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Longinus on the sublime

Notes created by Abhay Kumar Patel B A. (Hons.) English, Department of
English, DAV P.G. college

Who is Longinus?

• Longinus is the conventional name of the author of the treatise On

the Sublime, a work which focuses on the effect of good writing.
• Longinus, sometimes referred to as Pseudo-Longinus because his
real name is unknown, was a Greek teacher of rhetoric or a literary
critic who may have lived in the 1st or 3rd century AD.
• He is known only for On the Sublime.
• Longinus was greatly influenced by the large amount of traveling
he completed in his youth. He journeyed to countless cities such as
Athens, Rome and Alexandria. While on these trips, he attended
lectures about philosophy, undoubtedly shaping his own beliefs.
One of Longinus’ favorite philosophers was Plato.

On the Sublime as a Treatise

• On the Sublime is a critical document of great world and

significance.
• It is both a treatise on aesthetica and literary criticism.
• It is written in an epistolary form and the final part, possibly
dealing with public speaking, has been lost.
• The treatise is dedicated to Posthumius Terentianus, a cultured
Roman and public figure, though little else is known of him.
• It is a compendium of literary exemplars, with about 50 authors
spanning 1,000 years mentioned or quoted along with the expected
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examples from Homer and other figures of Greek culture, and even
a passage from the Book of Genesis.
• It is an interesting combination of philosophical speculation about
the elevating, moving powers of poetry and oratory and of practical
suggestions about the grammatical constructions and figures
speech that contribute to the effectiveness of great or sublime
writing.

What Is Sublime?

• “Sublimity is the note which rings from a great mind. Thus it is

that, without any utterance, a notion, unclothed and unsupported,
often moves our wonder, because the very thought is great” (Chp.
9)
• Longinus defined sublime in literature as “loftiness and excellence
in language” that uplifts the reader and makes him or her react as
the writer desires.
• Sublimity may arise from a few words that cast light on a whole
subject, or it may be the result of the expansion and development of
an idea; the treatise suggests that the former method is generally
the more powerful. (Amplification VS Sublimity Chp. 11-14)
• The aim of a great work of art is to transport the reader out of
himself. It has a capacity to move the reader to divine joy.
• A great work of art does not only please or instruct, but it also
moves, transports, elevates. It pleases all and it pleases all the time.
• Longinus believed that “Nothing is poetry unless it transports.”

• According to him, a work of art becomes excellent, only when it has

power to sublimate and by sublimity, Longinus means ‘elevation’ or
‘loftiness or ‘a certain distinction and excellence in composition.

Three Pitfalls To Avoid On The Quest For Sublimity/Faults of Sublime

1. /Bombast/Turgidity

• It tries to “transcend the limits of the sublime” through false

elevation and overblown language.

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• A work xcessively enhanced in style or language

• It is a fault because according to Longinus, “all swellings which are
hollow and unreal are bad, and very possibly work round to the
opposite condition” (Chp. 3)

2. Puerility

• The “most ignoble fault”

• It is the fault Longinus associates with pedants or a person who
unduly emphasizes minor details
• “It is a pedantic conceit, which overdoes itself and becomes frigid
at the last”
• “This is passion out of place and unmeaning, where there is no call
for passion, or unrestrained where restraint is needed.”

3. Frigidity/Parenthyrsus

• Parenthyrsus is the expression of false, empty, or out-of-place

passion or sentimentality of the lowest-common-denominator sort
• Longinus identifies as the source of those “ugly and parasitical
growths in literature”, the “pursuit of novelty in the expression of
ideas.”
• “an able author in other respects, and not always wanting in
greatness of style ; learned, acute, but extremely critical of the
faults of others, while insensible to his own; often sinking into
mere childishness from an incessant desire to start new notions.”

Characters of a Sublime Literature

• It pleases.
• It pleases immediately.
• It pleases all.
• It please all the time in all places.
• It pleases forev
• Thus it appeals at a universal range.

True and False Sublime

• Longinus made a distinction between false and the true sublime.

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• Longinus said that the false sublime is characterised first, by

timidity or bombast of language.
• Secondly, the false sublime is characterised by puerility.
• Thirdly, the false sublime results when there is a cheap display of
passion, when it is not justified by the occasion, and so is
wearisome.
• True sublime, on the other hand, pleases all and “pleases always,”
for it expresses thoughts of universal validity—thoughts common to
man of all ages and centuries—in a language which instinctively
uplifts our souls.
• The true sublime uplifts our soul. “It arise from lofty ideas clothed
in lofty language.” It gives us joy and exalts our spirit. The more
we read, the more we enjoy it. Everytime, it suggest new ideas and
feelings.

Chapter 5 (Reasons of those Faults)

All these undignified faults spring up in literature from a single

cause, the craving for intellectual novelties, on which, above all else, our
own generation goes wild. It would almost be true to say that the sources
of all the good in us are also the sources of all the bad. Thus beauties of
expression, and all which is sublime, I will add, all which is agreeable,
contribute to success in our writing ; and yet every one of these becomes
a principle and a foundation, as of success, so of its opposite sublime.
Much the same is to be said of changes of construction, hyperboles,
plurals for singulars ; we will show in the sequel the danger which seems
to attend each. Therefore it is necessary at once to raise the question
directly, and to show how it is possible for us to escape the vices thus
intimately mingled with the sublime.

FIVE ELEMENTS OF THE SUBLIME (CHAPTER 8)

Natural Capacities of the Author

1. “the power of forming great conceptions” or the grandeur of

thought
2. “vehement and inspired passion” or capacity for strong emotions

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Rhetorical Skills

3. “the due formation of figures” or appropriate use of figures of

speech
4. “noble diction” or suitable diction on metaphors
5. “dignified and elevated composition” or majestic structure of the
whole work

1. Grandeur of Thought

• Grandeur of thought is the first essential element because noble

and lofty thought find their natural expression in lofty language.
• Nobody can produce a sublime work unless his thoughts are
sublime.
• “Sublimity is the echo of greatness of soul. It is impossible for those
whose whole lives are full of mean and servile ideas and habits, to
produce anything that is admirable and worthy of an immortal life.
It is only natural that great accents should fall from the lips of
those whose thoughts have always been deep and full of majesty.”
• Stately thoughts belong to the loftiest minds.

How to Obtain it?

• Feed your soul on the works of the great masters like Homer, Plato
or Demosthenes, and capture from them some of their own
greatness
• What Longinus has in mind is not mere imitation or borrowing, but
that “men catch fire from the spirit of others.”
• The process is called illumination, guiding the mind in some
mysterious way to the lofty standards of the ideal

2. Capacity for Strong Emotion

• Longinus asserts that nothing contributes more to loftiness of tone

in writing than genuine emotion.
• At one place, for instance, he says, “I would confidently affirm that
nothing makes so much for grandeur as true emotion in the right
place, for it inspires the words, as it were, with a wild gust of mad
enthusiasm and fills them with divine frenzy. “

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• Longinus believes that only an artist who is intoxicated by passion

and imagination can transfer the same passion in his reader. This
way he can arouse in them an emotional transport.

3. Appropriate Use of Figures of Speech

• Longinus considered this as a very important element to sublimity

and so devotes nearly 1/3 of his work to it.
• The grandeur of any figure “will depend on its being employed in
the right place and the right manner, on the right occasion, and
with the right motive.”
• “It strengthens the sublime, and the sublime supports it. We need
the figures only “when the nature of the theme makes it allowable
to amplify, to multiply or to speak in the tones of exaggeration or
passion; to overlay every sentence with ornament is very pedantic.“
• When the figure is unrelated to passion, it creates a suspicion of
dishonesty and is divorced from sublimity.
• The chief figures that make for sublimity are the theoretical
question, asyndeton, hyperbaton, and periphrasis.
• In brief, the use of figures must be psychological—intimately
connected with thought and emotion, and not merely mechanical.
• Proper use of figure of speech appeal to our passion. In this
connection he says, “A figure is more effective when the fat that it
is a figure is happily concealed and it is concealed by spendeor of
style.

4. Nobility of Diction

• Being a great rhetorician Longinus gives great importance to

diction, which includes proper arrangement of words and use of
metaphors as ornament of language.
• Diction should differ as occasion differs. All characters should not
speak the same language.
• The discussion of diction is incomplete because four leaves of this
part of the book are unfortunately lost. Nevertheless, words, when
suitable and striking, he says, have ‘’a moving and seductive effect”
upon the reader and are the first things in a style to lend it
“grandeur, beauty and mellowness, dignity, force, power, and a sort
of glittering charm.“
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• It is they that breathe voice into dead things. They are ‘the very
light of ought’—a radiance that illumines the innermost recesses of
the writer’s mind.
• But ‘it should be noted that imposing language is not suitable for
every occasion. When the object is trivial, to invest it with grand
and stately words would have the same effect as putting a full-sized
tragic mask on the head of a little child.’
• This necessitates the use of common words which, when in elegant,
make up for it by their raciness and forcefulness.
• Among these ornaments of speech Longinus considers metaphor
and hyperbole.
• Proper use of metaphor and hyperbole produces sublimity more
effectively than other figure.

5. Dignity of Composition

• Finally, Longinus came to the fifth and final source of sublimity.

This is the combination of all the four source or the dignified
composition.
• It should be one that blends thought, emotion, figures, and words
themselves—the preceeding four elements of sublimity—into a
harmonious whole.
• It emphasized on the dignity composition that is the proper
arrangement of word. It combines thought, emotion, figures and
words into an organic whole.
• According to him, “Sublimity means a certain destination and
excellence in composition. And then, he warns that great thought
which lack composition and themselves wasted and wasted the
total sublime effect.
• Such an arrangement has not only “a natural power of persuasion
and of giving pleasure but also the marvellous power of exalting the
soul and swaying the heart of men.” It makes the hearer or reader
share the emotion of the speaker.
• But “if the elements of grandeur be separated from one another, the
sublimity is scattered and made to vanish but when organised into
a compact system and still further encircled in a chain of harmony
they gain a living voice by being merely rounded into a period.”

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• A harmonious composition alone sometimes makes up for the

deficiency of the other elements.
• A proper rhythm is one of the elements in this harmony.
• Negatively, deformity and not grandeur is the result if the
composition is either extremely concise or unduly prolix. The one
cripples the thought and the other overextends it.

Measurement of Sublime

Longinus gave the three criteria to measure sublimity of a work.

1. It is good to imagine how home would have aid the same things
or how Plato or Demosthenes would have invested with
sublimity in a work..
2. If Homer and Demosthenes would have been alive, how would
they react against it? Their feeling about the work is a
measurement.
3. The last measurement for any work to be sublime is : How will
posterity take it?

Effects of the Sublime

1. Loss of rationality
2. Alienation leading to identification with the relative process of
the artist
3. Deep emotion mixed in pleasure and exaltatio

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