Finding a South African Sublime

The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is Astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it.
-Edmund Burke, On the Sublime and Beautiful

In the early days of this blog I put considerable time and effort into my exploration of the sublime, looking at the various definitions of the concept, discovering ways others have experienced and described it in writing and media, and drawing connections between the sublime described in Romantic-era literature and the idea of the modern, technological sublime. Now I’ve had the opportunity to explore the sublime in a physical sense, through my travel to truly sublime locations in South Africa, while at the same time looking at how this concept relates to my project on ecotourism. In my next few blog posts I’m going to focus on these sublime experiences and connections, beginning with my experiences at Nahoon, Hogsback and Cape Point.