Sublimis and Le Merveilleux: Dramatizing, Performing, and Picturing Phaethon's Fall

This chapter focuses on how writers and artists in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic used the myth of Phaethon to express their ideas about man's contact with sublime heights. By focusing on the tragic ending of the reckless boy, Joost van den Vondel discussed the existential dangers that arose from his flight toward the sun. Indeed, Vondel believed that humans run enormous risks by entering heavenly regions. However, marvelous forms of entertainment that evoked the fall of Phaethon conveyed to the audience the overwhelming sensation to be elevated to the sublime. This chapter, therefore, looks at Ovid's sublimis pointing out human limitations, as well as at the tradition of le merveilleux emphasizing the spectacularity of sublime heights.