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The Birth Of Rationality, Romanticism The Sublime And Greatness When Applied ...



The Birth of Rationality, Romanticism the Sublime and Greatness

When applied to art, literature, music, culture, criticism and theory, the terms dissonance and consonance find themselves attracting heavy scrutiny. These terms have for many years been applied to music. Although these terms are traceable to ancient times it was not until neo classical times that philosophical enquiry began a great discourse that would see the arts begin new projects with a different direction. The enlightenment period had begun in the west with a new emphasis on cultural thinking. From its idea of a return to the philosophic principles of the classic period that had been abandoned for over a century, and in an attempt to re-evaluate the significance of meaning imposed by the divine notions of philosophy on art and societal thinking, rationality came into being as a refocus upon judgements, interpretation and the notion of greatness. Departing from notions typically involving divinity and royalty and rejecting the notion of academic principles that heavily involved representations of real life, the enlightenment sought to use reason to extract the vastness of experience as depicted through the arts.
Known for its emphasis on originality and artistic genius the concept of the sublime became the object of musicians, artists and writers throughout the enlightenment period. It was originally conceived as a defining term to draw attention to what was deemed to be magnificent rather than mundane and represented the great power of nature that was unseen in everyday experience. Conceived from a notion of feeling, it was believed that the sublime could rise above the blandness of normal everyday experience to expose the listener to a feeling that was beyond that of simply conveying the form of sound. At the time of it's conception the philosopher Edmund Burke suggested in his enquiry that the sublime was 'an experience inspired by fear and awe, an exposure to sensory information that ignites our imagination and in turn heightens our sensory response' (Burke, 1998). This fear and awe was the perhaps the basis for the use of consonance and dissonance within the music itself. Regardless, this statement proved to be one of the first historic definitions of the sublime and positioned it as evidence of artistic greatness, which was subsequently twinned with talent, genius and high art.
Following Burkes definition of the sublime, this departure from typically bland musical and aural concepts to a view towards that of the force of that which lay behind experience, aesthetics became an integral part of music and philosophical enquiry. From the enlightenments emphasis on rational critique, the man of reason and the great scientific experiment came the development of the aesthetic principle.

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