On Sublimity
Two things required of a text book
- Explains what the subject is.
- And how and by what methods can we achieve it.
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Longinus is writing on sublimity to his friend.
Sublimity: A kind of eminence or excellence of discourse.
For the poets
- ecstasy over persuasion
- Wonder and astonishment over the pleasant and the persuasive.
- We can control persuasion
o The sublime tears everything up.
People believe greatness and art are naturally gifts, and
- that they can’t be taught.
Longinus refutes this position.
- Nature is a law to herself.
o But she is not a random force.
- Nature is the primary element of creation.
- Grandeur is dangerous when left to its own.
o Without knowledge or with abandon it is only ignorance.
Good fortune is the best blessing.
- Good counsel comes next.
- The lack of counsel destroys.
Marks of true sublimity
We need to develop a true understanding of sublimity.
In ordinary life, nothing is truly great
- if it is great to despise.
o Wealth, honor, reputation, power are all external trappings.
o People who can achieve these things, but refute them, are admired more than those who possess them.
- When diverse people agree upon a thing
o It leads to strength and conviction of the thing.
The five sources of sublimity:
1. The ability to conceive great thoughts.
2. Strong and inspired emotion.
3. Certain kinds of figures
a. Figures of speech
b. Figures of thought.
4. Noble direction
a. Choice of words
b. Metaphors
5. Dignified and elevated word arrangement.
Sublimity is diferent than emotion or thought.
However, emotion works with the sublime.
1. Greatness of thought
a. The source of the sublime.
b. The most important element
c. We must develop our minds toward greatness.
d. Sublime lives with the thought.
i. Amplification is an extension
ii. They are two different things.
Imitation of early writers.
- Plato speaks to imitation.
- Inspiration from the greats.
- Question how a great mind might say something.
- Jury an audience for your own speech.
- How will the future view this.
o Someone who can’t speak beyond their time is bound to convention.
Visualization
Image production
- To see what one says
- To produce it for the audience.
- An element of fact and truth.
- When content is poetical and fabulous and does not shrink form impossibility.
Figures of Sublimity
Figures are natural allies of the sublime.
Playing tricks by means of figures is suspect.
- It raises suspicion of a trap.
- A deep design, or a
- Fallacy.
- People become angry and they will be against the creator.
- Emotion and the sublime overcome suspicion of figures.
- They are closer to the minds eye.
- They show up above the figures and overshadow their artifice.
Hyperbaton
Hyperbaton – an arrangement of words or thoughts which differ from normal sequencing.
- A mark of urgent emotion.
- Happens in real life when people are overcome with extreme emotion.
Art is perfect when it looks like nature.
Emotion is a charm of the sublime.
The choice of correct and magnificent words holds immense power.
- Cultivate them intensely
Use of everyday words can be powerful as they are immediately recognizable.
Metaphors
Only use two or three at the most for one subject.
Apology is a remedy for audacity
- Soft spoken.
Tropes are naturally grand
- metaphors conduce the sublime.
- Too easy to ho too far.
Greatness incurs danger.
Nature did not make man to be humble.
- Brought into life with great festival.
- Spectator and contestant.
- Our thoughts travel beyond our surroundings.
The useful and necessary are readily availed to man.
- It is the unusual that excites our wonder.
Harmony – Natural instrument of conviction and emotion.
- Rhythm enhances speech.
Composition – harmony of words.
- Natural instrument
- Cuts to the soul.
Great thoughts must be connected.
- To form a unity.
- Bound by harmony.
Longinus. On Sublimity. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. 2nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2010. 133-153. Print
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