The Sublime: In Alchemy, Aesthetics and Psychoanalysis

Author(s): Jan Cohn and Thomas H. Miles

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Modern Philology, Vol. 74, No. 3 (Feb., 1977), pp. 289-304
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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The Sublime:In Alchemy,Aestheticsand Psychoanalysis

Jan Cohn and Thomas H. Miles
... "The.sublime"
In theold sense.Wrongfromthestart-

[EZRAPOUND,"Hugh SelwynMauberley"]
A layman's lexicon of psychoanalytictermswill ordinarilyinclude sublimation
and subliminal.The laymanwill recognizethatboth words are relatedto sublime
and will sense that sublimation-like the word sublime-has somethingto do
with "up," and that subliminal, oddly, has somethingto do with "down"unlike the word sublime. Sublimationhas a number of definitions,generally
denotingeitherelevationto a higherstateor rank,or transmutationintoa higher
or purer condition; similar meaningsattach to sublime: that which is loftyor
elevated. Subliminal,on the other hand, was introducedinto English in the late
nineteenthcenturyto translatethe German termunterder Schwelle: below the
threshold(of consciousness).The standardetymologiesforsublimeand subliminal
reinforcethe absolute contradictionof theirmeaningwhile failingto clarifythat
contradiction.According to the OxfordEnglish Dictionary,'both words derive
fromsub- plus limin(alternatelylimen). But in the case of subliminal,the Latin
roots form"below the threshold,"while,in the case of sublimeand all its derivatives, the Latin roots, qualified with a "probably," give us "up to the lintel."
From this we are led to infernot only that the Romans had the same termfor
linteland thresholdbut also thatthecivilizationwhichinventedthe arch had one
word to mean both downand up.
Our investigationsinto the etymologiesof words derived from sub- and
limin(limen) have revealed alternativesources for these words and, in tracing
the uses of sublimein all its forms,we have discoveredreflectionsof significant
shiftsin culturalattitudesfromthe fifteenth
centuryto the present.
I
sublime-derivation
fromsuperlimas: "above the slimeor mud of
thisworld."2
Tracing the etymologyof sublime and its derivatives through classical
not only withthe compound
Indo-European languages,we discovereddifficulties
word but also with each of its component roots, sub- and lim-. The American
Heritage Dictionary,forexample,gives limenforthe source of sublimeand limin
(an alternativespellingforlimen)forthe source of subliminal.Limenis definedas
"threshold"and is said to be akin to limes,"boundary" or "limit," particularlya
boundary between fields.Limen furtheris said to be "connected" with limus,
1/SeeAppendixfora fulllistof dictionariesreferred
to.
2/JamesBeattie,DissertationsMoral and Critical(London, 1783),p. 606, quoted in Samuel H.
Monk, TheSublime:A Studyof CriticalTheoriesin XVIII-Century
England(New York, 1935),
p. 129. Monk findsBeattie'scontribution
"chieflymemorable"for"its etymologicalaberrations."

289

290

Modern Philology(February 1977)

"sidelong," withparticularreferenceto the eyes. Happily, unattachedto any of

theabove is limus,"slime or mud." Nevertheless,one is leftwithan uncomfortable
feelingof having discovered a multidimensionalword, a kind of Einsteinian
Latin root, which means not only horizontalbeams markingverticaldefinitions
(thresholdand lintel) but spatial, that is, horizontal,borders as well (boundary
or limit)and, to cap this,even the diagonal line (sidelong or oblique).
Partridge,in Origins: A Short EtymologicalDictionaryof Modern English,
gives as sources forsublimewords the relatedwords limes(boundary,road) and
limen (threshold), with limus-liquis(the source of oblique, hence sidelong).
Limen,accordingto Partridge,means both linteland threshold;he argues further
thatlintelitselfderivesfromlimitellus,
thediminutiveof limes,thuslintellus> lintel.
Specifically,then,forsubliminalhe posits "below the threshold,"but for sublime,
he offerstwo possibilities:(1) to come up fromunder the threshold,or (2) from
liquis-limus,to climb a steep slope. With the suggestedOED etymology-above
the lintel- we now have threepossibilities.
Other standard etymological dictionariesvary in their definitionsof the
lim- morpheme in sublime words. Skeat admits that sublime is a "difficult"
word etymologically.His tentativesolution is that it meant passing under the
lintelof a door, hence reachingup to the lintel(limis-limen).From the idea of
reachingup, Skeat suggestsan extensionof meaningto tall or high. Onions, in
the Oxford Dictionaryof English Etymology,supplies sublimis-usas the Latin
root of sublimeand sees the limis-uselement as "variouslyidentified"with limen
(threshold)and limus(oblique). The same entryhandles subliminalas based on
the Latin sub- plus limin-limen
Etymological
(threshold).Klein's Comprehensive
sublimeas sub-plus limenwitha literal
Dictionaryof theEnglishLanguageidentifies
meaningof "(coming) up to below the lintel." ["Been down so long, it feelslike
up to me" ?] Subliminalis also seen as made up of sub- plus limen (threshold),
"probably related to" limes(boundary).
Harper's Latin Dictionarygives the same three Latin roots: limus (side),
limes(cross-boundaryroad), and limen(a crosspieceat the top or at the bottom:
hencelintelor threshold).These are relatedto Greek roots,but thereis no one-toone correlation.Limus is seen as akin to AEXptos(slanting),AE'Xpt(crosswise),
and Aoo'ds(slanting or crosswise). Limen is related only to A4Xptsand Ao'ds.
Limes findsa cognate solely in AE'Xpts.3For words composed of sub- plus any of
the lim-roots, Harper's gives several etymologies:sub. limo-to liftup or raise
on high; sub. lime-lofty,exalted; sub. limis (or -us)-elevated, uplifted;with a
tentative"up to the lintel"; sub. limen-related to the hangingup of slaves for
punishment.
These etymologies,whetherEnglish or Latin, accept the morphemesub- as
3/The phonological similaritybetween Latin limus, limes and Greek AXptog, AXPtS> and Aoeds

may seem slight.Pokorny,however,findstheirsourcesin Indo-EuropeanrootsUli-and Ji-,

eq-,bothwithmeaningsof bendingor crooked.Underldi-,he giveslimus(schief[oblique])and
limes (Querweg [oblique direction]),etc. (Limen, also included,is translatedTiirschwelle
[threshold].)Under ti-, eq- he cites A'Xplog(schief,quer [oblique]),AEXptL
(quer), and AoSdo',
[dislocated])(JuliusPokorny,
(schriig[diagonal]; also verbogen[hidden,obscure],verrenkt
IndogermanischesEtymologisches Worterbuch,2 pts. in 3 vols. [Bern, 1959], 1:1).

Cohn and Miles/TheSublime 291

meaningeither"up" or "down," dependingon whetherone selects the "lintel"
or "threshold"source forlimen-limis.
While a significant
numberof Latin words,
formedwithsub-,certainlyhave themeaningof a movementupward,the original
intentionis always directedat the concept of a change in a position frombelow
to above: sublevo-to raiseup; subduco--toliftup; subeo-to come up; subvectoto bringup. A careless definitionof sub- can falselyindicate a primarymeaning
of "up" or "above" in compound words. The same condition applies to the
Sanskrit 'pa and tipari,thefirstvariouslydefinedas down, up, under,and above;
the second as above and over. Greek, on the otherhand, maintainsclear distinctions betweenthe cognate words 67TOdand
means under and beneath,
6irrp;6rdT
rrEpover and beyond.
The fullestdiscussion of the Indo-European roots for "up" and "down"
appears in Ernout and Meillet,Dictionnaireetymologiquede la languelatine.The
primarymeaningof sub- is givenas under or at the bottomof, and the apparent
relationto super-in derivativesis explainedas a movementfrombelow to above,
as surgo--toraise,to bringto a standingpositionfrombelow. Ernoutand Meillet
insist that the opposition of meaning betweensub-superand their cognates is
Indo-European in date, extendinginto Irish, Greek, and Gothic.4
Ernoutand Meilletalso examinewithgreatcare thegroupof wordsconsidered
as possible sources for sublime: limen,limes,and limus.Limus has no sure etymology, means sidelong or oblique, and has no clear connectionwith limes or
limen.Limen is cited both as limeninferum
and as limensuperum,hence a threshold or lintel.Limes, a road borderinga fieldand delimitingit, was confused
with limennot in Latin but in the Romance languages. By popular etymology,
limenalso became connected with limus-limis.Ernout and Meillet insiston the
originaldistinctionamong the threewords,each of which had a discretearea of
meaning. Since Latin wordsconstructedout of sub-plus lim-predatethe classical
period, it is safe to assume that sublimoand related words predate the postclassical confusionof the threeroots.
The etymologicalconfusionsurroundingsublime,therefore,depends on the
modern confusion surrounding the lim- roots; in discussing sublime itself,
Ernout and Meillet dismiss any etymologies dependent on postclassical confusion.The derivationfromsub. limentheysee as erroneous,since it is based on a
confusionof the threeroots. In short,citingthe etymologyof Festus for "up to
the lintel," theyreject this explanation as founded on a pun. The etymological
solution of Ernout and Meillet turnsinsteadto limus-limis(oblique) and emphasizes the careful workingwith sub-, as moving upward froma position below:
hence, rising diagonally, or more specificallyfrom below to above, along a
diagonal path.
One mightsuppose that an Indo-European root, lim- in Latin and A'X- in
Greek, had a generalmeaningof some kind of lateralor diagonal line in contrast
with a vertical.This mightwell explain the cross-references
betweenthe Greek
4/See A. Ernout and A. Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine, histoire des mots,

4thed. (Paris, 1967),fora fulldiscussionof thesub-super

in Indo-Europeanlangudistinction
of initials- in theItalic languages.
ages and fortheirtreatment

292

Modern Philology(February 1977)

and the Latin wordscited in Harper's and mightaccount forthegeneral relationship in meaningthatthethreeLatin wordshave withone another.Such a similarity
is clearlymarkedin the limes-limenpair, withthe firstmeaninga piece of wood
or stone placed horizontallyand the second a horizontalboundaryindicatedby
some sort of physicalmeans. The connection betweendiagonal and horizontal
markersor lines may be less immediate,but in the Greek Aofdsboth meanings
are inherent.
Nevertheless,Ernout and Meillet presenta clear case for the distinction
among these words in Latin; theiretymologyfor sublime,while it dilutes the
moral imperativeof "up fromthe slime" and the moral threat of slaves hung
fromlintels,avoids the obvious confusionof sub with super insistedon by the
standardetymology,"above the lintel."5
II
... ab ipso mortislimite-from
(wa=s
d0a6espirscwalde
.cegende).6
The Anglo-Saxons, not yet the proficientword borrowers the English
would later become, chose to translateall limen-limiswords directlyinto Old
English roots and compounds. Support for Ernout-Meillet's contentionthat
confusion among the three roots-lnmen, limes, limus-postdated the Latin
period and can be attributedto the later period of the developmentof the
Romance languagescomes fromevidencein theAnglo-Saxontranslationsof limen
and limis (limes). There is no confusion between these words in Anglo-Saxon
glosses,exceptin the one case wherethe West Saxon translatorof Bede moved in
the directionof metaphor by renderingmortislimiteas birscwalde.In all other
instances, limen is understood as threshold-herexwold,perscolde, precswale,
odde duru.Limis is understoodas boundaryor
or as lintel-overslaye,oferdyre,
it is worthnoting,contains several
limit:fatsidgerif,
hafudland.Wright-Wiilcher,
translatestheLatin superliminare,
lintel
word
for
the
in
which
Anglo-Saxon
glosses
further
evidence,ifsuch were necessary,thatthe Romans at least did not confuse
sub and super.
The sublime words themselvesfirstentered French, as they would enter
English, through books of alchemy. The Dictionnairede I'acadimie frangaise,
1694,citessublimation,sublime,and sublimer,all of whichare enteredas "termes
uses of sublimein the
de chymie." Nevertheless,Littr6cites seventeenth-century
The
Dictionnaire
Bossuet.
and
in
Corneille
sense
etymologiquede la
figurative
of thatwhich
with
the
as
as
an
cites
meaning
1212,
early
example
languefrangaise
is placed veryhigh. French must also have developed the rhetoricalmeaningof
the sublime as the grand style,predatingBoileau who is carefulto distinguish
betweenthe rhetoricalsense and the new emotional-aestheticmeaning he gives
to sublimein his translationof Longinus.
5/Onewonderswhythe meaningof elevationand loftinesscarriedinthewordsublimeshouldbe
developed froma root withthe meaningof diagonal, ratherthan froma more dramatic
verticaldenotation;thisproblemremainsunsolved.
6/Bede,EcclesiasticHistory,LETS, nos. 95-96 (London, 1890),p. 398; citedin OED.

Cohn and Miles/TheSublime 293

German, on the other hand, did not experience the extension of the
(al)chemical meaning of sublimeinto figurativeuses. Modern English-German
dictionarieslike Cassell do show sublim-sources in chemicalterms:das Sublimat,
sublimiert,sublimieren,but all aestheticand figurativeterminologyis translated
into native words: erhaben, erhihen, veredeln. Benecke (Mittelhochdeutsches
Wdrterbuch)includes no sublim-words. The New Muret-Sandersgives sublimwords in German for psychological terms, as sublimierenfor sublimate and
Sublimierungfor sublimation,with a figurativeextension for each. However,
sublimeappears as erhaben(subst.das Erhabene),hoch,etc.,and the psychological
and unterschwellige.
termsubliminalas unterbewusst
cites erhaben,erhdhen,etc., as translationsfor
The GrimmscheWorterbuch
and k6stlichto this list. It also gives a few
sublimeand adds auszerordentlich
examples in whichthe Latin word is adopted into German withfigurativeextension and one exampleofa metaphoricuse fromLate Middle High German,labeled
as "rare." The contextis religiousand the figurativemotifalchemical:
hilffmirden tempelwerden
durchwehenund baliern
mitfarbensublimiern
usz dineralchimy.
[H. v. SACHSENHEIM, 235,lit.ver.]'
The few other examples of sublim-words taken into German in the Latin form
are found in citationsfromGoethe, Schopenhauer,and Nietzsche and represent
extraordinaryuses of sublime,confinedto aestheticor philosophical contexts.8
The resistanceof German to the adoption of the foreignword sublimefor
any but a chemicalvocabularyis evidencedin the German translationsof Longinus's rTEpt Yoovs, translationsthat postdate Boileau's 1674 Traite du sublime.
en Deftigheitdes Styls ...
These include Verhandelingover de Verheventheit
(Amsterdam,1719); Longin vom Erhabenen... (Leipzig, 1781); Dionysios oder
Longinos,ueberdas Erhabene... (Kempton, 1895). BeforeBoileau, English,too,
found words other than sublimeto translateLonginus's title,but afterBoileau
no English titleever appeared withoutthe word sublime.9

7/Wehave followed,hereand elsewhere,theconcisecitationformusedin Grimmand theOED.

further
Interestedreaderscan of course pursuethe references
throughthose major sources.
8/Onesuch examplefromGrimm:". .. mag hierund da das urtheilund der geschmackder
einzelnenselbstfeinerund sublimirter
gewordensein. [... hereand therethejudgmentand
tasteof a singlepersonmaybecomefinerand moresublime"](Nietzsche,1895; 1: 318).
9/SeeW. Rhys Roberts,"BibliographicalAppendix,"in Longinuson the Sublime(Cambridge,
of Longinusbefore1900.ThereweretwoEnglishtranslations
1907)fora fulllistoftranslations
beforeBoileau's work: JohnHall, Of theHeightof Eloquence(1622),and JohnPulteney,Of
theLoftinessof Elegancyof Speech (1680). AfterBoileau, all Englishtitlesused the word
sublime: Anon., An Essay on the Sublime ... (1698); Welsted, The Works of Dionysius Longinus
on the Sublime ... (1712); W. Smith, Dionysius Longinus on the Sublime ... (1739); Anon., A
Literal Translationof Longinus " Of the Sublime" (182 1); Anon., Longinus on the Sublime (1830);
W. T. Spurdens, Longinus on the Sublime ... (1836); D. B. Hickie, Dionysius Longinus on the
Sublime ... (1838); T. R. R. Stebbing, Longinus on the Sublime ... (1867); H. A. Giles,
Longinus, an Essay on the Sublime ... (1870); Henry Morley, Longinus on the Sublime (1889);
H. L. Havell, Longinus on the Sublime (1890).

294

Modern Philology(February1977)

III
thatpipkin;elixateyourantimonie.10
Elevatethattripode;sublimate
In the late Middle English period,the translationof alchemical works from
Latin into the vernacularsaw the firstappearance in English of sublimeand its
derivatives,fornow theGermanictraditionof translatingand compoundingwith
native roots had been weakened by the new English trend toward borrowing.
Furthermore,the large percentageof borrowed French words in the vocabulary
of late Middle Englishmade Latin wordsfarfromforeign;a word likesublimation
would appear much the same in French,Latin, or in the Middle English AngloFrench vocabulary. Works like the Quinte Essence introducedthese words into
English: "Take pe best wiynpat 3e may fynde,if3e be of power,and if 3e be ri3t
pore, panne take corruptwiyn,pat is, rotyn,of a wateryhumour,but not egre,
pat is sour,forpe quintessencia perofis naturalyincorruptible,
pe which3e schal
drawe out by sublymacioun.""1Such medieval sources provide two legacies for
laterEnglishuses of sublime.One of these is the continueduse of thesewords in
scientificterminology.The second is the connectionof sublimationwith related
alchemicaltermsand operations: fire,violence,and pureessence; thesetermsand
attributeswill develop most fullyin the metaphoricalapplication of sublime.
From the Latin verb sublimare(to elevate) and its substantiveformsublimatio, English borrowed the noun sublimationand the verb to sublime.Gower
(1390) uses the substantivefor the (al)chemical action of subliming,that is,
purifying;and the same form and same meaning occur today. Meaning to
subject to heat in order to refine,the verb formappears in Chaucer's Canon's
Yeoman's Tale. Although this formcontinues to appear sporadically,the verb
sublimateoftenreplaces it. Other verb formshad short lives; sublimizeexisted
brieflyin the early nineteenthcentury,and a noun-formsublimification
(late
eighteenthcentury)suggeststhat a verb sublimify
mightalso have existed.
Derivativesof sublimemoved graduallyout of the provinceof alchemyinto
other developing sciences. In the sixteenthcentury,the nouns sublimatum,
sublimate,and sublimyare all used to mean mercurycorrosive sublimate,the
product of refining.By the seventeethcentury,sublime appears as a medical
termindicatingdifficult
respiration.In the eighteenthcentury,the new science of
geologyadopted sublimeto mean higherand more problematical.In thisscience,
sublimateappears as a termfor a mineraldeposit, by analogy to the alchemical
process: mineralsin a vapor state,thrownup fromthe interiorof the earth,are
deposited near the earth's surface (OED). The nineteenthcenturyapplies the
termsublimeto anatomy in describingthose muscles which lie near the surface.
In the late nineteenthand twentiethcenturies,the newestscience,psychoanalysis,
adopted the word sublimationfor its own uses and added the neologism subliminal.

Metall-man(London, 1631); citedin OED.

Whimzyies,
10/Brathwaite,

11/TheBook of Quinte Essence, or the FifthBeing, That Is to Say, Man's Heaven (c. 1460-70), ed.

FrederickJ. Furnivall(London, 1866),p. 4.

Cohn and Miles/TheSublime 295

About fiftyyears afterthe verb sublimeand the noun sublimationappeared
in English in an alchemical context,these words began to develop figurative
century,sublimationappeared as elevation
meanings.In the middleof thefifteenth
to highrank(i.e., promotion)and sublimateas raisedor exalted: "This man with
sedicious knytiswas sublimat in the empire" (Capgrave, Chronicles,Rolls, 93;
cited in OED). It seems unlikelythat these termshad as yetany metaphysicalor
spiritualconnotation,for,even in thesixteenthcenturysublimatestillmeans quite
specificallyto honor or raise to a highplace. By the end of the sixteenthcentury
a wide connotationalfieldopened forthesublimewords.
and into theseventeenth,
Donne's uses of these words suggesthis sense of theirstrongalchemicalflavor:
"To all whom loves sublimingfireinvades" ("Valediction of the Booke," line 13;
citedin OED). Beaumont uses the same figure:"So sublimateand so refining
was
that Fire, that all the Gold it turn'dto Dross" (Psyche,X, xiv; cited in OED).
The inclusionof sublimein Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall.. . of Hard Vsual
English Wordes(1604) proves that it remaineda "hard" word; his definitionis
not alchemical but metaphoric:to set on high or liftup. Cawdrey reflectswhat
must have been the general comprehensionof the word, ignoringits atypical
application in The Faerie Queene, a decade earlier, where Spenser used it to
mean haughtyand proud,withpejoration.ShortlyafterCawdrey'scitationof the
word, its meaningexpanded, untilin the seventeenthcenturyitcame to be applied
to height(in the sense of the acme), to flight,and to architecturewiththespecific
meaningof loftinessand perhapsof grandeur.
But the modern meanings of sublime developed not from these connotations but fromits morespiritualand metaphysicalsense,as used in theseventeenth
century.From the alchemical meaningsof purificationand fromthe idea, again
fromalchemy,of elevation,came religiousand secular meaningsof purityand
loftiness.Even as earlyas the end of the fifteenth
centurywe can find:"O spowse
of Criste immaculate,Aboue alle aungellis sublimate" (Ryman, Poems, VI, 7;
cited in OED). Further,the religious experience itselfcould sublimate: "Let
your thoughtsbe sublimed by the spiritof God" (Benson, Sermon 7 May, 1593;
1609; cited in OED). And the ritesand sacramentsof thechurchwerethemselves
"sublimed": "[Jesus] hallowed marriage. . . havingnewsublim'dit bymakingit a
of theunion of Christand . .. thechurch"(J. Taylor,
Sacramentalrepresentment
Gt. Examp. II, x, 1649; cited in OED). In thesetheologicalapplicationsand their
derivativeformscan be found the firstindicationof the confusionabout where
the sublimelay and what theact of sublimationaffected;thatis, whethersublimation is a state or a process and whetherit is a propertyof the definedobject or of
the evolvingsubject.
Beyond the religioususes of the word and the general seventeenth-century
meaningof the loftyand purified,we findin thisperiod thefirstrelationbetween
sublimeand theart of rhetoric:theexpressionof loftyideas in an elevatedmanner.
The OED cites the firstrhetoricaluse of the word in 1586, the point at which
sublimeentersthe realm of aestheticsin English. By the eighteenthcenturythe
uses of sublime in aesthetics revealed the same confusion that the theological
applications had shown in the seventeenth.While the sublimeresided firstin
the stylein which elevated ideas were expressed,it eventuallycame to mean the

296

Modern Philology(February 1977)

elevated ideas themselves.This shiftaccomplished,it was not difficult

to findthe
source of such loftinessnot only in art but in nature.The most importantalteration of meaning,however,occurs whenthesublimeis used byEnglishcriticsin the
Longinian sense to describenot theexternalcause of a particularaestheticstate
in the beholder,but that state itself;the sublime has moved fromthe object to
the subject.
Contemporarycolloquial usage of sublimerepresentsa debased version of
the earlier aesthetic use. There are, however,in the nineteenthcenturya few
additional developments. With Hardy, particularlyand perhaps peculiarly,
sublimationis used to indicatean ecstatic state of mind. With pejorative intent,
the verbsublimatemay mean a refinement
into nonexistence:"While he ... sublimatedthe popular worshipinto a harmlesssymbolism"(Lecky, Europ. Mor. I,
342, 1869; cited in OED).
To summarize the complicated historyof sublimeand its derivatives,the
word entered English at the end of the fourteenthcenturywith a specificalchemical meaning and remained available for new sciences as theydeveloped.
In the middleof the fifteenth
centurya figurativeuse appeared witha generalized
meaningof loftyand withspecificapplicationsto theologyand rhetoric-aesthetics.
Currently,theaestheticuse of the word sublimeis limitedprimarilyto discussions
of literatureand criticismfromthe classical and pre-Romanticperiods. Sublimaof psychoanalysis.Therehas,
tionhas a contemporarymeaningin theterminology
been a general tendencyfromthe eighteenthcenturyon to control
furthermore,
the kindsof functionalshiftthatsublimeand itsderivativesare capable of undergoing. Sublimehas lost its verbfunction,and, as a result,wordssuch as subliming
and sublimedhave disappeared. Sublimate exists as a noun with a specialized
scientificmeaning and has lost its participial force. Finally, such whimsical
constructionsas sublimary,sublimator,sublimification,
sublimy,and sublimish
have disappeared.
AfterBoileau's publication of Traits du sublime(1674), sublimeassumed a
new culturalimportancein English. In the eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies,
the "sublime"-wordsbecame vehiclesforaestheticand philosophicaltheories,so
culturalassumptions.
thatin an author'suse of thesewordsare revealedsignificant
From Addison and Burke to the English translationsof Kant and Freud, the
changingconnotationsof sublimemirrorman's gradual rejectionof the marvelous hope that self-loveand social are the same.

IV
ihrauf Partiallustoder
Er bestehtdarin,dass die Sexualbestrebung
Ziel aufgibtundeinanderesannimmt,
gerichtetes
Fortpflanzungslust
aberselbst
mitdemaufgegebenen
welchesgenetisch
zusammenhingt,
nichtmehrsexuell,sondernsozial genanntwerdenmuss.Wirheissen
wobeiwirunsderallgemeinen
denProzess,,Sublimierung",
Schitzung
fiigen,welchesoziale Ziele hSherstelltals die im Grundeselbstsexuellen.
silchtigen
[Sublimation]consistsin the sexual trendabandoningits aim of
pleasureand takingon
obtaininga componentor a reproductive

Cohn and Miles/TheSublime 297

anotherwhichis relatedgenerically
to theabandonedone butis itself
no longersexualand mustbe describedas social.We call thisprocess
"Sublimation,"in accordancewiththegeneralestimatethatplaces
social aims higherthanthesexual ones, whichare at bottomselfinterested.
[SigmundFreud,"Some Thoughtson Developmentand
Regression-Aetiology"]
12
In the "Preface" to Traitedu sublime,Boileau insiststhat Longinus had not
intended by "sublime" what the orators called the "sublime style" but "cet
extraordinaireet ce merveilleuxqui frappe dans le discours, et qui fait qu'un
ouvrage enl6ve, ravit, transporte."13 The extraordinaryand marvelous which
ravishes, elevates, and transportsneed not be found in anythingstylistically
grand; on the contrary,it may exist in a single thought,a singlefigure,a single
turnof phrase. Boileau's work would carryinto English two significantaspects
of the word sublimeitself:the sense thatthe sublimeneed not and indeed should
not reside in a deliberatelygrand style,and the implicationthat the measureof
the sublime would lie in the effectit had on an audience.
In The Sublime: A Study of Critical Theories in XVIII-CenturyEngland,
Samuel Monk has traced the developmentin English of the criticaluses of the
word sublime; he has shown how the termmoved froma label for a rhetorical
device to one foran aestheticexperience.The sources of the sublime,also traced
by Monk, change fromworks of art to nature and at last to the mind itself.It
becomes possible to conceive of the sublimeas a mental,aesthetic,psychological
state-induced bythemindand experiencedbythemind.Kant sumsthisprocessup
in The Critiqueof Judgment
(Second Book. "Analyticof the Sublime"): "... . dass
die wahreErhabenheitnurim Gemuithedes Urtheilenden,nichtin dem Naturobjecte, dessen Beurtheilungdiese Stimmungdesselben veranlasst,mtissegesucht
werden" (".... true sublimitymust be sought only in the mind of the judging
Subject,and not in the Object of naturethatoccasions thisattitudebytheestimate
formedof it").14
It is unnecessaryto recapitulateMonk's thoroughstudy.In sum,the English
traditioncame to distinguishthesublimefirstfromthe beautifuland second from
thingsthatgive pleasure.Subsequently,thesublimeexperiencebecame associated
with thingspainful,demanding,or frustrating.
As the sublime lost the earlier
sense of simple sensuous and aesthetic satisfaction,it became more and more
closely allied with the will and withmoral imperatives,finallyenteringthe field
of psychoanalysis,at which point the ultimateconception of the sublime has
moved away from an experience meaningfulonly to the individual toward one
significantfor the communityas a whole. By consideringthe treatmentsof the
12/Sigmund Freud, Gesammelte Werke: Chronologische geordnet, 19 vols. in 18 (London,
1940-68), 11:358; and The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund

Freud,ed. James Strachey.23 vols. (London, 1955-64), 16:345. Subsequentreferencesto

Freud's workwillbe citedin thetext,the Germanprecedingthe Englishsources.
"Preface:Trait6du sublime,"in Oeuvresde Boileau,ed. M. Amar
13/NicolasBoileau-D6spreaux,
(Paris, 1856),p. 363.
14/Immanuel Kant, GesammelteSchriften(Berlin, 1913), 5:256; translationfromKant's"Critiques

ed. and trans.JamesCreed Meredith(Oxford,1911),p. 104.

Judgement,"
of Aesthetic

298

Modern Philology(February 1977)

sublime or of sublimationin Addison, Burke, Kant, and Freud, such a line of

developmentcan be revealed.
English aestheticiansearlyseparated the sublime fromthe beautiful.In The
Pleasuresof theImagination,Addison introducedthisdistinctionin his comparison
of Homer and Virgil.Homer is best at Battle or Multitude,Virgilwith"copying
out an entertaining
picture."Homeric epithetsare createdforthe "great"; Virgil's
forwhatis "agreeable." Homer's personsare "God-like and Terrible,"whileVirgil
takes particularcare to make his heroes "beautiful." "The Aeneid," Addison
tells us, "is like a well-orderedGarden," but "Homer fills his Readers with
SublimeIdeas."15 AlthoughAddison has selectedtechnicalaspects of Homer and
Virgilto compare, his finaljudgmentof Homer restsnot on his stylebut on the
ideas of the Greek poet, echoing Boileau's contentionthat the sublime does not
reside in style.
In Of the Sublime Burke also distinguishesthe attributesof the sublime
from those of the beautiful,creating lists of antitheticalcharacteristics.The
beautifulis small, smooth, polished, light, and delicate. The sublime is vast,
ruggedand negligent,stronglydeviatingfromthe correctline, dark and gloomy,
solid and massive. He concludes that "they are indeed ideas of a verydifferent
nature,one being founded on pain, the other on pleasure. ."16 In an earlier
whichunderlinethe
passage, Burke describesthe sources of the sublimein terms...
aspect of terrorand pai!i: "Whatever is fittedin any sort to excite the ideas of
pain and danger,that is to say, whateveris in any sort terrible,or is conversant
withterribleobjects, or operates in a manneranalogous to terror,is a source of
the sublime;that is, it is productiveof the strongestemotionswhich the mind is
capable of feeling.I say thestrongestemotion,because I am satisfiedtheideas of
pain are much more powerfulthan those whichenteron the part of pleasure.""7
Kant too connectsthe sublime and the terrible
In the Critiqueof Judgment,
or painfuland attemptsto analyze therelationshipbetweenthe awarenessof "displeasure" and the more positiveemotionalcomponentof the sublimeexperience.
He attributesthe "displeasure" to one's awareness of the inadequacy of the
reason to cope with the experience.At the same time, there is pleasure in the
awareness of havingescaped the confinesof reason:
Das Gefiihldes Erhabenenistalso einGefiihlderUnlustaus derUnangemessenheit
der
in der isthetischen
zu der Schitzungdurchdie
Einbildungskraft
Grbssenschitzung
eben dieses
Vernunft
und eine dabei zagleicherweckteLust aus der Ubereinstimmung
des grbsstensinnlichenVermigensmitVernunftideen
Urtheilsder Unangemesseiheit
soferndie Bestrebung
zu denselbendoch foruns Gesetzist.
The feelingofthesublimeis, therefore,
at once a feelingof displeasure,
arisingfromthe
of magnitudeto attainto its
inadequacyof theimagina:ionin theaestheticestimation
awakenedpleasure,arisingfromthisvery
estimationby reason,and a simultaneously
ofsensebeingin accordwithideas of
faculty
judgmentof theinadequacyofthegreatest
to attainto theseis forus a law.'"
reason,in so faras theeffort
Addison,TheSpeciator,ed. Donald F. Bond,vol. 3 (Oxford,1965),no. 417,pp. 564-65.
15/Joseph
16/EdmundBurke,The WorkvofEdmundBurke,12 vols. (Boston,1904),1:205-6.
17/Ibid.,p. 110.
18/Kant,p. 257; Meredith,p. 106.

Cohn and Miles/TheSublime 299

The imagination,unable in the wake of the sublime experienceto judge and
controlits aestheticresponse in accord withthe reason, feelssimultaneouslythe
pain of the loss of reason and the power of its new freedom.
The ideas, inherentin Burke and Kant, that thereis a negative aspect to
pleasure, that thereis an aestheticexperiencewhich involvespain, and that this
pain or displeasure is a particularlystrongemotional experience,seem to point
ahead to concepts developed by Freud, conceptswhichdepend on the theoretical
antithesisbetween some aspects of human consciousness and the demands of
human society. But there is a furtherstep in the developmentof the aesthetic
sublime that will contributeto the culturalclimatein whichFreud's work would
be done.
The sublime had continued, in aesthetic discussion, to be conceived in
relationto individualexperience.This was truewhetherthe sublimewas comprehended as inherentin the object-and that object itselfeitheras art or as nature,
or as in thesubject; but obviouslya subjectiveview,and the Romanticframework
in which it developed, tended to intensifythe significanceof the individual's
emotiveand moral experience.
WithAddison, thesublimeresidedin theobject,in worksof art; furthermore,
it made its impressionon the viewerbecause of a natural affinity
in the human
mind,or soul, to whatis good or greatin man: "Such stupendousWorks [temples,
places of worship,magnificentbuildings where the deity resides] might,at the
same time, open the Mind to vast Conceptions, and fitit to converse with the
Divinity of the Place. For everythingthat is Majestick, imprintsan Awfullness
and Reverence on the Mind of the Beholder, and strikesit with the Natural
Greatness of the Soul.""1 For Addison, the individual mind is a typical mind,
since it reflectsthe general harmony of the universe. In the mind, in art, in
Nature,and in God residethe"Natural Greatness,"theessentialgoodness,which
is the unifyingelement in the world. The individual is more or less passive; a
natural and innate element in his spiritis awakened by the sublime object he
beholds.
Burke's analysis of the sublime does not rest on such a set of assumptions,
of course. His thrustis psychological; he addresses himselfto the dilemma of
findingdelightin the sublime,a "passion ... whichhas pain forits object." The
use of "delight" is peculiar to Burke who definespleasure as a positiveemotion
and delightas "the sensationwhichaccompanies the removalof pain or danger."
His solution emphasizes equilibrium, the state of rest that follows exertion.
Creating an analogy between emotional and physical exertion,Burke explains
that "as common labor, whichis a mode of pain, is the exerciseof the grosser,a
mode of terroris the exerciseof the finerpart of the system. ."20 The function
...system.Thereis an
of thesublimeis theexercisingofthefinerfacultiesofthehuman
echo here of the Aristoteliantheoryof the value of catharsisand a suggestionof
the futuredevelopmentof Freudian theory.
The individual value of the sublime in Burke's aestheticis revealed by his
no. 415, p. 555.
19/Addison,
20/Burke,
pp. 214, 108,216.

300 Modern Philology(February 1977)

explanation of the collectivevalue of the beautiful,whichis a qualitythat draws
men, unlike animals, toward a sexual object and, hence, toward procreation.
Beauty is "that quality,or those qualities in bodies, by which theycause love."
Therefore,"I call beauty a social quality."21
and egotistic;thesublime,
For Kant, on the contrary,beautyis self-centered
disinterestedand selfless.Withthisdiscriminationbetweentheaims and functions
of the sublime and the beautiful,Kant moves out of the realm of aesthetics.and
into the realmof moral philosophy.Though Kant, unlikeBurke,is not concerned
theFreudian
withindividualpsychology,his abstractmoral philosophyprefigures
idea of sublimation.
The sublime,in Kant's view,leads to the comprehensionof the moral law, a
law which can be known only to him who willinglymakes sacrifices,undergoes
deprivation.The sublimeexperienceis unpleasantfroman aestheticpointof view,
but our surrenderto this aesthetic deprivation opens the way for a positive
intellectualand moral experience:
isthetischkenntlich
... und da diese Macht sich eigentlichnur durchAusopferungen
macht(welcheseine Beraubung,obgleichzum Behufder innernFreiheit,ist, dagegen
Tiefediesestibersinnlichen
eine unergriindliche
Vermogensmitihrenins Unabsehliche
von derasthetischen
sicherstreckenden
Folgenin unsaufdeckt):so istdas Wohlgefallen
vonderintellecSeite(in Beziehungaus Sinnlichkeit)
negativ,d.i. widerdiesesInteresse,
tuellenaber betrachtet,
positivund miteinemInteresseverbunden.
thatthismight[whichthemorallaw exertsover
Now, sinceit is onlythroughsacrifices
ofsomething(and thisinvolvesa deprivation
us] makesitselfknownto us aesthetically,
in turnit revealsin us an unfathomable
ofinnerfreedom-whilst
thoughin theinterests
theconsequencesof whichextendbeyondreachof
faculty,
depthof thissupersensible
lookedat fromtheaesthetic
side(in reference
theeyeofsense,)itfollowsthatthedelight,
but fromthe intellectual
is negative.i.e. opposed to thisinterest,
to sensibility)
side,
positiveand boundup withan interest.22
In Kant's view thereis no Addisonian sense of the naturalgoodness of man; on
the contraryeach man must struggle,by effortsof the reason, to force the will
to engage in goodness. It is throughthe experienceof the sublime that man can
develop the strengthof reason and will:
Naturnichtso von selbst,sondernnurdurchGewalt,welche
weildie menschliche
der Sinnlichkeit
die Vernunft
anthut,zu jenem Guten zusammenstimmt.
Umgekehrt
wirdauch das, was wirin der Naturausseruns,oder auch in uns... erhabennennen,
der Sinnlichkeit
durch
nurals eine Machtdes Gemuths,sich ubergewisseHindernisse
und dadurchinteressant
werden.
moralischeGrundsatzezu schwingen,
vorgestellt
... forhumannaturedoes notofitsownpropermotionaccordwiththegood,butonly
whichreasonexercisesoversensibility.
that,too,
Conversely,
byvirtueofthedomination
as a mightofthemindenablingit to overwhichwe call sublime... is onlyrepresented
ofsensibility
and itis fromthis
comethisor thathindrance
bymeansofmoralprinciples,
thatit derivesitsinterest."3
...

No longeran aestheticcategorywhich,in art, nature,or the human subject

operates upon the mind, Kant's sublime becomes an active, almost a muscular,
engagementof the spiritoperatingformoral ends. For Kant, Burke's "exercise"
21/Ibid.,
pp. 165,115.
p. 123.
22/Kant,
p. 271; Meredith,
23/Ibid.

Cohn and Miles/TheSublime 301

does not have its end in individual mental health, but in the developmentof
such socially valuable attributesas disinterestednessand "anti-egotism." The
moral agent and the moral goal are still confinedwithinthe individual,to be
sure,but the impliedeffectof such moral upliftis societal. From the pointof view
of Freudian psychology,Kant's process necessitatesthe repressionof certain
aspects of the human spirit,what he calls "sensibilities,"but whatwe mightmore
typicallylabel the senses, in the interestof some highergood.
When we turnto Freud and his theoryof sublimation,we recognizefirstthat
he has takenthetermfroma chemical-scientific
vocabulary,forhe uses Sublimierung ratherthan any of the native German words which had been developed for
thefigurativeuses of theconceptsof sublimeand sublimation.In the one instance
that Freud does use theaestheticterm"sublime," in his essay on "The Uncanny"
(Das Unheimlich),he chooses, as had Kant, to use the termErhaben (X, 269;
XVII, 219).
Freud conceives of his use of the word Sublimierung(sublimation)as an
innovation; the German textsets the word in double spaces, the equivalent of
italics for emphasis, and Freud customarilydefinesthe termas he employs it.
The definitionsreveal subtle but highlysignificantchanges in Freud's own conception of the term and the social meaning of the process. An early use and
definitionof sublimationoccur in "'Civilized' Sexual Morality" (1908): "Man
nennt diese Fihigkeit, das urspriinglichsexuelle Ziel gegen ein anderes, nicht
mehrsexuelles,aber psychischmitihmverwandtes,zu vertauschen,die Fdihigkeit
zur Sublimierun g" ("this capacity to exchange its original sexual aim for
anotherone, whichis no longersexual but whichis psychicallyrelatedto the first
aim, is called the capacity for sublimation[Sublimierung]")(VII, 150; IX, 187).
The sexual aim forFreud, unlikeBurke,is not social and is at bestcontrolled.Like
Kant, Freud sees as a necessaryhuman capacity the ability to repressan unacceptable urge or goal, and to replace it withanotheraim.
By 1909, Freud was able to label this secondaryaim as "higher." In "Five
Lectures on Psycho-Analysis,"he says ".. . dieser Wunsch wird selbst auf ein
h6heres und darum einwandfreiesZiel geleitet(was man seine Sublimierung
heisst)"(". . . thewishitselfmaybe directedto a higherand consequentlyunobjectionable aim [this is why we call it sublimation]") (VIII, 25-26; XI, 27-28).
Consciously or not, Freud has now set the term,sublimation,into its original
contextof elevation and purification.
In stilllaterwork,Freud beginsto connectsublimationwiththe directionof
energytoward goals that are satisfyingsocially ratherthan individually.Each
such step bringsus furtherfromthe Addisonian view of harmonyamong man,
nature,society,and God. In "Some Thoughtson Development and RegressionAetiology" (1917), Freud discriminatedsexual fromsocial aims; the process that
"places social aims higher than the sexual ones" is called sublimation.The
emphasisis again on elevation,on a scale of values whichplaces the social above
the sexual which Freud, echoing Kant, labels as "self-interested"("selbstsiichtigen") (XI, 358-9; XVI, 345).24
by Alan Lelchuk("On SatirizingPresidents,"AtlanticMonthly228
24/PhilipRoth,interviewed
to Freud'stheory"thatcivilizedlifebegan
[December1971]:81-88),definessatirebyreference
when the firstangryman chose invectiveand verbal abuse over physicalviolence." Roth

302

Modern Philology(February 1977)

In "Civilization and Its Discontents" (1930), Freud states that sublimation

transfersour aims fromthe level of individual gratificationto that of cultural
development:
istein besondershervorstechender
Die Triebsublimierung
Zug der Kulturentwicklung,
kiinstdass h6herepsychischeTitigkeiten,wissenschaftliche,
sie machtes m6iglich,
eineso bedeutsameRolle im Kulturleben
spielen.
lerische,ideologische,
it is
Sublimationofinstinct
is an especiallyconspicuousfeatureofculturaldevelopment;
whatmakesit possibleforhigherpsychicalactivities,
artisticor ideological,to
scientific,
playsuchan important
partin civilizedlife.[XIV, 457; XXI, 97]
Given the values of sublimation,it may not be the vicissitudeit appears.
Freud's view takes us far from the seventeenth-and eighteenth-century
English uses of sublime,self-loveand social are no longerthe same. Both Kant
and Freud see a bestial qualityin man; the aestheticsublimeor the psychological
act of sublimationcontrolsand repressesthe beast in the interestsof civilization.
While Kant's Erhabencand Freud's Sublimierungbecome words of the sublime
familyin English (where these words have maintained a long historyof both
scientificand figurativeuses), the introductioninto English of the particular
meaningscarried in Kant and Freud has alteredthe nativefieldof connotation
forsublimeby insistingon the superiorityof the societal over the individualaim.
In English,the sublime in all its figurativeuses, aestheticas well as theological,
focused on the individualexperienceand response. Even Burke, withhis awareness of the perversevalue of pleasure-pain,was concerned with the individual
exerciseof the psycheand withthe individualhealth of the finerfacultieswhose
"sacrifices,"if any, were only vicarious.
In the word sublime lie partial historiesof English word building,word
borrowing,aesthetics,science, and philosophy.Afterthe Anglo-Saxon period,
when native roots were compounded for carefultranslationof the Latin words
for"limit" and for"threshold-lintel,"
Englishbegan itscareerof word borrowing.
First in the field of alchemy and then with extended metaphorical meanings,
sublimewords enteredEnglish witha varietyof meaningsand connotations.The
vocabulary of rhetorickept sublimeto a fairlyrigorousdefinitionof loftinessin
style. Theological usage pushed the metaphoric associations further,and in
generalspeech the word flounderedthroughthe sixteenthcenturywithmeanings
as diverseas promotedand prideful.AfterBoileau, the sublime became a fieldfor
aesthetic-critical
writing;here its focus shiftedfromart to nature,and fromthe
object to the subject. In Burke and in Kant, the extensionswere widened and
altered,creatingfinallya wordwhosemeaningimpliedelevationofsoul,specifically
in Kant thethrowingoffof thebestialin man, clear evidenceof a moral act of the
will. Freud's word, takingSublimierung
froma scientificvocabularyand adding
to English a new meaningfor the already overloaded sublimation,developed the
Kantian attitude further;sublimationbecame a mental process of suppressing
man's lower desiresand substitutingfor themhighergoals. Implicitthroughout
goes on to explainthat"what beginsas the desireto murderyourenemywithblows ... is
or socialized,in theartofsatire"(p. 86). Hereaggressionbecomes
mostthoroughly
sublimated,
the dangerouspersonalpassion thatis, forsocial ends,sublimated.

Cohn and Miles/TheSublime 303

this later developmentis the anti-Romanticassumptionthat man, unlike Rousseau's
is
in relationto the goals
1?mile, basically dangerous,dangerousespecially
of his society.The highergood becomesthesocial good, and theact of sublimation
is a moral act in which selfishends are sacrificedto social: the individualpsyche
controlledforthe "progress" of civilization.
V
Live a saintlylife. . . prayersand matinsand all that,and the
subconsciousmindhikesyou out of bed at nightto steal undermuslins!Subliminaltheft,
so to speak. [MARY ROBERTSRINEHART,
The Man inLowerTen]
The peculiar historyof the vocabulary of English reflectsnot only our
penchantfor borrowingwords fromotherlanguages, but forcoining words out
of borrowed roots. Such a coined word is subliminal,apparentlyinventedby
J. A. Ward in the nineteenthcenturyto translatethe phrase"unterder Schwelle"
fromthe German educational psychologistJohannFriedrichHerbart.25Ward, a
British Horatio Alger who began as a grocer's son and became a Cambridge
scholar,coined subliminalwitha finesense of the meaningof the Latin roots suband limin-limenand an equally fine disregardfor its similarityin form and
opposition in meaningto the derivativesof sublimein English.
French psychologists avoided this problem by translating "under the
threshold"(of consciousness)as infraliminaire;
German psychologistsconstructed
new words out of native rather than borrowed roots. In G. T. Fechner, the
and experimentalaesthetician,the word
nineteenth-century
psychciphysiologist
hwelle (consciousness threshold). The related terms
appears as Bewusstseinss,
and Unbewusstealso appear for the subconscious and the
Unterbewusstsein
unconscious. Freud consistentlyavoids termsfor subconscious,using them only
to quote the work of others,and in his later writingattacks the word and the
relatedidea:
WennjemandvomUnterbewusstsein
weissichnicht,meinter es topisch,etwas,
spricht,
was in derSeele unterhalbdes Bewusstseins
liegt,oder qualitativ,ein anderesBewusstsein,ein unterirdisches
gleicisam.
Ifsomeonetalksofsubconsciousness
I cannottellwhether
he means
[Unterbewusstsein],
the termtopographically----i
o indicatesomethinglyingin the mindbeneaththe conto indicateanotherconsciousness,
a subterranean
sciousness--orqualitativelyone, as
it were.[XIV, 225; XX, 1981
Thus, it is a uniquely Britishdevelopmentthat gives us the parallel termssublimationand subliminalforantithetically
different
concepts. Only in the ink-horn
termsof the nineteenth-century
Britishscholar-scientists
does a new value appear
fora word connected withsublime; only in subliminaldoes the full meaningof
"below" appear and does the connotationof the dark and subterraneanreplace
the meaningsof loftinessand purification.
of the OED adds theadverbsubliminally
witha 1919citation.Here also
25/The1933Supplement
is an additionaldefinition
forsublimation,
its psychoanalytic
introducing
meaningand citing
Dr. ConstanceE. Long's editionand translation
of Carl G. Jung'sCollectedPaperson Analytic
Psychology (London, 1916).

304

Modern Philology(February 1977)

It is ironic that the etymologicalsense of J. A. Ward was accurate, for the

semanticsof the new sciences reflectstheirdriftaway fromthe central core of
theirsociety: the naive empiricismof these scientistsexpressesitselfin the most
literalistkind of Latin borrowing.In the same encyclopedia article in which
"subliminal" is said to have firstappeared,one can findas wellextensity,
involution,
irradiation,ideation,percept,and the most bizarre neologism of the
innervation,
lot: oblivescence.All are scientifictermsfromthe nineteenthcenturyand a few,
amusingly,had once been termscontrivedby ink-hornexpertsof the sixteenth,
termsthatsubsequentlyfellnot into oblivescencebut into total oblivion.
and West VirginiaUniversity
Carnegie-MellonUniversity
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An Anglo-SaxonDictionary.
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A ComprehensiveEtymological Dictionary of the English Language. By Ernest Klein.

2 vols. New York,1967.

Deutsches Wbirterbuch
von Jacob Grimmund WilhelmGrimm.Leipzig, 1854-1954.
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DarlingBuck.Chicago,1949.

Dictionnairealphabitiqueet analogique de la languefrangaise.By Paul Robert. Paris, 1966.

Dictionnairede I'acadimie frangaise. Preface by F. Charpentier.4 vols. Paris, 1694.
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A. Meillet.Paris,1967.

An EtymologicalDictionaryof the EnglishLanguage. By Walter William Skeat. Oxford,

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Lexicon.By HenryGeorgeLiddelland RobertS. Scott.Oxford,1968.

Harper's Latin Dictionary. Edited by E. A. Andrews. New York, 1907.

IndogermanischesEtymologischesW5rterbuch.By Julius Pokorny. Bern, 1959.
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Languages. New York, 1964.
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Worterbuch.ByGeorgFriedrich
Benecke,editedbyWilhelmMiuller

and Friedrich
Zarnecke.Hildesheim,
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The New Cassell's German Dictionary. New York, 1958.

Origins: A Short EtymologicalDictionaryof Modern English.By Eric Partridge.London,

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The Oxford Dictionaryof English Etymology.By C. T. Onions. Oxford, 1966.

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