LONGINUS

ON THE SUBLIME

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 FOURTH SOURCE OF SUBLIMITY

• The next source of sublimity is diction

• Diction refers to the choice and arrangement of
words
• According to Longinus “words are the light of
thoughts illuminating ideas and bringing out
thoughts from darkness of the unconscious”
• While making this statement Longinus implies a
greater relationship between thoughts and
words

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 FOURTH SOURCE OF SUBLIMITY

• If thoughts are great then words must also be

great but if thoughts are ordinary or common
place then words should also be in consonance
with them
• Depending on the requirement of the occasion a
writer can use ordinary words or even slang
expressions and at the same time metaphorical
language can also be used to convey certain
thoughts which cannot be expressed in direct
language

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 DICTION

• But since the thoughts conveyed by words and

the expression of those thoughts are for the
most part interwoven with one another, we will
now add some considerations which have
hitherto been overlooked on the subject of
expression. To say that the choice of appropriate
and striking words has a marvellous power and
an enthralling charm for the reader,

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 DICTION

• that this is the main object of pursuit with all

orators and writers, that it is this, and this alone,
which causes the works of literature to exhibit
the glowing perfections of the finest statues,
their grandeur, their beauty, their mellowness,
their dignity, their energy, their power, and all
their other graces, and that it is this which
endows the facts with a vocal soul;

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 DICTION

• Indeed, we may say with strict truth that beautiful

words are the very light of thought. do not mean
to say that imposing language is appropriate to
every occasion
• A trifling subject tricked out in grand and stately
words would have the same effect as a huge
tragic mask placed on the head of a little child.

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 DICTION

• Concerning the number of metaphors to be

employed together Caecilius seems to give his
vote with those critics who make a law that not
more than two, or at the utmost three, should be
combined in the same place.
• The use, however, must be determined by the
occasion.

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 DICTION

• Nevertheless I must repeat the remark which I

made in the case of figures, and maintain that
there are native antidotes to the number and
boldness of metaphors, in well-timed displays of
strong feeling, and in unaffected sublimity,
because these have an innate power by the
dash of their movement of sweeping along and
carrying all else before them.

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 DICTION

• Or should we not rather say that they absolutely

demand as indispensable the use of daring
metaphors, and will not allow the hearer to
pause and criticize the number of them, because
he shares the passion of the speaker?

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 DICTION

• In the treatment, again, of familiar topics and in

descriptive passages nothing gives such
distinctness as a close and continuous series of
metaphors
• It is by this means that Xenophon has so finely
delineated the anatomy of the human frame. And
there is a still more brilliant and life-like picture in
Plato.

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 DICTION

• The human head he calls a citadel; the neck is

an isthmus set to divide it from the chest; to
support it beneath are the vertebrae, turning
like hinges; pleasure he describes as a bait to
tempt men to ill; the tongue is the arbiter of
tastes. The heart is at once the knot of the veins
and the source of the rapidly circulating blood,
and is stationed in the guard-room of the body.

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 DICTION

• These, and a hundred similar fancies, follow one

another in quick succession
• But those which I have pointed out are sufficient
to demonstrate how great is the natural power of
figurative language, and how largely metaphors
conduce to sublimity, and to illustrate the
important part which they play in all impassioned
and descriptive passages.

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 DICTION

• That the use of figurative language, as of all

other beauties of style, has a constant tendency
towards excess, is an obvious truth which I need
not dwell upon.

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 FIFTH SOURCE

• The fifth source is harmonious composition

• Composition of any work must be a complete
whole
• It must have organic unity
• There should be nothing superfluous or wanting
• Everything used must be an integral part of the
whole

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 FIFTH SOURCE

• Each part must be used at its right place

• By removing even a single word from its place,
the total effect will be destroyed
• The unity of composition should not be
mechanical
• It should be vital like a living organism
• Longinus compares organic unity with the
composition of music

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 FIFTH SOURCE

• The composition of poem must have harmony of

music
• Longinus says that composition is a special
melody of words. Like music, a poem or a piece
of prose is composed and in the end we have
harmony

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