INDLEDENDE MANØVRER

Momenter af en moderne erfaring
93), since this dawning modern novel gives an exemplary account of the sublime in a literary
context. In order to realize the dialogue between a modern and a sublime experience the third
part of the thesis points out identical structures in the two experiences through readings of
Rilke’s novel. These are structures such as disharmony, dissolution, inexpressibility,
existential vulnerability, and a specific framing of time and space, that doesn’t allow the
subject to affirm itself. More specifically this is done by focusing on the analytical traces of
“the great” and the hideous in the novel. The hideous is investigated in the light of
Rosenkranz’ Ästhetik des Häßlichen (1854) and Bjørnvig’s reflections on the aesthetic
idiosyncrasy in the essay collection Begyndelsen (1962). The mentioned identical structures
do not make the modern and the divine, sublime experience identical; they differ in the
subject’s way of interpreting the specific experience. But the readings of Rilke’s novel show
us that it is possible to talk about elements of divinity in the modern experience and moreover
that it is possible to characterize the sublime as a modern modality.
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