The Beauty in the Unknown

In her hit 2004 song “Unwritten,” Natasha Bedingfield sings about the joy of embracing the

unknowns of life and belts out the iconic lines “live your life with arms wide open. Today is where your

book begins; the rest is still unwritten.” The song inspires a sense of spontaneity and freedom in living

one’s life. She encourages the listeners to see the unfinished, unwritten, as a canvas for one’s own

imagination in living a fulfilling life. The sentiment portrayed here by Natasha Bedingfield is not unlike

that of Edmund Burke in his book, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful. In part two

of his work, Burke examines many subjects including the concept of infinity. Included in Burke’s

discourse on infinity is the way that the promise of something more, especially within the unfinished,

connects us to the imagination and leads our minds to infinite possibilities. Edmund Burke uses the

ideas of springtime, youth, and unfinished sketches to prove that unfinished things are pleasant because

they open up a pathway to imagination.

The first example Burke uses to demonstrate the way in which infinity causes pleasure and delight is springtime. He heralds spring as the “pleasantest of the seasons,” and the credit for this is given to the moderation and incomplete nature of the season (63). Spring is often symbolic of renewal and growth and that symbolic meaning comes from the moderate temperatures of spring after the cold of winter and before the heat of summer. During this time of year, flowers bloom and the moderate temperatures imply the infinite possibilities of what is to come with this new beginning of sorts. Burke says that “infinity, though of another kind, causes much of our pleasure in agreeable [images],” when applying this thought to springtime the meaning becomes more evident (63). It is not hard to distinguish springtime as an agreeable season because of its moderation, but the way spring produces a sense of openness to possibilities and imagination is another important factor of its pleasantness according to Burke’s logic. Because there is beauty in possibilities, there is likewise beauty in that which draws the mind towards those possibilities-- springtime being among those things.

The next illustration Burke expertly chooses to use in his argument is the “young of most animals” (63). One could point to the way people look at young animals like puppies or kittens as cuter-- or more pleasing and delightful- as evidence to Burke’s claim that the young “afford a more agreeable sensation than the full grown” (63). Burke does not attribute the agreeable nature of the young of most animals to their smaller size or softer demeanor, instead he points to the infinite possibilities of their future as the cause of their pleasantness. His point could be best examined when including humans into the illustration. When considering children, or young people in general, there is a sense of something pleasant within them that can be attributed to the unknown and therefore infinite possibilities of what their futures may hold. The young are still developing and are open to new interests and opportunities. In contrast, as one grows older they have less time on the earth and therefore more limited options for what their futures may contain. Another reason this example works is because children look at the world around them with a greater sense of imagination, which Burke says connects one to the infinite. A child sees every piece of construction paper as a piece of artwork ready to be completed, every person as a potential friend, and every occupation as a potential career path. They see what could be which is not limited by preconceived notions or societal standards; whereas adults are more likely to see a stray piece of paper as trash, a stranger as a threat, and vocations as limited by their skillset. All of these ideas tend to prove that Burke is correct in saying that the young are “far from being completely fashioned” and are not set in their ways which produces a natural relation to the beauty of unlimited, infinite possibilities (63).

The last example Burke uses to demonstrate that objects with infinite possibilities procure the imagination and are considered more agreeable than their complete, finalized forms is the illustration of an unfinished sketch. Burke says that in an unfinished drawing he sees “something which pleased me beyond the best finishing” (63). At first this suggestion seems absurd, but upon further examination Burke’s point makes sense. Many would suggest that a finished painting is beautiful, but someone else could easily look at the same artwork and consider it as subpar. In contrast, a sketch holds a certain type of beauty that can not be contradicted; the sketch does not yet have a final form and therefore holds unlimited possibilities to be conjured up by the beholder. The imagined finished product a beholder conjures up when looking at the drawing is agreeable to them, but when it is actually completed there is potential for dispute or disappointment. Burke states that the unfinished object can not be reluctantly accepted because it entertains the imagination “with the promise of something more” (63). It is the imagination being activated by the incomplete object that allows for any individual to see something agreeable and beautiful in that object. 

Edmund Burke’s idea that seasons, animals, and objects that allure the active imagination are the most pleasurable of their kind is proven nicely in his work A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful. Burke’s intimation of the relationship between imagination and infinity connects the point expertly. In explaining the way certain things that excite the imagination elicit the sense of pleasure and delight within us, Burke establishes the often forgotten importance of imagination. The importance comes from the connection to infinity that empowers, excites, and edifies a person. It is infinity that we are attracted to, and it is an active imagination when viewing the unfinished that draws us nearer to the concept of infinity via the encountering of unlimited possibilities.