Here is what Bloom writes about the sublime:
The ancient idea of the sublime, as set forth by the Hellenistic critic we call "Longinus," seems to me the origin of my expectation that great poetry will possess an inevitability of phrasing. Longinus tells us that in the experience of the sublime we apprehend a greatness to which we respond by a desire for identification, so that we will become what we behold. Loftiness is a quality that emanates from the realm of aspiraion from what Wordsworth called a sense of something evermore ABOUT TO BE.
Harold Bloom, The Art of Reading Poetry (2004)
The process of a lingustic arrangement's becoming itself; the reader's identification with the process; the sense of anticipation that's exhilarating; and its postponed fulfillment---hence, the sublime.
Master!
