On the Sublime - Longinus (2 of 2) MY FAVORITE

In Chapter 15, Visualization, Longinus compares the three great Tragedians in two incredibly rich paragraphs which employ examples to teach the highest principles of evocative words. He begins by quoting Aeschylus from Seven Against Thebes approvingly, saying the poet “ventures on images of a most heroic cast” before then offering his expert judgement on all three of the great tragedians.

Sometimes, however, Aeschylus introduces ideas that are unfinished and crude and harsh; yet Euripides in a desire to emulate him comes dangerously near to committing the same faults. For example, in Aeschylus the place of Lycurgus at the appearance of Dionysus is described in unusual terms as being divinely possessed: “Then the house is in an ecstasy, and the roof inspired with Bacchic frenzy.” Euripides has expressed the same idea differently, softening it down: “And the whole mountain joined with them in their Bacchic frenzy.”

Sophocles, too, has made excellent use of visualization in describing the death of Oedipus as he entombs himself among portents from the sky, and in his account how, at the departure of the Greeks, Achilles shows himself above his tomb to those who are sailing away….

??????????? In Chapter 22 on The Figure of Hyperbaton, or Inversion, Longinus applies his analysis of sublimity to the prose of two of the most respected writers of all time, the “Historian’s Historian” and “Athens’ greatest orator.” Hyperbaton refers to the author’s change of the expected order of the words in sentences to create a specific effect, the word derives from the Greek meaning “transposition” or as Longinus reads it “inversion.” In this case, rather than give examples, “since there are so many of them,” Longinus demonstrates the technique he is describing so well.

Thucydides is even more skillful in his use of inversions to dissociate things which are by their nature one and indivisible. Demosthenes, though he is indeed not as willful as Thucydides, is the most extravagant of all in his use of this kind of figure … he will in a strange and unlikely order pile one idea on top of another, drawn from any kind of source and just dropped into the middle of what he is saying, inducing in his hearer the fear that the whole structure of the sentence will fall to pieces, and compelling him in his agitation to share in the risk the speaker is taking; and then unexpectedly, after a long interval, he will bring out the long-awaited phrase just where it is most effective, at the very end, and thus, by the very audacity and recklessness of his inversions, he astonishes the listener all the more.

??????????? In Chapter 29, the Dangers of Periphrasis, he emphasizes again the role of “emotional impact” as the key point of achieving sublimity. Periphrasis is simply the use of a longer phrase for effect where a shorter one would suffice to convey the meaning.

My digression on the use of figures and their bearing on the sublime has gone on long enough… They are all means of increasing the animation and the emotional impact of style, and emotion plays as large a part in the production of the sublime as the study of character does in the production of pleasure.

As readers, we are embraced by Longinus’ masterful language, and while we absorb the lessons he is providing, we enjoy the great pleasure of reading him as a writer of the stature of the masters he describes. In Chapter 30, Longinus schools us on the basics of writing with The Proper Choice of Diction.

It is probably superfluous to explain to those who already know it how wonderfully the choice of appropriate and high-sounding words moves and enchants an audience, and to remind them that such a choice is the highest aim of all orators and authors; for of itself it imparts to style at once grandeur, beauty, charm, weight, force, power, and a certain luster such as blooms on beautiful statues; it endows the facts as it were with a living voice.

??????????? In Chapter 32, Metaphor, rather than quoting the original genius, Longinus again demonstrates his own genius by paraphrasing, in this case, the work of Plato in the Timaeus, 65c-85e.

??????????? Furthermore, in the handling of commonplaces and of description nothing so much confers distinction as a continuous series of metaphors. It is by this means that the anatomy of the human body is superbly depicted in Xenophon (Memorabilia, 1.4.5), and still more divinely in Plato. The head, says Plato, is a citadel, and the neck is constructed as an isthmus between the head and the breast; and the vertebrae, he says, are set below like pivots.

??????????? Longinus emphasizes again the purpose of his writing, and why he explores all the techniques that help a writer or speaker to achieve this highest goal.

But those I have mentioned are enough to show that figurative language is a natural source of grandeur, and that metaphors contribute to sublimity; and also that it is emotional and descriptive passages that most gladly find room for them.

??????????? At Chapter 33 Longinus makes a surprising point, especially given the extreme sharpness of his eye and impeccable analysis of language, declaring in the chapter title the Superiority of Flawed Sublimity to Flawless Mediocrity.

… whether in literature the first place should rightly be given to the greater number of virtues, or to virtues which are greater in themselves. … I have myself observed a good many faults in Homer and our other authors of the highest distinction, and I cannot say that I enjoy finding these slips; however, I would not call them willful errors, but rather careless oversights let in casually and at random by the heedlessness of genius. … Now Apollonius reveals himself in his Argonautica as an impeccable poet … Yet would you not rather choose to be Homer rather than Apollonius?

??????????? In Chapter 34, Hyperides and Demosthenes, Longinus compares one of the ten great canonical Athenian orators with the greatest. In this passage, focused again on embodying emotion in language, his energetic praise and admiration inspire us to read Demosthenes to experience this grandeur for ourselves.

But when Demosthenes takes up the tale, he displays the virtues of great genius in their highest form: a sublime intensity, living emotions, copiousness, readiness, speed, where it is appropriate, and his own unapproachable power and vehemence. Having, I say, made himself master of all the riches of these mighty, heaven-sent gifts – for it would not be right to call them human – … he overpowers with his thunder and lightning the orators of every age. One could more easily outface a descending thunderbolt than meet unflinchingly his continual outbursts of emotion.

??????????? On the Sublime is devoted to the achievement of the power to move others through the means of supremely composed language. In Chapter 36, Sublimity and Fame, Longinus approaches a summation of his theories, and further expands our understanding of his devotion to his subject. It is ironic to recall that Longinus himself did not achieve this fame since his magisterial work, his writing and his identity were lost to the record for 1500 years. From the first century when he wrote this timeless dissertation until 1554, when a tenth century manuscript was discovered, no classical or medieval writers noted the existence of On the Sublime or Longinus.

Now with regard to authors of genius, whose grandeur always has some bearing on questions of utility and service, it must be observed at the outset that while writers of this quality are far from being faultless, yet they all rise above the human level. Other attributes proves their possessors to be men, but sublimity carries one up to where one is close to the majestic mind of God. … Moreover, in statues we look for the likeness of a man, whereas in literature, as I have said, we look for something transcending the human.

??????????? In Chapter 44, elegiacally titled The Decay of Eloquence, Longinus uncharacteristically seems to descend to social commentary, and his lofty intellect is burdened by the sad concerns of many authors we have read who lament the fall of the Roman Republic and the loss of freedom under the rule of the emperors in this first century AD. Longinus writes: “For the love of money, that insatiable sickness from which we all now suffer, and the love of pleasure make us their slaves, or rather, one might say, sink our lives (body and soul) into the depths; for love of money is a disease that makes us petty-minded, and the love of pleasure is utterly ignoble.”

??????????? And then we come to end of this short but incomparably exhilarating work. Sadly, this fabulous treatise is disappointingly interrupted many times by a notice stating “(Here pages of the manuscript are missing)” - often in the midst of the most thrilling passages. This is how what remains of this precious document has come down to us ends, where the greatest poet of literary criticism ascends to philosophy.

In short, I maintained that what wears down the spirit of the present generation is the apathy in which, with few exceptions, we all pass our lives; for we do no work nor show any enterprise from any other motives than those of being praised or being able to enjoy our pleasures – never from an eager and honorable desire to serve our fellows.

“It is best to leave things be” (Euripides, Electra, 369), it is best to leave things be and pass on to the next problem, that is, the emotions, about which I previously undertook to write in a separate treatise, for they seem to me to share a place in literature generally, and especially in the sublime….

(The rest is lost)

On the final page of her comprehensive introduction to Classical Literary Criticism, Penelope Murray quotes the eminent classicist Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in his high praise for Longinus. Gibbon is lauding Longinus for his proven ability to demonstrate the highest achievement of great writing, the ability to carry readers away with the power of emotions embodied in the grandeur of the words. In his Journal on September 3, 1762, Gibbon describes his supreme estimation of Longinus in these words:

The ninth chapter is one of the finest monuments of antiquity. Till now I was acquainted with only two ways of criticizing a beautiful passage: the one, to shew by an exact anatomy of it the distinct beauties of it and whence they sprung; the other, an idle exclamation or general encomium which leaves nothing behind it. Longinus has shown me that there is a third. He tells me his own feelings upon reading it, and tells them with such energy that he communicates them.

??????????? Turning to that Chapter 9, titled Natural Greatness, which has earned such high praise, we can share Gibbon’s experience in reading Longinus’ description of the two seminal works in Western literature, the Iliad and Odyssey, and his loving appreciation of both the youth and old age of the divine poet Homer. Longinus says “Homer shows that when great genius falls into decline, a love of storytelling characterizes its old age. … In fact, the Odyssey is nothing other than an epilogue to the Iliad.”

It was, I suppose, for that same reason that, writing the Iliad in the prime of life, he made the whole body of the work dramatic and vivid, whereas the greater part of the Odyssey is narrative, as is characteristic of old age. Thus, in the Odyssey, Homer may be likened to the setting sun: the grandeur remains but without the intensity; for no longer there does he maintain the same pitch as in those lays of Troy. There is not the consistent level of sublimity which nowhere lapses into mediocrity, nor is there the same closely packed profusion of passions, nor the versatility and realism studded with images drawn from real life. As though the ocean were withdrawing to itself and remaining quietly within its own bounds, from now on we see the ebbing of Homer’s greatness as he wanders in the realms of the fabulous and incredible. In saying this I have not forgotten the storms in the Odyssey and the episode of the Cyclops and other things of the kind. I am speaking of old age, but it is, after all, the old age of Homer.