Longinus' theory of the Sublime

Longinus' theory of the Sublime The sublime is one of the most important and often-discussed concepts in philosophical aesthetics, literary theory, and art history. Meaning “loftiness,” “height,” or “elevation” and typically associated with the notions of ecstasy, grandeur, terror, awe, astonishment, wonder, and admiration, the sublime refers at once to a specific discourse, the theory of sublimity, and to an experience, that of transcendence, which has its origins in religious belief and practice. The sublime combines conflicting emotions: fear and awe, horror and fascination. It sweeps the public off its feet in an overwhelming experience of beauty mixed with terror and admiration, caused by stupendous works of art. Originally a rhetorical concept, its main classical source is Longinus’ treatise Peri hupsous or On the sublime, probably written in the 1st century AD. The origin of Peri Hypsous is obscure. Not mentioned in any ancient source, the treatise emerges only during the Italian Renaissance, with the circulation of several manuscript copies. At a time when the poetics of Horace and Aristotle were the dominant force in shaping critical attitudes, Peri hypsous made only a slight impression. The fortunes of the treatise would change dramatically, however, with Nicolas Boileau’s translation into French in 1674. His edition became an instant sensation, transforming “Longinus” into a major European critic and introducing the term “sublime” into a critical lexicon. The author of Peri hypsous was a Greek rhetorician living in Rome. Written in the form of an epistle to Postumius Terentianus, presumably a young Roman nobleman, Longinus endeavours to explain how to achieve hypsos – elevation, loftiness, sublimity – in writing and speaking. The author presents himself as a pedagogue of great breadth and experience. Following the Greek rhetorical tradition, Longinus’s references and citations cover all the major genres of artistic writing. Most striking of all is the treatise’s lively, pithy, and refreshingly unpedantic style, a stark contrast to the rhetorical manuals of the era. Longinus has written a highly specialized rhetorical treatise focused wholly on the principles and techniques of a single type of persuasive style. Approximately one-third of the text is missing. The lacunae occur regularly throughout the text, and, with the exception of the discussion of emotion, pathos, they do not disturb the author’s main lines of thought. As Longinus expresses it at the beginning of his treatise: “Sublimity (hypos) is a kind of eminence or excellence of discourse (logoi.) It is the source of the distinction of the very greatest poets and prose writers and the means by which they have given eternal life to their own fame. For grandeur produces ecstasy rather than persuasion in the hearer; and the combination of wonder and astonishment always proves superior to the merely persuasive and pleasant.” Longinus never straightforwardly defines sublimity, but he offers only a series of oblique characterizations. It is a certain pinnacle and excellence of discourse- a form of language, the expression of emotional and cognitive experience. “Sublimity” and “the sublime” are the conventional translations of hupos. The emphasis that each puts on the sublime (great/elevated) of discourse rather than the sublime (great/elevated) in discourse. It is the one thing that secures the pre-eminence and enduring fame of all the great writers of poetry and prose. It can be recognized by its effect; it produces ecstasy; it astounds and does not (merely) persuade; it controls or irresistibly compels the audience. It is local rather than a global effect: it comes at a single stroke, like lightning, and is not achieved by content or structure on a larger scale. The dominant viewpoint proposed by Longinus’s other predecessors and contemporaries was that it is an innate quality and hence cannot be acquired by instruction. On the issue of ‘teachability’ or ‘non-teachability’ of the sublime, Longinus counters and rejects his contemporaries and proposes that it can be acquired. He probes the question of greatness in writing by drawing on and examining illustrative passages from Homer, Sappho and Plato. There are five sources of sublimity according to Longinus: great thoughts, overwhelming emotions, certain figures of speech, noble diction and dignified word arrangement. Longinus says that “sublimity is often to be found in a single thought”: therefore, not always. There are many ways to overwhelm an audience. As a literary critic, however, Longinus defines the sublime in terms of the classical author, and thus he sees the sublime as a textual representation of this philosophical borderland between consciousness and the ineffable. The sublime is not strictly cognitive but stylistic, the product not only of the mind but also of rhetoric. Longinus analyses a process of sublimity that has 4 phases: 1st phrase pertains to the author, who has ‘the power to conceive great thoughts’ and possesses ‘strong and inspired emotion’ which he generates through ‘imitation and emulation of the great writers of the past.’ In other words, the process originates in textuality, and through intertextuality becomes cognitive, with the author relying on previous texts to form his own intellectual and emotional subjectivity. 2nd phrase pertains to the author’s style: relying on ‘figures of speech such as metaphor, on ‘Noble diction’ and on a ‘dignified and elevated word-arrangement,’ the author pens a literary representation that ‘tears everything up like a whirlwind,’ ‘the whole universe overthrown and broken up.’ The 3rd phase pertains to the effect of the author’s sublime style on the reader: ‘amazement and wonder exert invincible power and force and get the better of every hearer.’ The 4th phase pertains to the author himself: because he affects the reader so exquisitely with the exaltation of emotion, he acquires ‘posthumous fame.’ In this way, Longinus designs the complete literary process of sublimity to be immortalising: ‘sublimity raises us towards the spiritual greatness of God.’ Longinus ultimately promotes an "elevation of style" and an essence of "simplicity".  To quote this famous author, "the first and most important source of sublimity [is] the power of forming great conceptions." The concept of the sublime is generally accepted to refer to a style of writing that elevates itself "above the ordinary". As regards the use of figures of speech, especially metaphor, he proposes that they should be used with restraint; not more than two or three should be used for the same subject. It is paradoxical that Longinus urges restraint in the pursuit of the sublime, which by nature inclines to infinity. The effects of the Sublime are: loss of rationality, an alienation leading to identification with the creative process of the artist and a deep emotion mixed with pleasure and exaltation.  A writer's goal is not so much to express empty feelings, but to arouse emotion in his audience. In the treatise, the author asserts that "the Sublime leads the listeners not to persuasion, but to ecstasy: for what is wonderful always goes together with a sense of dismay, and prevails over what is only convincing or delightful, since persuasion, as a rule, is within everyone's grasp: whereas, the Sublime, giving to speech an invincible power and [an invincible] strength, rises above every listener". Thus, one of the problems that an author may encounter while producing the sublime poetry is the issue of immoderate emotion. Centuries after Longinus authors and critics have been trying to come to terms with the emotional side of the sublime. Although the idea of sublime poetry being pleasing to all may not be appealing to the adherents of high theory, who immediately become suspicious of any form of writing which makes claims of universal appeal, yet Longinus’s treatise of the sublime has influenced a wide range of subsequent thinkers, and continue to do so even now. And, it is this afterlife of the sublime that makes it worth reading even today in the age of theory. -Niharika Dugar