Book contents
- Kant and Literary Studies
- Cambridge Studies in Literature and Philosophy
- Kant and Literary Studies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Kant on Literature
- Chapter 1 “Differing Only in Degree”
- Chapter 2 On Power in an Extra-secular Sense
- Chapter 3 Kant and the Problem of Tragedy
- Part II Kant, Literary Theory, and the Critical Formation of the “Human” Disciplines
- Part III Kant and Literature
- Index
- References
Chapter 2 - On Power in an Extra-secular Sense
Kant’s Analytic of the Sublime
from Part I - Kant on Literature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2025
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Book contents
- Kant and Literary Studies
- Cambridge Studies in Literature and Philosophy
- Kant and Literary Studies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Kant on Literature
- Chapter 1 “Differing Only in Degree”
- Chapter 2 On Power in an Extra-secular Sense
- Chapter 3 Kant and the Problem of Tragedy
- Part II Kant, Literary Theory, and the Critical Formation of the “Human” Disciplines
- Part III Kant and Literature
- Index
- References
Summary
The aesthetics of the sublime, as it emerged in the eighteenth century, has frequently been seen as part of a process of secularization: What is “absolutely great” now becomes the object of an aesthetic experience that need have no reference to the divine or to religion. Kant in particular has been accorded a key role in the development of a modern aesthetics that establishes the autonomy of art and of the aesthetic vis-à-vis both religion and politics. Setting out from a seldom-read passage in Kant’s “Analytic of the Sublime” on the power of the sublime to liberate the imagination from tutelage by the church and by the state, this chapter traces the intimate connection in Kant’s text between religion, political emancipation, and the sublime in order to challenge widely shared if frequently unstated assumptions about the secular status of the sublime and of Kantian aesthetics more broadly. The sublime emerges as power that resists containment within the modern divisions between politics, religion, and aesthetics. In the process, Kant’s text is read as providing an implicit critique of the logic of secularism avant la lettre.
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- Kant and Literary Studies , pp. 43 - 70Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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