecology,

ed.

Michael

Tobias

(San

Diego,

1985),

pp.

213-39.

17 William

Wordsworth,

The

Prelude

(1805

ed.,

bk.

1,

1.306)

in

The

Prelude:

1799,

1805,

1850,

ed.

Jonathan

Wordsworth,

M.

H.

Abrams,

and

Steven

Gill

(New

York,

1979).

Hereafter

cited in

text as

P

by

book

and

line

number.

18

For

a

delineation

of

some

of

the

similarities between

Kant's

sublime and

Wordsworth's

Prelude,

see

Eve

Walsh

Stoddard,

"Flashes of

the

Invisible

World:

Reading

The

Pr?lude

in

the

Context

of the

Kantian

Sublime,"

in

Wordsworth

Circle,

16.1

(1985),

32-37.

19

John

Keats,

letter

to

Richard

Woodhouse,

27 October

1818,

in

The

Selected Letters

of

John

Keats,

ed. Lionel

Trilling

(New

York,

1951),

p.

152.

20 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (Boston, 1985), p. 13; hereafter

cited

in

text

as

N.

21

Annie

Dillard,

Pilgrim

at

Tinker

Creek

(New

York,

1974);

hereafter

cited

in

text

as

PTC.

22

Sandra Humble

Johnson's

The

Space

Between:

Literary

Epiphany

in

the Work

of

Annie

Dillard

(London

and

Kent, Oh.,

1992)

features

occasional

comparisons

between







622

NEW

LITERARY

HISTORY

Wordsworth's

epiphanic "spots

of

time" and Dillard's

epiphanies

in

such

works

as

Pilgrim

at

Tinker

Creek and

Holy

the

Firm.

Johnson

considers the

experience

of

the

sublime

to

be

one

of five

"types"

of "illuminated

moments,"

the

other

four

being

"the

mystical

experience,

the

conversion,

the

vision,

and

the

epiphany" (p.

6).

23

Burke

writes,

"astonishment is

that

state

of

the

soul,

in

which

all

its motions

are

suspended,

with

some

degree

of

horror"

(A

Philosophical

Enquiry,

p.

57).

24

Wordsworth also

represents

the

sublime

as a

series of

antinomies

in

the

famous

"Gondo

Gorge"

passage

of book

6

of The

Prelude,

which

follows the

speaker's

crossing

of

Simpl?n

Pass

(6.556-72):

the

speaker imagines

the "woods

decaying,

never

to

be

decayed";

"Tumult and

peace";

"the darkness and the

light."

25

Again

I

quote

from

Bernard's translation of

The

Critique of Judgment,

p.

389.

26 Scott Slovic, Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing (Salt Lake City, 1992), p. 4;

hereafter

cited

in

text.

27 Neil

Evernden,

The

Social

Creation

of

Nature

(Baltimore,

1992),

pp.

99-101;

hereafter

cited

in text

as

SC.

28 Peter

Reed,

"Man

Apart:

An

Alternative

to

the

Self-Realization

Approach,"

Environ

mental

Ethics,

11.1

(1989),

53-69;

hereafter cited

in text

as

MA.

29

Proceeding along

these

lines,

Barbara

Claire Freeman

defines

her "feminine sublime"

as

"an

encounter

with radical

alterity

that

remains unassimilable

to

representation."

Such

a

notion

of

alterity

implies

a

"general

concept

of

the

unrepresentable

as

that

which

exceeds the

symbolic

order

of

language

and culture"

(

The

Feminine

Sublime,

p.

11).

30

Henry

David

Thoreau, "Ktaadn,"

The

Maine

Woods,

in

Thoreau

in the

Mountains:

Writings

by

Henry

David

Thoreau,

ed.

William

Howarth

(New

York,

1982);

hereafter

cited in

text as

K.

31 Ronald

Wesley Hoag,

"The Mark

on

the Wilderness:

Thoreau's

Contact

with

Ktaadn,"

Texas Studies in

Literature

and

Language,

24.1

(1982),

23-46. See

especially

pp.

33-35.

32

John Tallmadge,

"'Ktaadn': Thoreau

in

the

Wilderness

of

Words,"

ESQ:

AJournal

of

the

American

Renaissance,

31.3

(1985),

146.

Tallmadge

remarks that

at

this

moment

"[l]anguage

seems

to

be

failing"

Thoreau,

and

we

are

made

aware

of his

"acute

awareness

of

the world

as

it is

versus

the world

as

conceived and described

by

language"

(145).

It

was

Thomas

Weiskel who

first

theorized

the

sublime

in

explicitly

semiotic

terms,

attributing

it

to

"the

fission

of

word and

thing,

or

signifier

and

signified"

(The

Romantic

Sublime,

p.

20);

see

especially

pp.

16-18

and

26-28.

33

David

Robinson,

"Thoreau's

'Ktaadn' and the

Quest

for

Experience,"

in

Emersonian

Circles,

ed. Robert Burkholder

and

Wesley

T.

Mott

(Rochester, 1997), pp.

217-18;

hereafter

cited

in text

as

TK.

34 As

Tallmadge

puts

it,

Thoreau's

'"redemptive imagination'

fails,

and he

is

forced

to

fall back

on

direct,

unmediated

experience"

("'Ktaadn':

Thoreau

in

the Wilderness of

Words,"

145).

We

might

also

regard

"matter"

as

a

pun

on

the

Latin

mater,

which

is

compatible

with the idea

that

Thoreau is

returning

to

something primal

and, indeed,

pre

linguistic.

35 Max

Oelschlaeger,

The Idea

of

Wilderness

(New

Haven,

1991),

pp.

150-51.

In The

Environmental

Imagination:

Thoreau,

Nature

Writing

and the

Formation

of

American

Culture

(Cambridge,

Mass.,

1995),

hereafter cited

in

text

as

El,

Lawrence

Buell

registers

a

degree

of

skepticism

about

Oelschlaeger's

rather

celebratory

reading

of "Ktaadn." Thoreau's

narrative,

he

declares,

is "a studious exercise

in

romantic

literary

sublimity,

in

keeping

with

the many other

stylizations

throughout 'Ktaadn' that mark it as a piece designed for

periodical publication

in

the

company

of

other

romantic travel

narratives,

a

favorite kind

of

nineteenth-century

magazine

fare"

(p.

12).

He

concedes,

however,

that

"even

literary

Thoreauvians

would

hardly

deny

that the

passage

refers

back

to

an

experience

of

confrontation

with

an

actual

landscape

that

struck Thoreau

as more

primal

than

anything







TOWARD

AN

ECOLOGICAL

SUBLIME

623

he had

met

before"

(pp.

12-13).

Buell's

point

is

that both

are

valid,

and

that

to

insist

on

either

one at

the

expense

of the other

would

be reductive. This distinction

anticipates

his

endorsement,

developed

later

in

his

book,

of

a

"dual

accountability

to

matter

and

to

discursive

mentation"

(p.

92),

which

I

discuss below. It is

also

analogous

to

the

distinction

between the "rhetorical" and

"natural"

sublimes:

one

refers

to

the

act

of

attempting

to

create

or

re-create,

through language,

the effect

of

an

experience;

the other

refers

to

the

experience

itself. This

difference, however,

becomes

exceptionally

blurry

(if

it does

not

disappear

altogether)

when

we

are

dealing

with

literary representations

of

an

experience

that

may

or

may

not

have

"actually

happened."

In

conceding

Buell's

point,

then,

I

would

merely

add

that

even

when critics

do

put

emphasis

on one

side

or

the

other,

the

distinction between what is

represented

and what

is said

to

be

experienced

is

never as

sharp as either the critic or the writer pretends.

36

George

Gordon,

Lord

Byron,

Childe Harolds

Pilgrimage

(1812,1818),

Byron

's

Poetry,

ed.

Frank D. McConnell

(New

York,

1978);

hereafter cited in

text

by

canto

and

stanza

number.

37

Jonathan

Bordo,

"Ecological

Peril,

Modern

Technology

and the

Postmodern Sub

lime,"

in

Shadow

of

Spirit:

Postmodernism

and

Religion,

ed.

Philippa Berry

and

Andrew

Wernick

(London,

1992),

pp.

165-78;

hereafter cited

in

text as

EP.

38 Both Kant

and

Burke,

along

with several

other

eighteenth-century

theorists

of

the

sublime,

stipulate

that

at

the

moment

of

the

sublime the

subject

cannot

be

in

any

actual

imminent

physical

danger.

See

Kant,

The

Critique of Judgment,

pp.

112-13

and

121;

and

Burke,

A

Philosophical Enquiry,

p.

40.

Documents

Toward an Ecological Sublime