Belo ou sublime?

o desafio da educação estética de F. Schiller

Abstract

This article intends to analyze and understand the connection between Schiller’s essays on the sublime – written during the last decade of the 18^th century and published in 1801 – and his most famous theoretical work, Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, published in 1795. The aesthetic category of the sublime’s relevance, standing out as much in his theories as in his literary work, lacks emphasis in his main work. Therefore, it is necessary to concisely limit, into this specific work, the differences and similarities between the beautiful and the sublime in the individual’s journey towards his destination. That is how we will be able to understand the work of art and the sublime experience in the social and political context idealized by Schiller in his letters, where some core issues in his philosophy, such as the autonomy of reason, politics and the artist role in society, are presented in a more mature way than in the prior expositions on the concept of the sublime.