Concetti Chiave
- Melville's view of nature combines wonder and fear, aligning with the concept of the sublime as described by Burke and Kant.
- Moby-Dick exemplifies the dynamic sublime, portraying nature's power and man's complex relationship with it through Captain Ahab.
- Kant differentiates between the mathematical sublime (vastness) and the dynamic sublime (power), both reflected in Melville's narrative.
- The sublime, according to Kant, offers comfort by transforming passion into principles, a theme mirrored in Melville's depiction of the whale.
- Melville appreciates nature's majesty, reconciling with its uncontrollable forces through the concept of the sublime.
Melville and Kant
Nature for Melville is something producing wonder and fear at the same time (sublime).
Moby-Dick seems directly drawn from Burk’s description of the sublime. Melville’s presentation seems also to be guided by Kant. That’s because Kant, like Burk, draws the notion of the ocean as something immeasurable, incompressible and sublime. Anyways, it’s actually a person’s perception of the ocean that could be called ‘sublime’, more properly than the ocean itself.
Kant distinguishes a mathematical and a dynamic sublime.
Nature is viewed in an aesthetic judgement, as a force which has no power over us. Moby-Dick is seen as an example of the dynamic sublime and in captain Ahab we can see this concept. The modern man is afraid of the whale because he feels inferior to it, and is frightened by it. But, the modern man (who in this case is captain Ahab), is at the same time obsessed by it, and he is driven by the desire to destroy it, because the whale represents a world that the man can’t control.
So, this way, Malville appreciated the beauty, the majesty of the forces of nature and he reconciled himself to their existence.
The sublime, this way, becomes something which comforts: the sublimation of passion through principles. In this way, we can find the definition of Kant’s sublime. According to Kant the sublime comforts because it represents the sublimation of passions through principles and this is the very essence of the sublime in Kant. And so for these reasons it is the same as we can see in the figure of the whale by Melville.
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