Second Nature and the Sonic Sublime

Like other spaces of the Enlightenment, sublime was what Michel de Certeau might have called “a practiced place.” Its rhetorical commonplaces, philosophical terrains, and associated physical environments were cultivated, shaped, framed by human action habit. But can sublime—epiphanic, quasi-spiritual, unmasterable, extraordinary—ever really become a habit? Is it possible, even natural, to habituated sublimity? Taking as its point departure Aristotelian claim that “habit is second nature,” this article explores counterintuitive relationship between habit sublime. It focuses not on eighteenth-century “cultivar,” natural sublime, but sonic sublimity, exploring one hand overwhelming sounds, conceptualization sound itself phenomenon stretching beyond audibility fill all space. As exploration shows, both seen capable creating nature, prominent writers connected habit, practice, or repetition Equally, however, there are points friction aesthetic philosophies especially in idea dulls removes sensation. This Félix Ravaisson's landmark De l'habitude (1838), text currently enjoying renewed attention, apparently stems from Enlightenment attempts explain sensation, consciousness, freedom. Similar concerns inform yet logic behind at odds with dulling The closes touching reemergence “second nature” contemporary art oriented toward revisions nature involves.