Does anyone know what this means?
Well, it’s a book you can buy on Amazon “The Trivial Sublime: Theology and American Poetics”, but I’m not suggesting anybody do that.
Is this a riddle? Do you know the answer and are just checking if we do?
Can I suggest it refers to the original sense of ‘sublime’, in which something is almost so comprehensively majestic that you feel small and weak and puny as a human in its presence. The ‘sublime’ was the idea in paintings of spectacular scenery, like the Alps with a tiny little human speck in one corner dwarfed by the magnificence and power of nature (for which read it as God’s work. Go God!).
It’s the sort of feeling for which the word ‘awesome’ was invented to describe being full of awe. Now that word has been co-opted to describe finding that the food you ordered and paid for has arrived, or you have a shadow on a sunny day. So my guess is that it refers to the trivialisation by modern society of what should be words describing powerful emotions and situations.
But that’s a guess. Awesome!
Are you referring to the line in the Harvey Danger song “Flagpole Sitta”?
If so, I would assume that **Banksiaman **has nailed what the singer was meaning to convey by the line, considering the lyrics in whole.
And that’s the theme to Peep Show, probably the best show ever made (maybe excluding Father Ted)! I never realised it was a proper song. Thanks ZipperJJ.
The Grand Canyon of the Colorado is sublime.
Viewing it from inside a tour bus is trivial.
Standing on the edge looking straight down at matchstick size pine trees, however, is not. Been there, done that.