ABSTRACT
In Beauty and Sublimity, I argued that our experience of a target as beautiful results from an integration of information-processing and emotional arousal, crucially (empathic) attachment system activation. In keeping with this, I argued that the experience of the sublime is connected with attachment insecurity. I now view this account of the sublime as somewhat too limited. In this chapter, I sketch the conclusions of Beauty and Sublimity, then argue that the concept of sublimity should be extended, so that it is parallel with the concept of beauty. To orient the discussion, I begin with “proto-sublimity,” in which the targets of a recipient’s spontaneous attention are unaesthetic, while other features of the work conform to aesthetic principles. I then turn to emotional sources of the sublime, which I continue to view as derived in large measure from attachment, but which also involve the reward system. I go on to consider information-processing sources of sublimity. Finally, I examine the relation of the sublime to cross-culturally recurring narrative structures, which are inseparable from such emotions as attachment. My tentative conclusion is that the account of the sublime given in Beauty and Sublimity correctly stresses attachment. However, it should include the following additions: an information-processing component, a reward-system component, and perhaps recognition of a role for emotions associated with the “meaning of life” goals that shape the cross-cultural story genres. These emotions include but are not confined to attachment.
