The sublime is a theory of aesthetics that reached its highest popularity in British literature during the Romantic period (c. 1785-1832). This article (1) explicates philosophers' different meanings of the sublime; (2) show how the sublime is relevant to education; and (3) show how the sublime "works" in literature by analyzing William Blake's "Jerusalem," and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." In this article, the author discusses three foci of aesthetics: (1) practice, activity, or object that directly or indirectly conveys or produces a property that is or is perceived as aesthetic; (2) specific property, feature, or aspect of a thing that is considered aesthetic; and (3) ontology or existence of the property. He discusses theories of sublime written by: (1) Longinus; (2) Edmund Burke; and (3) Immanuel Kant. (Contains 24 notes.)