Bloom's Literary Themes - ymerleksi - home

24Kate ChopinWhile it would be extremely interesting to know Guerlac’sresponse to Ferguson’s remarks, particularly noteworthy in thiscontext is that their debate centers on Longinus’ reading ofSappho.15. The phrase “language of the unsayable” derives from the titleof the book edited by Sanford Budick and Wolfgang Iser,Languages of the Unsayable: The Play of Negativity in Literatureand Literary Theory (New York: Columbia University Press,1989).16. “Selections from The World As Will and Idea,” Book 111,section 39, in Philosophies of Art and Beauty: Selected Readingsin Aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger, ed. Albert Hofstadter andRichard Kuhns (New York: The Modern Library, 1964), 464.17. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, section 29, trans. WernerS. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), 130. Subsequentreferences are to this edition and will appear in the text, alongwith German terms from the original (Kritik der Urteilkraft,ed. Wilhelm Weischedel [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974]) that Iadd to show that Kant talks about sacrifice and uses conceptsof power and subordination to explain the function of theimagination. For an intriguing discussion of this passage, seePaul de Man, “Phenomenality and Materiality in Kant,” inHermeneutics: Questions and Prospects, ed. Gary Shapiro andAlan Sica (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984),132–35.18. For an insightful discussion of the oceanic sublime, see StevenZ. Levine, “Seascapes of The Sublime: Vernet, Monet, and theOceanic Feeling,” New Literary History 16, no. 2 (Winter 1985):377–400.19. Gerald L. Bruns, “Disappeared: Heidegger and theEmancipation of Language,” in Languages of the Unsayable: ThePlay of Negativity in Literature and Literary Theory, ed. SanfordBudick and Wolfgang Iser (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1989), 127–28.20. Theodore W. Adorno, cited in Bruns, “Disappeared,” 144.21. Edna’s “flash of terror” of course recalls Burke’s dictum that“terror is in all cases whatsoever either more openly or latentlythe ruling principle of the sublime” (Enquiry, 54). [ . . . ]