On The Sublime

Longinus
What according to Longinus are the sources of the sublime and how
does he distinguish the true from the false sublime?
By the word 'sublime' Longinus means "elevation" or "loftiness"—all that which raises style
above the ordinary, and gives to it distinction in its widest and truest sense.So sublimity is "a
certain distinction and excellence in composition. " Both nature and art, says Longinus,
contribute to sublimity in literature. "Art is perfect when it seems to be nature, and nature hits
the mark when she contains art hidden within her." (Longinus)

Longinus finds five principal sources of the sublime, the first two of which are largely the gifts
of nature the remaining three the gifts of art (1) grandeur of thought, (2) capacity for strong
emotion, (3) appropriate use of Figures, (4) Nobility of diction, and (5) dignity of composition or
a happy synthesis of all the preceding elements.
(1) Grandeur of Thought
Nobody can produce a sublime work unless his thoughts are sublime. For "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.
Therefore, he who would attain distinction of style must feed his soul on the works of the
great masters, as Homer, Plato and Demosthenes, and capture from them some of their own
greatness, This reflects the classicism of Longinus. However, what Longinus has in mind is not
mere imitation or borrowing, but that "men catch fire from the spirit of others." To Longinus the
operation is one that aims at capturing something of the ancient spirit, something of that vital
creative force which had gone to the " making, of the earlier masterpieces; and its effect he
describes as that ofillumination, guiding the mind in some mysterious way to the lofty standards
of the ideal.
The grandeur of conception is to be emphasized and made effective by a suitable treatment
of material. Details should be so chosen as to form an organic whole. Amplification or
accumulation of all the details of a given subject is also helpful. Such an amplification by its
profusion suggests overwhelming strength and magnitude. The use of vivid and compelling
images is also useful, for it brings home to the readers the conception of the writer, effectively and
forcefully.
(2) Capacity for Strong Emotion
The second source of the sublime is vehement and inspired passion. 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. " It is for this reason that he prefers the Illiad
to theOdyssey and Demosthenes to Cicero. But the emotions have to be 'true emotions' and 'in
the right place'. He thus justifies emotions more artistically than Aristotle. However, the subject
of emotions has not been dealt with in detail. The author declares his intention of dealing with it
in a second treatise, which unfortunately has not come down to us.
(3) Appropriate Use of Pictures
The third source of attaining excellence of style is the use of figures of speech which he
considers very important, and so devotes nearly one third of his work to it. He shows great
discrimination and originality of thinking in his treatment of the subject. Figures of speech should
not be used mechanically, rather they must be rooted in genuine emotion. Used naturally, they
impart elevation to style, and are themselves made more effective by an elevated style.
The figures of thought and diction have to be judiciously employed. The grandeur of any
figure "will depend on its being employed in the right place and the rightmanner, 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.
(4) Nobility of Diction
The fourth source of the 'sublime' is diction which includes choice and arrangement of words
and the use of metaphors and ornamental 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."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.
(5) Dignity of Composition
The fifth source of the sublime is the dignity of composition, that is, a dignified composition
or the arrangement of words. It should be one that blends thought, emotion, figures, and words
themselves—the preceding four elements of sublimity—into a harmonious whole. 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.' 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.
(6) The False and the True Sublime
 Making a distinction between the false and the true sublime, Longinus says that the false
sublime is characterised first, by timidity or bombast of language, which is as great an evil as
swellings in the body. "It is drier than dropsy." Secondly, the false sublime is characterised by
puerility, which is a parade and pomp of language, tawdry and affected, and so frigid. 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.
POINTS TO REMEMBER
1. "Sublime" means "elevation", or "loftiness"—"a certain distinction and excellence in
composition."
2. The principal sources of the Sublime are—(1) grandeur of thought; (2) capacity for strong
emotion; (3) appropriate use of figures of speech; (4) Nobility of diction, and (5) dignity of
composition or a happy blend of the preceding four elements.
3. Sublimity the echo of a great soul; lofty thoughts and ideas a pre condition for sublimity;
trivial thoughts—mean and servile ideas— do not lead to sublimity.
4. The second source of the sublime is the vehement, inspired and genuine emotion.
5. Sublimity can be attained by the appropriate use of the figures of speech which should not
be used mechanically but naturally to be rooted in genuine emotion—should be employed in
the right place and right manner. The chief figures that make for sublimily are asyndaton,
hyperbaton and periphrasis.
6. For sublimity the choice and arrangement of right words. Use of grand words for a trivial
object will only be ridiculous.
7. Hence sublimity in a work of art is the result of a happy blending of lofty thought, strong
and genuine emotion, appropriate figures of speech and suitable words. Elements of
grandeur cannot he separated from each other.
8. True Vs. False Sublime—False sublime is characterized by timidity or bombast of language
and also by puerility (a parade and pomp of language). True Sublime, on the other hand, is
marked by universality of appeal: it pleases all and always : it uplifts our souls.

Write a note on the contribution of Longinus.

Longinus is the first romantic critic. He is a pioneer in the field of literary appreciations. "On
the Sublime" is the first and a unique treatise on style. His prescriptions for sublimity are
universal.

He asks quite different questions about literature from those asked by Plato and Aristotle.
His vision is large. He constantly views poetry in relation to the author and the time of the author.
He makes use of both the historical and thought provoking comments.
His mind is free from prejudice. A great deal of his work is original and illuminating and is of
permanent or universal significance. He attaches importance to emotion, imagination and beauty
of words. He thus becomes a pioneer in the field of aesthetic appreciation. He finds the permanent
and universal qualities in the works of Homer. According to him, the function of literature is not
didactic, but aesthetic. That is why Scott-. james calls him the first romantic critic, but Atkins calls
him an exponent if real classic spirit.
He is a romantic critic because he believes in the romantic function of literature and discards
the moral function of literature. But he joins romanticism with classicism. On the one side, there
is importance for emotion, on the other hand, there is importance for grandeur. "He is subjective
rather than objective. He is an enthusiast rather than analyst. He is better fitted to fire the young
than to convince the sceptical. He speaks rather of transport or inspiration than of purgation.
Longinus is the most modern of the ancient critics. Horace was very much influenced by
Longinus. He classified certain important matters like the moderns. He talks sense. After
Aristotle, he is the greatest critic among the Greeks. He represents the lastrorrfanticism and
classicism. He gave an effective theory of literature. He drew upon a number of literatures. Style
for him was the life and blood, the very spirit of the work and the personality of its author. He was
the first to assert that "style" is the man.
He is the first European critic who gave particular prominence to creative faculty of man
which the romantic poets call imagination. He unified inspiration and perspiration.
"On the Sublime" is a classic gift of Longinus. It is a fragmentary treatise. It is not yet known
who Longinus really was. It is written in Greek and is addressed to a Roman.
It has gone to a number of translations. Nevertheless, it is a bright essay on style.
According to Longinus, the purpose of the greatest writers has been to introduce, to delight
and to persuade. But their greatness lies in sublimity. Sublimity is the echo of a great soul, of a
lofy mind; it is not merely an excellence in language. It is the note that rings from a great mind. It
lies in intensity—"on a certain distinction and consummation of excellence in expression." A work
of genius must aim at ecstasy. In Indian terms, it is the combination ofSatyam,
Shivam and Sundaram (the true, the good and the beautiful) that makes a work sublime.
Longinus discovers five main sources of the sublime—grandeur of thought, capacity for
strong emotion, appropriate use of figures of speech, nobility of diction and dignified and
elaborated composition. Without grandeur of thought the writer cannot soar to great heights. That
is why servilities do not create sublimity. Great accents fall from the lips of those whose thoughts
have always been deep and full of majesty. The truly eloquent must be free from low and ignoble
thoughts. Sublimity can be acquired by imitating and emulating the example of the previous
greatness. Only noble thoughts can lead to noble ideas which will ultimately lead to the noble
deeds. Works of Homer and Milton are full of sublimity because their thoughts are sublime and
style is grand.
Sublime thought can be attained by strong emotions—emotions such as fear, grief, pity are
far removed from the sublime. A writer who indulges in avoiding such inferior type of emotions
falls close to the standard of the sublime.
Figures of speech are the artistic aids to sublimity. The chief figures are the rhetorical
questions, hyperbatons, apostrophe, and peripherisis. The figures of speech should be carefully
used.
Diction includes choice and arrangement of words as well as the use of figures of speech.
Verbal magic has its own effect. Diction relates to style. Style is the wise and systematic selection
of the most important elements, events or passions into a single whole. The use of questions and
answers often makes the speeches more effective and impressive. Low and indignified works tend
to disfigure sublimity.
 A work of art should be harmonious and complete. For this, it should have a dignified and
elaborate composition. It should have sufficient length. Here Longinus has perhaps Aristotle in
his mind. Aristotle also says that the plot should have a beginning, a middle and an end. By
arrangement and composition Aristotle means verbal order which is usually called rhythm. Words
must be harmoniously set, for the resulting harmony is a natural instrument. Not only of
persuasion and pleasure but also of lofty emotion.
Such a harmonious combination of words appeals to the soul and enables the reader to share
in the emotions of the author. At last, Longinus warns against extreme conciseness of expression
: it cramps and cripples the thought.
POINTS TO REMEMBER
1. The-first romantic critic; a pioneer in literary appreciation; the first critic to emphasize the
importance of style so elaborately; asked new
and fresh questions about literature; makes both historical and thought-provoking
comments.
2. Original and illuminating, permanent and universal. According to him, the function of
literature is not moral but aesthetic.
3. Scott-James calls him the first romantic critic and Atkins calls him an exponent of real
classic spirit. In fact, he makes a happy compromise between the romantic and classical
approaches.
4. A romantic because of his aestheticism, emphasis on strong emotion, subjectivity, beauty;
a classicist because of his emphasis on grandeur.
5. He gave a theory of the Sublime.

Discuss Longinus as the first romantic critic.

Scott-James calls Longinus "thefirst romantic critic " because of his insistence on passion,
ecstasy, transport, imagination, intensity and exaltation. These are the romantic traits breathed
by Longinus in the aesthetic criticism of the Classical Age. In the words of Prof.
Saintsbury. "Longinus has marked out grounds of criticism very far from those of the ancient
period generally, further still from those which were occupied by any critic (except Dante) of the
Middle Ages and classical revival, and close to, if not all cases overlapping the territory of the
modern romantic criticism itself. " Before Longinus, the Greek and Roman critics judged a work
of art in accordance with the set rules, or considered it either from the pragmatic or the ethical
stand-point.
Longinus dispensed with all these standards. He judged a work more by its essence than by its
form. He advanced his theory of sublimity and insisted that the reader or hearer should be
'carried away, transported and moved to ecstasy by the grandeur and the passion of the work'.
We should be wary in observing that he was not a thorough romantic critic. He tempers
romanticism 'with what is sanest in classicism'. "For him," says Scott-James, "classicism was
touched with romance, but not darkened. His romanticism was sane and bright by dint of contact
with the classical order." He knew that emotion and passion should be within curb. They should
not go with a green flag. They should be guided by some rules 'Mere grandeur', says he, 'is
exposed to danger when left without the control of reason and the ballast of scientific method.
For the great passions need the curd as often as the spur.' In this way it can be said that he is the
first romantic critic who maintained his affiliations with classicism. Prof. Scott-James also
says, "Though he was the first to expound the doctrines upon which romanticism rests, he
turned, and tempered them with what is sanest in classicism. Whilst he pointed the way to the
storm and fury of a romantic movement, set up the danger-posts, and reimposed the classic
discipline. Though he was the first great critic to proclaim the efficacy of inspiration, he did not
think that beauty comes like wind from heaven to fill the sails of the poet's ship and drive it
without effort across the sea."
Longinus is a romantic critic in some other ways too. He opposed the classical view that not
more than two metaphors at a time should be used in a work, especially because he was gifted
with a genuine romantic temper. He was a romantic critic as Rhys Roberts says, "He is
subjective rather than objective. He is an enthusiast rather than an analyst. He is better fitted to
fire the young than to convince the maturely sceptical. He speaks rather of 'transport or
inspiration' than of 'purgation or universal'.
Prof. Atkins disagrees with Scott-James, and says that it is as an exponent of the genuine
classical spirit that Longinus is perhaps best described, and not, as he has been called, the first
romantic critic. The classical qualities of Longinus as a critic are quite obvious. He shows a great
reverence for the ancient Greek models, for tradition, and advocates this imitation. He does not
believe that a genius is a law unto himself. He wants to put some curb or restrain on wayward
genius. He stands for fitness, correctness, selection and balance. He is blind to the "romance" in
Homer's Odyssey.He believes in rules and regulations. He stands for the use of a refined and
cultivated poetic style.
Throughout, he is concerned mainly with ancient Greek models, "While his theory is solely
based on the conception of art as the product of principles deducted from the practice of the past.
" Nor is this reverence for tradition the only classical element in his constitution. "He is classical
also in the balance he maintains between genius and unimpassioned hard work, in his sense of
the need for fitness, selection, and a fine adjustment of means to ends. " So that it is as one of the
last of the classical critics that he figures primarily in ancient critical history.
"But while this is true, it is true also that he anticipates much that is modern in critical
works." And this is shown by his concern with the-sense rather than with the form of literature,
his understanding of the part played by the imagination and the feelings in work, his efforts at
literary' interpretation and appreciation, his widening outlook and the variety of his judicial
methods, features which were to reappear only after the lapse of centuries.
He is, indeed, "the most modern of the ancient critics." His chief claim to modernity rests on
his conception of inspiration and ecstasy, especially on this sentence, "For it is not to persuasion
but to ecstasy that passages of extraordinary genius carry the hearer."
In fact, the fusion of the romantic, the classical and the modern strains in Longinus is the real
key to his greatness, originality and relevance. He has an appeal to the romanticist as well as
classicists, and also to some extent to the moderns. He was first to assert that "style is the man."
POINTS TO REMEMBER
(Longinus as a Romantic Critic)
1. Scott-James, Saintsbury and other scholars have called Longinus the first romantic critic
because of his aestheticism, his love for subjectivism, emphasis on emotion, fresh insights
different from those of Aristotle and Plato; he rejected the ethical view-point and emphasis
on rules of the classicists.
2. He is a romanticist in his theory of Sublimity as he recommends to judge a work of art on
the basis of its power to carry away, transport and move to ecstasy by its grandeur and
passion.
3. But not a thorough and pure romanticist; tempers romanticism, fuses romanticism,
classicism and modernism together.
4. A classicist in curbing the licence of the artist; in his emphasis on order and grandeur of
thought and language; he likes inspiration but does not ignore perspiration, a classicist
because he shows great reverence for the ancients—the classicists—he stands for restrain,
fitness, correctness, selection and balance. He is also a classicist in his balance between
genius and unimpassioned hardwork.
5. A modern in his concern with the sense rather than with the form of literature, in his
understanding of the part played by imagination, his efforts at literary interpretation and
appreciation, in his widening outlook and the variety of his judicial methods, in his
conception of inspiration and ecstasy.

What, according to Longinus, are the vices of the Sublime?

Longinus distinguishes the true Sublime from the False Sublime, and says that the vices of
the Sublime emerge out of two things—"lack of passion and sincerity, and inadequacy of
communication caused by faulty technique." He has repeatedly warned the readers "against
bombast, puerility on affectation, and conceits of frigidity."

Turgidity of Language
Longinus takes a passage from Aeschylus and points out that the False Sublime is the result
of turgidity of language :
"Quell they the oven's far-flung spleen dour-glow!
Ha, let me but one hearth-abider mark—
One flame-wreath torrent-like I'll whirl on high;
I'll burn the roof, to cinders shrival it;
Nay, now my chant is not of noble strain."
Puerility
The second vice of the Sublime is puerility, 'a pedantic conceit which overdoes itself and
becomes frigid at the last.' This is the besetting sin of the metaphysicals—Donne, Cowley and
Crashaw. The following extract is an example of the 'Pedantic' conceit:
"Her soul was prickled
Like the bald head
Of a jaundiced Jewish banker.
Her hair and featurous face
Withered alike
An alibo boa-constrictor
She thought that resembled the Mona Lisa."
—A. C. Ficke
This demonstrates the futility of thought. It comes when a writer tries to show off falsely.
Parenthysus (Parenthesis)
The third vice of the false Sublime is known as 'Parenthysus'. It is 'passion out of place and
unmeaning, there is no case for passion or unrestrained where restrain is needed.' Mere passion
or sincerity of the poet for producing Sublime is not enough : for greatness place, manner,
occasion and purpose are all essential.
Defects of Style
The fourth vice of the Sublime arises out of the defects of style. To quote Longinus :"All these
ugly and parasitical growths arise in literature from a single cause, that pursuit of novelty in
expression of ideas which may be regarded as the fashionable craze of the day.Our defects
usually spring for the most part, from the same sources as our good points. Hence while beauties
of expression and touch of sublimity and charming elegancies withal, are favourable to effective
composition, yet these very things are the elements and foundation, not only of success but also
of the contrary." For example, to call a woman, 'a thorn of eye' or to call the eyeball 'the princess
of the eye' for the sake of novelty will create not sublimity but frigidity.

Q. 70. ExamineLonginus's discussion of the use and misuse of metaphor and

metaphorical description.
Ans. Figurative language possesses great natural power, and so the use of metaphors
contributes to the Sublime. Metaphors should, however, be used in impassioned and descriptive
passages. The proper time for using metaphors is when the passion rolls like a torrent and sweeps
a multitude of them down their restless flood.
As to number of metaphors, Caecilius appears to agree with those who lay down a rule
allowing two, or at the most three, Aristotle and Theophrastus say that bold metaphors are
softened by such devices as the insertion of'as thought' and'as it were' and 'if I may speak thus.'
Metaphors are important as they produce sublimity. For example, mark the use of metaphors
in the following and mark how they have enhanced sublimity.
(1) Blood is the food of the fleshy parts.
(2) The body is a narrow canal
(3) The cables of the souls are loose as though of a ship.
(4) Water is a temparate god.
Metaphors also help the writer or orator in attaining precision in every detail. Metaphors also
help in attaining wit. Longinus's primary concern is oratory in which a happy or unhappy use of
figures of speech, of the metaphor, makes all the difference. A metaphor is not an unnatural
imposition on speech, thrust in just for ornament's sake. By introducing an element of strangeness
into what one speaks or hears every day, that satisfy a basic demand of human nature—that for a
pleasant surprise.
It is also true that there is an element of artifice in them that 'tends to raise suspicion in the
mind of the reader………that the speaker is treating him like a silly boy and trying to outwit him
by cunning figures.' This handicap, however, disappears in a style that is already elevated in other
ways, for while they heighten the effect of elevation. The elevation in its turn helps to conceal their
artifice, as the light of the sun eclipses lights. 'A figure, therefore, is effective only when it appears
in disguise,' that is to say; when it is shaded by the brilliance of style. In a plain style it makes all
the show, throwing the rest of the utterance into the shade.
 The elaborate discussion on metaphors takes place in Chapter XXXII when Longinus turns
his attention to diction. According to Longinus, diction comprises of the proper choice of words
and use of metaphors and ornamental language. Among the ornaments of speech Longinus
considers metaphor and hyperbole.
While much of what he says on metaphor has been said by others before him—Aristotle,
Theophrastus, Quintilian—in one particular comment on metaphor he strikes a new note.
Aristotle had limited the number of metaphors to not more than two at a time and the limitation
had since become an important rule of the rhetoric. Longinus finds no justification for it whatever.
Metaphors being the language of passion, passion alone, and no arbitrator, can determine time to
count the metaphors when he is impassioned or number of metaphors he is using, nor has a reader
when he is carried away by an impassioned utterance. Here is the first romantic protest against
the supposedly inviolable sanctity of rules. It goes without saying that he is at one with his Greek
and Roman predecessors in considering the metaphor a valuable aid to sublimity in style. On
hyperbole he has just this observation to make that it should be the natural outcome of emotion
and that, like all great art, it should 'appear in disguise.' Used in this way, it also lends distinction
to style.
POINTS TO REMEMBER
Uses of Metaphor and Metaphorical Description
1. Figurative language powerful and forceful—source of sublime.
2. Metaphors should be used in impassioned and descriptive passages. When passion is
heavy and fast-flowing, metaphors should be used appropriately.
3. Besides producing sublimity metaphors help in the attainment of precision.
4. Metaphors satisfy the need of pleasant surprise.
5. Metaphors should not be an ornament but an essential part of a work of literature.
6. The use of metaphors should be natural, nor mechanical nor artificial.
7. Excessive use of metaphors not commendable.
8. Much of Longinus's ideas on metaphor are borrowed from Aristotle, Theophrastus and
Quintilian. But Longinus unlike others does not limit the use of metaphors to a specific
number limits.

Write a note on the nature of the Sublime.

"Great utterance" says Longinus "is the echo of greatness of the soul. " It is impossible that
those whose are trivial and servile should flash out anything wonderful and worthy of immortality.
Great literature is thus the creation of instinctive genius. Thoughts that are lofty and awe-
inspiring find their natural expression in exalted phrase. Such loftiness of thought is normally a
gift of nature rather than an acquired quality. But art can help in putting a curb on the wild and
licentious tendencies of nature."Fine writing" says Longinus, "needs the spur as well as curb
". Both nature and art are, therefore, necessary for the creation of the Sublime in literature.

Great thoughts spring from great souls. The truly eloquent must be free from low and ignoble
thoughts. Men with mean and servile ideas cannot produce immortal literature. It is only great
minds that produce great literature. So the first source of the Sublime is that of grasping great
thoughts. Sublimity is the image of the soul. A thought, even when it is not uttered, is at times
admirable or Sublime. Such is the silence of Ajax in Odyssey. The- spirit is generous and aspiring
in Browning's Grammarian's Funeral and Abt Vogler, and we find here the true eloquence. The
Sublime thought is expressed in the grand style; and such a thought comes from the loftiest
mind.Longinus observes: "the lawgiver of the Jews having formed an adequate conception of
the Supreme Being, gave it adequate expression in the opening words of his "Laws", "God said
let there be light and there was light, etc. "
But, what does actually the Sublime consist of? Longinus tries to answer the question at the
very outset of his treatise :
The Sublime consists in a certain loftiness and consummateness of language, and it is by
this and this only that the greatest poets and prose writers have won pre-eminence and
lasting fame.
And he goes on :
For a work of genius does not aim at persuasion, but ecstasy—of lifting the reader out of
himself. The wonder of it, wherever and whenever it appears, startles us; it prevails where the
persuasive or agreeable may fail; for persuasion depends mainly on ourselves, but there is no
fighting against the sovereignty of genius. It imposes its irresistible will upon us all.
Where there is only skill in invention and laborious arrangement of matter a whole treatise,
let alone a sentence or two, will scarcely avail to throw light on a subject. But the Sublime at the
critical moment shoots forth and tears the whole thing to pieces and like a thunderbolt, and in a
flash reveals all the author's power.
"Here then," says R. A. Scott-James "We have the first perfectly definite statement of a
doctrine which Joubert could not make more precise when he said : "Nothing is poetry unless it
transports"; which Sir Thomas Browne was to translate into the language of sentiment when he
exclaimed, "I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an O Altitudel" and which
De Quincey was to nail down in his distinction between the literature of knowledge and the
literature of power—'The function of the first is to teach; the function of the second is to move.'
The sublime effect of literature, for Longinus, attained, not by argument, but by revelation, or
illumination. Its appeal is not through the reason, but what we should call imagination. Its effect
upon the mind is immediate, like a flash of lightning upon the eye."
Is Transport a mere subjective quality or can it be sufficiently objective to be isolated for
critical discussion? Longinus does not explicitly answer this question. But he seems to believe that
this quality is both subjective and objective. It is subjective in a double sense; it springs from a
lofty soul and at the same time it places much stress on the power of introspection in a reader.
The value of a work is to be ultimately stressed by its power to carry away a reader. There is,
however, another implication. There are some elements of style and structure which definitely
contribute to the grandeur and elevation of a work. Since the quality of transport is the result of
the grandeur and passion of the work, partly, contributed by art, the quality may be objective also.
It is here that Longinus comes close to modern critics. He seems to suggest that there can be "a
criticism of convincing objectivity which approaches the literary work through the analysis of style
and which arrives at its larger aspects through that aperture."
Before Longinus the function of literature, if it was poetry, was to instruct or to delight or to
do both and, if it was prose, to persuade. Longinus found this three-word formula wanting. For
he discovered that the masterpieces of Greek classical literature—epics of Homer, the lyrics of
Sappho (a Greek poetess) and Pindar, the tragedies of Aeschylus, the orations of Demosthenes
were great for a different reason altogether— their Sublimity. Not instruction or delight or
persuasion, therefore, is the test of great literature, but transport—its capacity to move the reader
to ecstasy—caused by an irresistible magic of speech. If he is spell-bound by what the writer says,
so that he can neither think nor feel except what the writer thinks or feels, the work has the quality
of the Sublime.

"Sublimity is a certain distinction and excellence in expression."

According to Longinus, Sublimity is an eminence and excellence of language. It carries the
reader out of himself. This sublimity appears in a timely, vigorous expression which induces in
the reader or listener a mood like that of a trance. In this mood the reader loses his own identity
and he is swayed by an irresistible power. Such a Sublime expression illumines the subject chosen
for discussion or presentation.

Merely good and noble emotions or passions do not create sublimity. If the great passions are
not properly regulated, there will be chaos. They have to be curbed and regulated properly.
Similarly genius gets spoilt if it is not well-controlled by art. It is through art that we can arrive at
a proper evaluation of genius. Hence there is an art that can teach us the Sublime. This teaching
is necessary because genius is normally open to risk and dangers which lead it to the opposite of
the Sublime. Such dangers are four in number. The first one is turgidity which appears as
bombastic expression. The second one is puerility, childishness arising from a straining after the
artificial. The third one is called parenthysus or the expression of a passion or as sentiment
inappropriate to the context or the situation. The last one is frigidity which appears when the
author struggles to say something new or to say something in a new way. All these presuppose a
misdirected craze. Longinus seeks to tell us how we can avoid them. They can be avoided if we
have a clear knowledge of what the Sublime in itself is.
Hence the Sublime is related to the grasp of language. For it are needed proper handling of
figures : noble phraseology, choice of suitable words and their proper arrangement and dignified
composition having a proper length.
Low and undignified vocabulary also tends to disfigure sublimity. Ill-sounding words and
vulgar idioms should be avoided. The choice of proper and striking words is essential for
producing the Sublime effect, because it is through words that a man expresses himself. Beautiful
words are the very soul of lofty thought. But inappropriate magnificence of diction should be
avoided. For example, trifling subjects should not be treated in a grand manner.
Figurative language possesses great natural power, and so the use of metaphors contributes
to the Sublime. Metaphors should however be used in impassioned and descriptive passages. "The
proper time for using metaphors is when the passions roll like a torrent and sweep a multitude of
them down their restless flood.'"
Hence Longinus suggests to recapture "something of that vital creative force which had
gone to the making of the earlier masterpieces; and its effect he describes as that of illumination,
guiding the mind in some mysterious way to the lofty stands of the ideal. "