This thesis examines the influence of Romanticism on a selection of seven films from four contemporary American filmmakers: Sofia Coppola, Wes Anderson, Charlie Kaufman, and Spike Jonze. The research questions are as follows: How do particular Romantic ideas, either canonical ones or those located on the more critical fringes of Romanticism, relate to the work of the filmmakers I consider? What Romantic features do these films regularly exhibit, both aesthetically and in terms of narrative? How do these features inform their overall point of view? Finally, how do such Romantic ideas and aesthetics relate to the current cultural milieu in which the films were created? There are many familiar and more obscure Romantic strains running through the films. These include a preoccupation with personal history and memory; an undercurrent of deeply felt emotion and reliance upon mood and tone to convey it; a foregrounding of the creative process and the imagination; and an ambivalent relationship to both the natural world and civilised society. In terms of aesthetics, the films in question depend on qualities of the beautiful, picturesque, and sublime to represent the complex emotional states of their characters and to elicit emotional responses in their audiences. Above all, these films represent a preoccupation with subjectivity and self-consciousness: specifically, the coming to personal self-consciousness that creates a rift between the individual subject and a greater sense of society. By utilising the work of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Romantic authors and philosophers such as Friedrich Schlegel, William Wordsworth, Henry David Thoreau, John Keats and others, combined with twentieth- and twenty-first century readings of these works via literary and cultural theorists and critics such as Harold Bloom, M.H. Abrams, Leo Marx and Anne Mellor, I emphasise the historical trajectory of general Romantic concepts. Taking established cinematic theories (“quirky” cinema, “smart” film, the “new sincerity”) as a point of entry, I explore the underlying stylistic and narrative connections between the films I discuss. I argue these films share a fundamentally Romantic form and vision specific to their own historical and cultural environment.

O objetivo da presente dissertação consiste em analisar o sublime, um conceito estético que vem sendo estudado desde os primeiros séculos. Tomamos como base a definição do sublime como algo paradoxal que cria o prazer e o medo ao mesmo tempo. Porém, o sublime apresenta especificidades que variam de acordo com o filósofo analisado. Neste trabalho, três críticos foram estudados: Longinus, Edmund Burke e Immanuel Kant. Assim, o sublime pode ser representado através da imensidão da natureza, do poder de uma criatura sobrenatural ou, até mesmo, através da sexualidade feminina. E, com o intuito de exemplificar essas diferentes perspectivas do sublime, buscamos obras da Literatura Gótica. Sendo esta uma vertente literária que buscava a oposição ao racionalismo trazido pelo movimento iluminista, as características sublimes foram essenciais para enfatizar a emoção. Para tal exemplificação, utilizamos trechos de dois romances góticos dos séculos XVIII e XIX, respectivamente: The Monk escrito por Matthew Lewis e Dracula escrito por Bram Stoker / The objective of the present work is to analyze the sublime, an aesthetic concept which several theorists have been studying since the first centuries. Taking into consideration a definition which considers the sublime as something paradoxical raising pleasure and pain at the same time. However, there are some specificties which vary according to the philosopher being analyzed. This work deals with three of them: Longinus, Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant. So, the sublime can be represented by the vastness of nature, the power of a supernatural creature or, even, by the female sexuality. And, in order to exemplify these different perspectives of the sublime, we chose important novels in the Gothic literature. Since this type of fiction is aimed at opposing to the rationality brought by the Enlightenment, the sublime characteristics were essential to emphasize emotions. In order to exemplify this, two gothic novels were taken into consideration: The Monk written by Matthew Lewis in the 18th century and Dracula by Bram Stoker in the 19th century

Magister Artium / The purpose of this dissertation is to chart the development of an ambivalent female identity in the Gothic genre, as exemplified by Ann Radcliffe's late eighteenth century fictions. The thesis examines the social and literary context of the emergence of the Gothic in English literature and argues that it is intimately tied up with changes in social, political and gender relations in the period. / South Africa

The research examines the relationship between the Sublime, the written works of H. P. Lovecraft, and the researcher’s production in the studio arts. It analyses how the Sublime is approached as a subject matter and principal objective within philosophical and artistic discourses, historically and within a contemporary paradigm. It also investigates the applicability of the Sublime to selected themes uncovered in H. P. Lovecraft’s work in general, and At the Mountains of Madness in particular. This is undertaken through an investigation of primary and secondary sources whose explorations and contextualization informs and supports the researcher’s practical visual studies. A reflective and critical analysis of this studio work is performed and included in the main body of the dissertation, from which a conclusion is drawn about the effectiveness of this approach. Specifically, the research explores the relevance of the Sublime both as a critical component of contemporary fine arts and as a fundamental element of the work of H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness in particular. In addition, the research’s practical component consists of a visual exploration of the intersection between the two. Furthermore, it represents an evaluation of this overlap in its effective translation across modes of expression, as interpreted through the medium of the researcher’s creative process.

abstract: The American sublime aesthetic, discussed frequently in literature and art of the United States, is equally manifest in the nation’s symphonic music as a concurrent and complementary aesthetic. The musical application of the American sublime supports and enriches current scholarship on American musical identity, nationality, and the American symphonic enterprise. I suggest that the American sublime forms an integral part of nineteenth-century American music and is key to understanding the symphony as a genre in the United States. I discuss American symphonic works by Anthony Philip Heinrich, George Frederick Bristow, William Henry Fry, Dennison Wheelock, and Florence Beatrice Price, aided by an analytical tool which I developed, to illuminate my appraisal of the nineteenth-century American symphonic enterprise. Their compositions contribute meaningfully to the complex history of identity formation for both American composers and the nation. In focusing on these incorporations of the sublime by white composers and composers of color from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, my research demonstrates how the American sublime expanded and transformed to better accommodate the country’s diverse citizenry, despite the marginalization of some. The nineteenth-century trans-Atlantic dialogue between Americans and their European contemporaries sustained a “distinctly cosmopolitan cultural ethos,” a phenomenon also described by Douglas Shadle as “one of the most vibrant intercultural exchanges in all of Western music history.” This dialogue shaped the cultural formation of identity for many American composers throughout the century and provided the foundation for a symphonic repertoire, which became internationally recognized for the first time as “American.” In this cosmopolitan environment, the Americanization of the sublime aided in the rebranding of long-established European artistic expressions like the symphony, while perpetuating the idealization of the nation’s geography, its people, and its beliefs. Perhaps most importantly, the American sublime supported the widely held belief in American exceptionalism and manifest destiny. The applicability of the American sublime to various genres made it a useful tool to assert autonomy and individuality in forms such as the symphony. For this reason, a revaluation of American symphonic music and its relation to the American sublime amplifies the significance of this repertoire. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Music 2020

I am an interdisciplinary artist working with a merging of costumes and voice through the performance art medium. In this masters degree project I present costume as the main performer and look at the ability for my performance to create a transcendent experience in a secular art context. The paper will lift some of the historical and contemporary ideas about transcendence in art. I will argue that the singing voice can be used as an enchanting tool to create presence and communicate the inexplicable. By using my own practice as an example I present costume as the initiator and leading star of a performance. Finally, I give insight into the process and making of my master performance, A merging of Costumes, Voice & Transcendence.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen var att vidga förståelsen av hur musikgenren death metal samspelar med scener från skräckfilm. För att metodiskt genomföra detta skapades fyra gestaltningar där musikstycken av sagda genre spelas ihop med fyra filmscener. Dessa gestaltningar analyserades och visades för fem informanter i samband med att de blev intervjuade. Resultatet indikerar på att genren deathmetal samspelar med sagda gestaltningar likt traditionell filmmusik. Resultatet indikerar även på att detta samspel uppfattas snarlikt oberoende på informanternas erfarenhet av musikgenren.

What we encounter in painting is not so much the authentically revealed self of the painter, but rather signs that insinuate that this absent self is somewhat present in it. /Isabelle Graw/ So, then what is a painting? Perhaps it is all about time, a certain amount of time in the constant murmuring stream of consciousness and the unconscious. A shape cut out of the amorphous. A recording of time spent in uncertainty, not knowing what is going to present itself. To bear the contradiction of in one hand allowing the permission of having an aim versus the absolute requirement of at some point let go of the model, the aim. And thus, submit to painting. In the glitch between distance and sensibility, an utterance, a pronouncement takes place. This text reflects a thinking process that revolves around painting as will and resistance, concepts regarding aesthetics, subjectivity and perception.

This paper examines the relationship between the sublime and the Anthropocene, the period in earth’s geological history characterized by human impact upon the planet. As the genre of Anthropocene fiction, or climate fiction, has emerged in recent years, difficulties in defining the new genre as well as identifying useful tropes and forms within cli-fi novels has given rise to several proposed methods of understanding the Anthropocene. This essay examines the problems posed within Anthropocene fiction as well as the history of the concept of the sublime before examining Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation to find evidence of the relevance of the sublime within the Anthropocene.

De Quincey's writing has already been thoroughly examined from the point of view of his critical statements, and attempts have been made to resolve some of the many contradictions which occur in such statements. In this thesis, however, De Quincey's work is approached not from a consideration of critical theory but through an examination of his ideas and techniques as they related to the well established literary and psychological category of the sublime. De Quincey's interpretation of the sublime in literature relates closely to his theory of the literature of power, and provides a central standpoint from which to examine many different aspects of his writing. De Quincey's general application of the theory of sublimity reveals a concentration upon a certain number of fixed formulae which can be used as guidelines to his criticism of literature as well as his own creative processes. De Quincey's ideas relating to sublimity provide, in addition, a religious and philosophical background from which to approach both the areas of criticism and creation. Ideas connected with the sublime also allow a convenient approach to De Quincey's theory of symbolism, his use of opium, and the dreams which haunted his life and became the substance of his creative writing. To observe the close relationship between these various aspects of De Quincey's life and thought is to become aware of the patterns which dominated his literary processes. Having shown the various modes of the sublime as exemplified by De Quincey's works in general, the thesis proceeds to a detailed examination of some passages in his literary criticism as they specifically relate to these modes. The emphasis is not upon the value and meaning of the criticism per se, but rather upon the extent to which it expresses De Quincey's continuing search for the powerful or sublime effect in literature. The critical contexts examined are seen to function on the basic principles already established, and these same principles are then applied to De Quincey's major fiction. The same patterns, involving paradox, symbolism and revelation, are clearly in evidence, and, indeed, reveal the main intention of these works. The English Mail-Coach, The Confessions of an English Opium Eater, and the Suspiria De Profundis are all discussed in considerable detail, and while considerations other than that of the principle of the sublime are included, this principle remains always the basic starting point. From an analysis of the workings of the sublime principle in De Quincey's writing, a new kind of unity becomes apparent in his work, a unity of symbols and images, of mood and emotion. An awareness of this special kind of unity contributes to an understanding of a writer who seems, on many occasions, to be discontinuous, erratic and wildly mistaken. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)