The Comet Is Coming: Locating the Moomin Sublime
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24193/subbphil.2026.2.05Keywords:
Moomins, environment, environmental aesthetics, sublime, Tove JanssonAbstract
This article focuses on the unique way in which Tove Jansson’s Moomin narratives illuminate fundamental questions in environmental aesthetics. It draws primarily on the original Moomin novels, with particular attention to Comet in Moominland (1946). The first part examines the Moomins’ relationship with their environment. It discusses Jansson’s use of the rhetorical device of the “text within a text” and the pivotal moment in the saga known as “the first experience of Moominpappa’s life.” The second part analyzes three types of attitude to the impending environmental catastrophe and identifies among them a specific Moomin version of the Kantian sublime.
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