Dr. Kelly Lehtonen Launches Book on “Heroic Awe” in Renaissance Poetry

Graphic by Colby McCaskill

Dr. Kelly Lehtonen, assistant professor of English and Writing, hosted a discussion for her recent book about the heroism of embracing the sublime on Friday, Feb. 24.

“Heroic Awe: The Sublime and the Remaking of Renaissance Epic” is Lehtonen’s first official book and displays her continued affection for Renaissance-Era epic poetry after five years at The King’s College.

In her studies of “Narnia,” “Pilgrim’s Progress” and “Elizabethan English,” she came to find that “this is what I want to do with my life. This is it!”

The book aims to examine the role sublimity plays in texts such as “The Faerie Queene” by Edmund Spenser, “Paradise Lost” by John Milton, “Gerusalemme Liberata” by Torquato Tasso and “Les Semaines” by Du Bartas.

“Early in my time in grad school– as I was thinking about what I was going to do– I came across a theory called the sublimes, theorized by a first-century Greek theorist known as Longinus​​,” Lehtonen said. “Longinus was very unusual in his literary theory. He argued that poetry and literature — art in all of its forms — are really first and foremost about this experience called the sublime.”

“Sublime” is a term used to describe  emotional reactions to things much greater than us – “a state of awe and astonishment; the things that we feel when we’re climbing the alps or looking at a beautiful scene or brilliant sunset; when we’re worshiping a great work of art; anything like that.”

Specifically, Lehtonen decided to research how “the sublime is about giving full expressions to the emotions we feel because we are created in the image of God.”

“We have this sense of the divine within us,” Lehtonen said. “We give full expression to these emotions, and this is a really important part of who we are.”

Lehtonen’s first publication demanded a lot of energy. The idea itself was born over nine years ago, during the Christmas of 2013. Her years researching and writing in her doctorate program “were some of the most rewarding” years of her life. But when she returned to the project in the summer of 2019 through 2020, she “didn’t sleep much [and] just revamped the whole thing.”

After many pitches and “quick rejections,” Lehtonen found solace at Toronto University Press, where she was able to publish two months ago in December 2022.

Heroic Awe can be bought directly from Toronto Press or from wherever books are sold.

Colby McCaskill is a freshman at The King’s College majoring in Journalism, Culture and Society. He is also the City Editor for the Empire State Tribune. He loves to lose at chess and enjoys long frolics in the rain.