THE SUBLIME

LONGINUS AND THE LONGINIAN TRADITION

and the fact that Longinus offered a reputable authority for a love of
unanimous in its tastes, and romanticism and classicism of one variety
such irregular writers as Shakespeare, Milton, and Spenser. 61
or another always exist side by side. The study of eighteenth-century
Longinus did ride into fame on the crest of the controversary between
criticism is in fact the study of the increasingly rapid disintegration of
the Ancients and the Moderns, as we shall see in the next chapter. He
the neo-classical standards, and the re-emerging of a freer, more in-
became an ally of either party, used now to defend the ancients, now
dividualistic, and consequently more native theory of art. Longinus is
to champion original and untutored genius. He is moderate, urbane,
not the cause of this disintegration, but it is none the less true that
and eloquent, and his moderation discouraged dogmatism, his eloquence
during the century Peri Hupsous was a sort of locus classicus for that
stirred enthusiasm and he was sufficiently liberal in his opinions to ap-
type of critical thought which sought to combat and destroy_ the r~les.
peal to eighteenth~century modernism. His high seriousness, his moral
The case of Samuel Cobb is indicative of the process which umted
point of view, his insistance that the great poet is the good man'. would
Longinus with those spirits who wished to justify the conception that
be understood and valued in an age whose resthetic had not yet divorced
the greatest art can be produced only by native genius expressing itself
itself from the ethical point of view. In the last section of his treatise,
after its own manner, rather than in the tradition of Horace and Boileau.
Longinus accounts for the decline of genius in his age on the grounds
His was not a voice crying in the wilderness; he was no lone romanticist
that liberty no longer existed, and that only in a state of freedo~ can
foretelling the advent of a Byron, but he was representative of the protest
great art be produced-an opinion that would naturally commen~ itself
against the overemphasis of the rules, a protest th~t became voc~l ver!
to the English in an age when they complacently contrasted their own
early indeed, that, in fact, was never silent. And his use of Longmus is
constitutional monarchy with the despotism that prevailed on the Con-
typical of the practice of those modifiers of the neo-classical tradition
tinent, and when they prided themselves on the prevalence of individual
who contributed to its transformation as the century drew to a close.
liberty in the body politic. Moreover, Longinus's essay must have seemed
His language and ideas are very closely akin to those of Young more
a complement to the more analytical criticism of Aristotle and Horace,
than fifty years later.
and must have been welcome, as Gibbon suggested, because of its im-
To study to be correct, he says in his A Discourse on Criticism, and
pressioniatic and interpretive quality. .
the Liberty of Writing, 1707, "enervates the Vigour of the Mind,
Finally it may be said that Longinus was not needed m the seven-
slackens the Spirits, and cramps the Genius of a Free Writer. He who
teenth ce~tury, and that he had a very definite function to fulfil in the
creeps by the Shore, may shelter himself from a Storm, but is likely ~o
early years of the eighteenth century. An age that produced poets so
make few Discoveries: ... " The rules are "leading strings" to be laid
different as Ben Jonson and Donne, Herrick and Crashaw, Carew and
aside by a mature genius in the interest of the expression of "a free
Herbert, Milton and Cowley, surely had no need for a theoretical _de-
generous, and manly Spirit." He concludes: "Let a Man foll~w the
fence of individualism in art. But when, shortly after the Restorat10n,
Talent that Nature has furnish'd him with, and his own Observat10n has
the reaction against the decadent Donne tradition set in, and wh~n,
improv'd we may hope to see Inventions in all Arts, which may dispute
England after her experiment in political liberty, settled down to enJoy
Superiority' with the best of the Athenian· and R oman E xce11encies.. " 62
a comfortable and urbane enlightenment under a constitutional mon-
These statements are made on the authority of Longinus, and in pro-
archy, the tendency was to regiment taste and the art of po:t:y under
test against "a slav1sh Bigotry to the Ancients." In principl: there ~s
the rules which sought to control in the interest of neo-classicism.
little here that Pope and Addison would not have agreed with; their
But the English genius was never comfortable in the borrowed ga~-
own statements on the subject differ only in degree of emphasis. The
ments cut to the pattern of the rules. Despite the stand made by var_i-
importance of Cobb's Discourse for us is that it offers concrete evidence
ous poets and critics in their defence, clarity and correctness were ex~tic
as to the promptness with which the ideas of Longinus were assimilated,
growths on English soil. There was an instinctive and uneasy feelmg
and the ease with which they joined in the protest of the liberal criticism
that the true destiny of English letters lay with Shakespeare and not
against a type of literature in essence foreign to the national tradition.
with Horace and Boileau, and even when, say from 1660 to 1740, the
Longinus came into favor because he could fill a need; he alone of the
ideas of neo-classicism were dominant, it is dangerous for the student to
ancients could be used to support the idea of "the liberty of writing."
generalize as to the tastes and theories of the age. Of course no age is
61 Beiblattzur Anglia, XXXI (1920), 163. •2 Samuel Cobb, Poems on Several Occasions (London, 1710), The Third Edition. The
pages of the Discourse are not numbered.
 THE SUBLIME
But the Longinus who is of value for this study is really the creation
of Boileau, who called Peri Hupsous to the attention of his contempo-
raries, and who initiated speculation on the nature of the sublime in
his Preface and in his Reflexions. The sublime that came into existence
in r674 was the offspring of two minds so startlingly unlike as those of
the Greek critic and the author of L'Art Poetique. To that sublime we
turn in the following chapter.
CHAPTER II
BOILEAU AND SILVAIN
I T is an interesting and a curious fact that in the same year, 1674,
Boileau gave to the world his L' Art Poetique and his Traite du Sublime
ou du M erveilleux dans le Discours Traduit du Gree de Longin. The two
works apparently make up his artistic confession of faith. Paradoxical as
it may seem in the light of the future career of Longinus's ideas in
England, it is nevertheless true that both in the Preface to the transla-
tion and in the Reflexions Boileau brought Longinus into his critical
system. The paradox, to be sure, is only apparent; it was the later in-
terpretation of Longinus, not Peri Hupsous itself that was heretical.
Every man of taste in the neo-classic period was prepared to admit that
there are effects in literature that cannot be obtained except through
"strokes of genius." Boileau's L' Art Poetique is a complete expres-
sion of the neo-classic code. 1 As such it became one of the chief docu-
ments of the literary tories of the eighteenth century; as such it was one
of the chief rationalizations of a type of art that the nineteenth century
regarded as anathema. The translation of Longinus, taking quite a dif-
ferent course, was, throughout the neo-classic period in England, the
center around which revolved many of the ideas that influenced poets
to lay the old aside. Thus Boileau unwittingly set at work in the world
two forces that eventually became mutually hostile. Viewed historically,
his credo has the dual physiognomy of Janus.
By beginning with Boileau one does not necessarily imply that he
rediscovered Longinus for his contemporaries. For instance, Rapin fre-
quently referred to and quoted from Longinus, and had something to say
about the sublime several years before 1674. His Comparaison de Vergile
et Homere, 1668, Comparaison de Demosthene et Ciceron, 1670, and Re-
flexions sur l'Usage de l'Eloquence de ce Temps, 1672-this last was trans-
lated into English in the year in which it appeared2-all speak of the
sublime. His Reflexions sur la Poetique d' Aristote et sur les ouvrages des
poetes anciens et modernes was published in the same year as was Boileau's
L'Art Poetique, and was translated immediately by Rymer. 3 It was ex-
tremely popular in England, and is so much at one with Boileau's
doctrines that Clark :finds it virtually impossible to disentangle and
1 F. Brunetiere, "L'Esthetique de Boileau," Revue des Deux M ondes, XCIII (1889), 662-
685.
2 Clark, Boileau and the French Classical Critics in England, p. 275, note.
• Ibid., p. 276.

30 THE SUBLIME
isolate the influences of the two critics. 4 The favor with which the Re-
flexions sur la Poetique d'Aristote met would naturally recommend the
earlier works to the English critics. It thus seems probable that Rapin
had some share in stimulating in England an interest in Longinus, al-
though his discussion could not be so valuable for future speculation as
was Boileau's. For dispite his observing that the sublime depends on
what one says, on the grand images with which one says it, and on ele-
vation of genius, rather than on brilliance of language,5 he usually
stresses the rhetorical aspects of the question. In addition, Boileau's im-
portance lies not merely in the fact that he discussed the sublime but
also in the prominence which his own popularity gave to any ~ork
recommended by him.
Fortunately the accuracy and the merits of Boileau's translation are
of no importance here. Despite the fact that modern scholarship has
found Boileau inadequately equipped for the ta,sk of translating a style
so difficult as that of the Greek rhetoricians, and has convicted him of
taking unwarranted liberties with the text,6 what matters for us is the
fact that the eighteenth century found the translation highly satis-
factory. The sins which Boileau committed against pure scholarship have
their origin in the mores of the republic of letters as it existed in the
seventeenth century, and if Dr. Johnson is right, the fact that the version
found many readers justifies any liberties that the translator took with
his author. William Smith expresses the opinion of the eighteenth cen-
tury when he says that Boileau's translation is the first good one into
any modern language, and that its elegance and spirit will never be
surpassed. 7
It is in his preface that Boileau first speculates on the nature of the
sublime. He leaves no doubt in his reader's mind as to his enthusiasm
for Longinus and his treatise. Although the work is a fragmen_t, he says,
enough remains "to make us conceive a great idea of its author." 8 He
avers that "when he speaks of the sublime, he is himself very sublime," 9
a neat turn of phrase that is to be echoed for many years in England.
Toward the end of the preface to the first edition Boileau presents
his definition of the sublime as he understood it from Longinus's ideas.
He points out that by sublime Longinus did not mean what orators call
4
Ibid., p. 275. For a discussion of Rapin's fame, see Clark, pp. 275-285.
5
"Reflexions sur !'Usage de !'Eloquence de ce Temps en General," (Euvres (La Haye,
17:5), ~r, 15, 16. 6 E. Egger, L'Hellenisme en France (Paris, 1869), II, 144, 145.
Smith, Longinus on the Sublime, p. 5.
8
Boileau, CEuvres Completes, ed. A. Ch. Gide! (Pa;is, 1873), rrr, 436.
9
. Ibid., III, 437. According to Gibert, Gabriel de Petra, whose translation of Longinus
m 1612 was the second version to be made, had found Longinus sublime. See B. Gibert,
Jugemens des Savans, etc. (Paris, 1713), r, 226.
BOILEAU AND SILVAIN 3r
the sublime style, but that extraordinary and mar_vellous quality \cet
extraordinaire et ce merveilleux) which strikes in a discourse, and which
enables a work to elevate, ravish, and transport (qui Jait ~u'un ouvrage
enleve ravit transporte). The sublime style always reqmres elevated
dictio~ (gra~ds mots), but the sublime can be found in a single thou~ht,
in a single figure, in a single turn of phrase (tour de paroles). A~ idea
may be expressed in tlie sublime style, and if it be neither extraordmary
nor surprising, it will not be sublime. . . .
Proof of this idea is offered in a famous illustration. Longmus, it will
be recalled, had pointed out the sublimity of the Mo~aic a~count of
the creation of light. Boileau paraphrases: Le souverain arbitre de la
nature d'une seule parole Jorma la lumiere. This is an example of the
sublime style, but it is not sublime, since it contains ~~thing "mar_ve~-
lous." But Dieu dit: Que la lumiere se jasse, et la lumiere se fit-t:his is
truly subli~e, because in what Boileau calls un tour extraor1inaire d'ex-
pression there is described vividly the instantaneous obedience of the
creation to the Creator. Boileau concludes that we must understa~~ by
sublime, in Longinus's treatise, "the extraordinary, the surpnsmg,
10
and ... the marvellous in discourse." • • •
Boileau is here elaborating on Longinus's hint as to the possibility
that a single word, thought, or action can express the sublime, ~ut he
states the distinction between the rhetorical sublime and the sublime of
content and spirit more clearly and at greater length_ th~n. an~one h~d
previously done. The examples which ~e gf:e~ make this distmction q~ite
obvious. The difference lies not only m diction, although the grandiose
language of the first sentence is a part, and a traditional part, of the
sublime style. There is a subtler contrast between the t_w~- The first
is a simple statement that God made light, and _alt~o~gh 1t is expre~sed
in all the finery of language Boileau found nothmg m 1t to call sublime.
The second is vivid: Dieu dit: Que la lumiere se fasse; and there follows
instantly the fulfilmept of the divine command and a revelation of the
omnipotence of God. An overwhelming sense of vastness and power, the
imaginative apprehension and expression of a great cause and a great
effect, shine through the simple and lucid language. The ve~y co~tra~t
between the striking event and the matter-of-fact langu_age m whic~ it
is recorded serves to make the statement effective. Boileau, followmg
Longinus, perceived the sublimity of these words and _pr~ceeded to gen-
eralize from them, deducing that the greatest thought m simple la~guage
is the highest form of the sublime, since th~ th~ught o?er~tes ~irectly
and with no let or hindrance to tlie readers mmd, fillmg it with awe
1o <Euvres Completes, III, 442.
 32 THE SUBLIME
and _awa~ening emotions of a very intense kind. Thus at one blow the
s~blime 1s se~ered from rhetoric and becomes art, a matter of the revela-
tion of a quality of thought and the emotions which that quality, vividly
presented, evokes. ·
. T~e. P?wer of the s~blime to awaken strong emotions is explicit and
1mplic1t m all that Boileau says on the subject. The sublime is described
as _the e~traordinary, the marvellous, the surprising; it elevates, it
rav1s~~s, 1t transports. One has only to follow these words and their
d~fimt10ns through Le Dictionaire de l'Academie Frani;oise, 1 6 ,n to
94
~1scove: how strongly emotional Boileau's language is. One or two defini-
tions _will suffice. M erveilleux means "admirable, surprising, astonishing"
~,admirable, surprenant, estonnant). It is defined in regard to poetry as
~hat_ part of the fable that causes admiration," and admiration carries
:1th 1t the generic meaning of "wonder." Estonner signifies figuratively
to cause to tremble through some great, some violent emotion "
~sbransler (th~ definition of estonner) expresses the idea of violent shak-
mg: The sublime must strike, and its effect is said to be that it elevates,
rav1she~, an~ transpo~ts. These emotions are suggested in Longinus's
co~cept10n o: the sublime in oratory, but they sorted ill, at least theo-
retically, with the self-possessed, urbane art that the neo-classicists
valued and that was an expression of the attitude toward life that Pope
so neatly expressed when he remarked that "fools admire, but men of
sens_e approve." Transfer them into painting, poetry, and nature, and
g~onfy them as the products of the greatest art, as the eighteenth century
did, and eventually they will change the face of the arts
Boileau's terms may be vague and unsatisfactory, bu; they indubi-
tably tell us that the sublime, apart from the sublime style must be a
great t~ought an~ ~hat it must awaken strong emotions in the reader or
th~ aud1~nce. This 1s the new, the eighteenth-century, sublime for which
B_01~eau 1s responsible. The zeal with which he took up Longin~s and
his ideas suggests that even the great formulator of the neo-classic code
felt the need of a higher sort of art and stronger emotions than the rules
could produce.
But h~ was not long permitted to hold his opinions in peace. He soon
became mvoh~ed in quarrels in which he used Longinus to good ad-
vantage, a~d. m the course of which he expanded his definition and il-
lustrated his ideas more fully. During these controversies he came more
and. m?re to insist on simplicity of style and diction as essential to
sublimity, and therefore more completely to separate the sublime from
the field of rhetoric. It will be necessary to follow these quarrels which
11
These d~finitions are taken from the reproduction of the edition of r6
94'
ed. Paul
Dupont (Pans, r9or).
BOILEAU AND SILVAIN 33
gave prominence to Longinus and made the sublime one of the burning
questions of the day.
In 1694 Boileau published nine Reflexions Critiques sur quelques Pas-
sages du Rheteur Longin. They were a part of the opening fire of the
battle of the Ancients and the Moderns, and were aimed against Charles
Perrault, whose poem, Le Siecle de Louis le Grand, read before the
Academy on January 27, 1687, had given offence to Boileau by claiming
that the moderns could equal the ancients in art and in knowledge.
Moreover, in order to defend himself, Perrault had begun to write his
Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes, 1688-98, in which he went even
further in his attack on the ancients. Boileau's nine Reflexions are a sar-
castic and witty attack on Perrault's learning and judgment, in which
nine quotations from Longinus serve as battering rams with which to
demolish the stronghold of the heretic. Thus Longinus came to lend a
hand in the famous literary war. 12
It was the second controversy that forced Boileau to defend his views
as to the nature of the sublime. In 1679 Pierre-Daniel Huet maintained
in his Demonstratio Evangelica that Longinus was wrong in claiming
sublimity for Genesis r, 3, since the style is too simple to express the
sublime.13 In 1683 Boileau took up the challenge in the revised Preface
of the new edition of the Traite. Huet, in the same year, addressed a
letter to the Due de Montausier in which he enlarged on his opinion,
bringing to bear on the question his knowledge of Hebrew and Hebrew
syntax, and attempting to show that the particular turn of phrase which
had seemed sublime to Boileau is common in biblical style, that the
thought of the sentence is not sublime, and that it would be inartistic
to begin a book at the height of the sublime. This last argument pre-
sumably infers that a book dictated by the Holy Spirit cannot err in
taste. This letter did not find its way into print until 1706, when it was
published by Jean le Clerc in the tenth volume of his Bibliotheque
Choisie, 14 interspersed with the approving comments of the publisher.
Boileau regarded this as an attack upon himself (as indeed it was, al-
though not unprovoked); and pretending not to believe that Huet had
written the letter, he answered le Clerc in the tenth, eleventh, and
twelfth Reflexions, published posthumously in the edition of 1713, with
12 For a full account of this and other controversies of a similar nature see M. H. Rigault,
Histoire de la Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes (Paris, r856).
1a P. D. Huet, Demonstratio Evangelica, etc., tertia editio (Paris, r690), Propos. rv,
Cap. II, pp. 65, 66.
14 Bibliotheque Choisie (Amsterdam, r706), x, nr-260. For le Clerc's replies to Boileau
and Renaudot, see Bibliotheque Choisie, xxvr, 64-rr 2. Perrault's response can be found
in Melange Curieux des Meilleures Pieces Attributes a M. de Saint-Evremond (Amsterdam,
1726), r, 47r-516. The controversy grows very tiresome.