Why We Ride Rollercoasters and Watch Horror Movies
Psychology Today | 27.12.2025 02:49
The distinction between the beautiful and the sublime goes back at least to Longinus (first century CE), who saw the sublime as an overwhelming, ecstatic force that uplifts the soul with grandeur. A flower is beautiful, and so is a great oak, but the great oak is also sublime, and it is its sublimity rather than its beauty that we retain.
