Alison の崇高論と Wordsworth

Abstract

Alison published Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste in 1890. Essays says, "the Beauty and Sublimity of the object is to be ascribed not to the Material, but to the Associated Qualities." We can see his subjective point of view in these words. According to his explanation, the imagination associates the object with trains of thoughts (which can be called spiritual qualities), and produces emotions. Alison's emotions consist of the simple emotion and the aesthetic emotion. The emotion changes from the simple emotion to the aesthetic emotion. In the process of the change, the quality of the simple emotion exerts an influence on the quality of the train of thought. Wordsworth's point of view of the sublime is also subjective. He associates the landscape with the spiritual quality in "The Simple Pass." But there is a difference between Alison and Wordsworth. The difference is shown in "Tintern Abbey." Wordsworth's emotion changes not from the simple to the complex and aesthetic, but from the complex to the simple and purified. There is a working of the imagination in the process of his emotion's change. Wordsworth's imagination aspires to Infinity and God, and purifies the emotion. When his emotion is purified, his train of thought is also purified, and has the quality of Infinity.