The Male Sublime in Jane Eyre: Longinus vs. Burke

The sublime is a subject that has been addressed by many philosophers in different centuries, differing according to the period. Although the sublime can differ according to everyone, it can be defined as "the echo of the greatness of the soul," (Longinus 103), as Longinus says, or as "an emotion characterised mainly by astonishment and fear," (Burke 85), as Edmund Burke says. Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë in 1847, is a novel of love between two people of different classes in Victorian England, which contains many sublimities. This research aims to show mainly how the men who enter Jane's life can be considered sublime, through the themes of power, colour and sounds, by quoting from Longinus' On the Sublime and Edmund Burke's Sublime and Beautiful. 

Longinus was thought to be the first person to mention the sublime. However, this is not a definite statement because although Longinus is believed to be the author of Peri Hypsous or On the Sublime, it cannot be said that he is the author as it is uncertain. The most important of Pseudo-Longinus' descriptions of the sublime is the harmony of the sublime with beauty. According to Longinus, since only the greatest, most talented writers and thinkers can produce the sublime (Longinus 86), these works they produce are considered beautiful. According to him, the sublime experience is an experience of beauty transcending the limits of thought and emotion. Longinus' ideas on the sublime were discussed when the French translation of his book was made in the 17th century. In the 17th and 18th centuries, philosophers began to accept and develop Longinus' ideas on the sublime. However, in 1759, Edmund Burke published his article Sublime and Beautiful and opposed Longinus' ideas. According to Longinus, the sublime is rooted in the power of thought and literature. However, Burke explicitly rejected Longinus' ideas on the origin of the sublime by stating that "Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime." (Burke 67). Although Longinus and Burke agree that the sublime distances the individual from normality with an incredible feeling, their references to the origin of the sublime differ significantly. Burke contends that the sublime does not rely on words for its meaning and is best sensed when seeing natural items that elicit joyful awe. For Longinus, it is as clear what the sublime is as it is what it is not. For Longinus, bombast or anti-climax is when an author tries to produce the sublime but fails (Longinus 98). The result of this bombast is bathos, the opposite of climax. For Longinus, excessive emotionality is not sublime when every emotion is exaggerated and overdone. For Edmund Burke, as in Longinus, the sublime can be divided into several items. Only three of them will be dealt with in this analysis: power, colour and sounds. For Burke, the sublime is powerful, wildly unpredictable and dangerous. Burke says, "Pain is always inflicted by a power in some way superior," (Burke 91). Therefore, human beings are likely to admire dangerous and mighty things that can cause pain. Burke says that soft or cheerful colours are not sublime. According to him, rather sad colours such as black, brown or dark purple are sublime. For him, these colours create melancholic perfection (Burke 106). Sublime should affect us with all our senses, including our sense of hearing. For Burke, sublime usually includes noise, surprise, and intermittent or horrible sounds. However, at the same time, such sounds or themes may show an overload of emotion and cause false sentiment for Longinus (Longinus 99).

by Edmund H. Garrett and E. M. Wimperis.

The events experienced by Jane Eyre and the men who enter her life are sublime in many respects. It is possible to see the different perspectives of Longinus and Edmund Burke in these sublimes. There are a few questions to be asked to show how the sublimes used in this novel fit or do not fit the sublime understanding of two different philosophers. The first is how the power sublime is reflected by the men who enter Jane's life. The first man who enters Jane's life and whom we can define as sublime in this study is the Reverend Mr Brocklehurst, the headmaster of the boarding school she attends. Lowood boarding school is a place of terror for its students, but this school's power comes from the headmaster's authority. Bronte also uses physical descriptions to emphasise Mr Brocklehurst's power. Burke says that size is a powerful cause of the sublime (Burke 174). Bronte's description of Mr Brocklehurst as tall as a pillar underlines his patriarchal authority. Although Mr Brocklehurst humiliates and punishes Jane in front of everyone, Jane sees a ray of hope amid the punishment. Another student, Helen Burns, looks at Jane and smiles, and this smile has a powerful effect on Jane. Jane says that she sees a strange light in Helen's eyes, "What an extraordinary sensation that ray sent through me!" (Bronte 111). This sensation that Helen's behaviour evokes in Jane exemplifies Longinus's interpretation of the sublime as elevating the soul and pleasing the person (Longinus 102). Jane falls in love with Mr Rochester, the owner of the house where she is employed as a governess, and interestingly, as her love for him grows, so does his relationship with the sublime. Rochester is written in dark and brooding descriptions, and although he is gruff and stern, the strange fire in his gaze (Bronte 204) presses down on Jane, almost creating an obsession in her. The sublime landscape of his deep, strong, and cruel features magnetically attracts Jane. The strength of Jane's love for Rochester increases to the point that she almost forgets her own identity. "My future husband was becoming to me my whole world, and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun." (Bronte 338). These descriptions are also entirely appropriate for Burke, who describes his sublime through nature more than Longinus. A second question is how Bronte uses the colour sublime. Bronte presents Mr Brocklehurst and Mr Rochester to the reader with almost identical descriptions. Both of them are stern, like a black pillar, and their descriptions of them correspond to dark colours. The person who creates a different contrast between the two is St John Rivers. St Rivers is physically the opposite of Mr Rochester. He is not dark, dark or harsh like Rochester; on the contrary, he is blond and has an admirable appearance. His descriptions are not dark and depressing but glittering and bright. St. Rivers, described with sublime images by being said to have heroic splendour next to the other two men, is more in line with the sublime examples of Longinus than Edmund Burke. The final question is whether the character experiences the sublime through sounds. While Jane is living in Mr Rochester's house as a governess, she hears strange noises. "This was a demoniac laugh -low, suppressed, and deep- utter, as it seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door... but I rose, looked round, and could see nothing..." (Bronte 200). These voices and laughter make Jane very uneasy because she cannot find their source, and the unknown creates an uncanny sense. These repetitive voices and Jane's increasing nervousness can be interpreted as false sentiments. Jane's discovery of Bertha, the source of this sound, seems similar to the bombast effect mentioned by Longinus while explaining what is not sublime. As a reader, I was shocked to learn that Rochester's mad wife was locked in the attic, but Jane refers to this scene as if it were a simple everyday occurrence. "The morning had been a quiet morning enough -all except the brief scene with the lunatic; the transaction in the church had not been noisy..." (Bronte 361).

To put it all together, in this research, the sublime in Jane Eyre, especially the male sublime, has been analysed by considering the philosophers Longinus and Edmund Burke's thoughts on the sublime, who lived in two different periods. The reason for conducting this research was to show how differently a subject can be approached from the eyes of two different philosophers who lived at different times, with points that I found in my own opinion. Whether it is what Longinus says about the sublime or what Edmund Burke says about the gothic sublime, it is possible to make entirely different things and a more comprehensive examination.

Works Cited

Harmon, William. Classic Writings on Poetry: “ON THE SUBLIME” (Ca. a.d. 100; Excerpt). First Edition, Columbia UP, 2003.

Burke, Edmund, and Adam Phillips. A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (Oxford World’s Classics). Edition Unstated, Oxford UP, 1998.

Brontë, Charlotte, et al. Jane Eyre. Barnes and Noble Classics, 2004.