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For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co. UK forward slash radio for. I hope

you enjoy the program. Hello when the English assess John Hall translated the work of an obscure

Roman thinker into English in the middle of the

17th century, he could hardly have known the ferment it would cause for the work of

Longinus introduced the, bit of trouble there, introduced the late 17th century British to the idea of the sublime, an idea that stalked the preceding century.

On Gynus wrote, as if instinctively our soul is lifted up by the true sublime. It takes a proud flight,

and is filled with joy and vaunting, as though it had itself produced what it had heard.

Manganus was talking about the power of the language, but in the 18th century the idea was set

for a broader stage as British artists, poets, philosophers and scientists, uncovered the

sublime and adapted it to a great sway

of the intellectual and physical landscape.

What drove the great minds of the age to invest so much in the defining of the state

of awe?

With me to discuss the culture of the sublime are Annie Janavitz,

Janavitz, professor of romantic poetry at Queen Mary, University of London.

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