The Sublime

Professor
J. Jennifer Jones

Megan Corrado
Professor Jones
HPR 312
February 1, 2007

Longinus on Language: The Means to Articulate and Mutilate the Sublime

In On the Sublime, Longinus grapples with the complex relationship of language to the sublime, as he simultaneously proffers praise of language as a mode of articulation and yet condemns its intrinsic limitations. Longinus celebrates the ability of language to effect the sublime yet admonishes its own pervasive, dangerous tendency to subvert potential linguistic divinity through impropriety in the execution of literary tools. Throughout the text, Longinus illuminates the inherent characteristics of the sublime through language with myriad examples, yet repeatedly counters each such espousal with a critique of literary impropriety and its unrealized manifestation of the awe-inspiring or its painful descent from the sublime. Yet, Longinus is acutely aware that ubiquitous implementation of "sublime" language through written and spoken words would detract from the unique, beautiful, eminent nature of sublimity itself; albeit, he conveys that language is— through literature and oration— the quintessential medium through which to articulate the sublime and to inspire such experiences in the audience. It is Longinus’ pursuit of elucidating what does and does not constitute the sublime in language and his persistent tension of seemingly opposed notions that manifests sublimity in its own right.

Early in the treatise, Longinus stipulates five origins of the sublime in language: grand conceptions, vehement emotion, properly constructed figures, the nobility of language, and grandeur (181). Yet, this discursive exercise proves particularly challenging, as Longinus seeks to articulate a harmony between the process of utilizing the aforementioned while eschewing an excessive implementation that would essentially negate the literary and emotional effectiveness. He vehemently purports the validity of a particular linguistic method but then checks himself and the reader by noting the potential pitfalls that may render the language anything but sublime. One example, regarding the power and effectiveness of emotion in constructing the sublime, is his assertion, “I would confidently lay it down that nothing makes so much for grandeur as genuine emotion. It inspires the words as it were with a fine frenzy and fills them with divine spirit” (183). His claim seeps with conviction as he avows true emotion can inspire yet another origin of the sublime—that of grandeur. He equates the authentically emotive with an energy that can compel the experience of the pinnacle of the grand—that of divinity. Yet, just lines before, he downplays the effect and essentiality of emotion in the sublime as he notes, “Many sublime passages are quite without emotion” (183). For Longinus, on one hand, emotional language can seethe with the heavenly-inspired and, on the other hand, is not an essential element to the sublime, as numerously demonstrated. This discrepancy of the power of emotion, regarding a central tenet of a source of sublime derivation would not be so profound, were he not to repeatedly emphasize the power of emotion in language —and other such sublime origins, for that matter— just before jerking into a negation of such contentions.

After lengthy digressions into the benefits and detriments of implementation of the literary constituents of his formula for the sublime, Longinus ultimately reveals the duplicitous and multifaceted nature of the sublime and the ease with which an expression of the sublime can unravel. In championing the methodology used by the most gifted writers of the sublime, Longinus asserts that, “The use of hyperbata allows imitation to approach the effects of nature. For art is only perfect when it looks like nature and Nature succeeds only when she conceals latent art” (241). While Longinus here writes of a specific linguistic implement, this statement speaks to the entirety of this literary piece; to reify the sublime, one must find harmony between the intrinsic and the manufactured. For Longinus, art and Nature must be demonstrative of one another to be truly effective, yet cannot excessively reveal their own innate attributes or else risk missing the harmonious point of the two that necessitates sublimity. Longinus is quite careful in his supposition of the occasion in which the sublime is linguistically manifested as he, from the outset, makes note of the necessary delicacy in such a pursuit, asserting, ”And so, while beauty of style, sublimity, yes, and charm too, all contribute to successful composition, yet these same things are the source and groundwork no less of failure than success” (177). Here he vociferates the thin line language walks in its relationship to the sublime—that the potential of the genius of sublime language borders on the fallacious and foolish, as they are both derived from the same means—that of linguistics.

It is Longinus’ ability both to illuminate the means to attain sublimity in language as well as to undermine articulatable sublimity that demonstrates his tacit understanding of the relationship. He posits two theoretically-opposed outcomes of the same means (i.e. utilizing a literary tool such as metaphor). First he beguiles the reader into believing that the sublime can be attained through such a means; then, he slithers to the other side of the argument to reject the possibility of the actualization of the sublime through such a means. And yet, through this discourse, Longinus’ argument produces the sublime itself— he implements these linguistic measures to articulate a harmony between the overt success and massive failure while simultaneously describing and creating the sublime. For Longinus, language is a human construction, and being human is fraught with fallibility, yet the proper use of language can transcend the human experience, elucidated as he asserts that Nature,

Therefore from the first breathed into our hearts an unconquerable passion for whatever is great and more divine than ourselves. Thus the whole universe is not enough to satisfy the speculative intelligence of human thought: our ideas often pass beyond the limits that confine us. Look at life from all sides and see how in all things the extraordinary, the great, the beautiful stand supreme, and you will soon realize what we were born for (277).

This breath-taking passage utilizes metaphor and effective syntax to effect clarity in the beauty of human potentiality. By speaking both of the universe and of limits, Longinus forces the reader to confront the tangible constraints of human existence with the abstract notion of the infinite, irrepressible universe to create sense of the sublime. He brings the natural and the human into alignment to manifest something spiritual that transcends the power of both; it is through his exquisite employment of these two seemingly-incongruous notions that he boldly proclaims, while simultaneously reifying his assertion of ideas, an idea fraught with divine-inspiration—the purpose of humanity. Longinus demonstrates the harmony of language that he has sought to articulate throughout the entirety of this literary piece. It is this complex methodology of demonstrating the possibilities of language before warning of its dangers by which Longinus finds the harmonious point using his own origins of sublimity that he creates this divinely-inspired notion in his own language.

Longinus, On the Sublime. 1 A.D. Trans. W. H. Fyfe; Rev. D. A. Russell. Loeb Classical Library, 1996.
ISBN: 0674995635

 John Milton, Paradise Lost. 1674. Ed. Gordon Teskey. New York: Norton, 2005.
ISBN: 0393924289

The Book of Job. Trans. Stephen Mitchell. New York: Harper Perennial, 1992. ISBN: 0060969598

Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. 1757. Ed. James T. Boulton. Indiana: U of Notre Dame P, 1993.
ISBN: 0268000859

Immanuel Kant. The Critique of Judgement. 1790. Trans. James Creed Meredith. New York: Oxford UP, 1978. ISBN: 0198245890

Anne Radcliffe. The Italian. Ed. Frederick Garber. New York: Oxford UP, 1998.
ISBN: 0198245890

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey. Ed. Marilyn Gaull. New York: Longman, 2004.
ISBN: 0321202082

Suggested Texts

Michael Greer. What Every Student Should Know About Citing Sources with MLA Documentation. New York: Longman, 2006.
ISBN: 0321447379

Joseph Gibaldi. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6th Rev. Edition. MLA P, 2003
ISBN: 0873529863

Diana Hacker. A Writer’s Reference. 5th Sprl edition. Bedford/St. Martin's P, 2003.
ISBN: 0312412622

Course Requirements

Participation (15%)
4 Short Essays (40%)
Seminar Paper (45%)