Acknowledgements -- 1 Introduction -- 1.1 Thesis -- 1.2 Overview of Chapters -- 1.3 Previous Research -- 2 Theory of the Sublime -- 2.1 Longinus -- 2.1.1 "The echo of a great soul" -- 2.1.2 Sappho and the Threatened Subject -- 2.1.3 The Turn of the Sublime -- 2.2 Edmund Burke -- 2.2.1 Towards an Aesthetic of Shocks: Burke -- 2.2.2 The Beautiful and the Sublime -- 2.3 Immanuel Kant -- 2.3.1 Characteristics of the Aesthetic Feeling -- 2.3.2 The Beautiful and the Sublime -- 2.4 Jean-François Lyotard -- 2.4.1 Lyotard and Kantian Reflective Aesthetic Judgement -- 2.4.2 Adjusting Kantian Sublime to the Postmodern Context -- 2.4.3 Realism -- 2.4.4 The Inhuman -- 2.4.5 The Threat of Privation -- 2.4.6 The Ungraspable Presence -- 2.5 Summary -- 2.6 Theorizing the Sublime for Drama Analysis -- 3 Case Studies -- 3.1 Patrick Marber's Closer -- 3.1.1 The Beautiful, the Agreeable and the Sublime -- 3.1.2 Synopsis -- 3.1.3 Internal Analysis: Moments of (In)Hospitality -- 3.1.4 External Analysis: Moments of the (Un)Familiar -- 3.2 Anthony Neilson's Normal -- 3.2.1 Synopsis -- 3.2.2 Bataille, Eros and Thanatos, and the Evil Inside -- 3.2.3 Internal Analysis: Wehner's Sublime Encounter with Eros and Thanatos -- 3.2.4 The External Level: Ecstasy of Minds -- 3.3 Mark Ravenhill's Faust Is Dead -- 3.3.1 Synopsis -- 3.3.2 Seduction in Realism and in Sublime -- 3.3.3 Internal Analysis: Consumerist Seduction of the Characters -- 3.3.4 External Analysis: Sublime Seduction of the Audience -- 3.4 Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis -- 3.4.1 The Impossible Synopsis -- 3.4.2 Internal Analysis: Singing on the Boundary -- 3.4.3 External Analysis: the Influence of the Parergonal Language on the Audience -- 4 Conclusion -- 5 Works Cited.