Appendix B: Metaphor in Longinus

The problem in dealing with metaphor in any author is to determine just how conscious was his use of language: how many metaphors are deliber­ ate, how many are natural and inherent in the language itself. In a language like English, where metaphor is naturally pervasive,^[1] the problem can sometimes be solved by a general knowledge of the author’s habits; for example, one can scarcely attribute to Donne or Eliot too much conscious­ ness, or too little to Thomson and Longfellow. Similarly in Greek, Homer has few metaphors, or at least few that are vividly functional,^[2] while Aeschylus is studded with them.

The problem is complicated, however, by the fact that constant usage deadens etymologically original metaphors. These so-called “dead” or petrified metaphors make the job of the critic finally impossible; how can he know when he is evaluating a real intention or imposing a subtle inge­ nuity? Some writers, like Thoreau or Carlyle, when they wish to emphasize the etymological power of a word, put the significant root or prefix or suffix in italics. In Walden Thoreau writes:

We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity as an improved method of agri-culture.

But this device is not really so much a sign of increased sensitivity on the part of the writer as it is a testimony to the decaying impact of root­ meanings and a confession by the writer of inability to convey those meanings in another way.^[3]

In the case of a “dead” language like Greek, in which all metaphors are, so to speak, petrified, the problem is still further complicated. Usage and a history of usage will tell us much about the vitality of any metaphor; but a usage not controlled by a knowledge of the language as a living medium tends to turn into purely etymological analysis. As we know so much more about the etymology of Latin and Greek than the ancients themselves knew, we may find our knowledge a hindrance, and espy metaphors where none was ever perceived. We cannot even take any satisfaction in the fact that Longinus, as a learned author, might be expected to possess the maximal linguistic knowledge of his age; he is an “academic” writer, and is prone to the glaring faults of the academic style, two of which are exces­ sively timid and excessively bold use of metaphor. And coupled with this is the tendency of this style to use metaphoric words in a non-metaphorical way, as “glaring” is used in the previous sentence.

In the absence of markers, such as “as it were” or the like, in determining a Longinian use of metaphor, the first thing is to see whether the word is etymologically capable of metaphor; the second is to see whether its etymo­ logical impact is obvious, whether it lies on the surface of the word, as in “reduced to the bare bones,” and is not buried in some Sanskrit or Hittite root; the third thing is to examine whether the surrounding language supports the notion of the metaphor; and fourth, to see whether parallels can be adduced from other authors, especially those who are favorites of Longinus, e.g., Plato and Demosthenes.

It is not often that an author tells us of his use of metaphor, but in Chapter 32 Longinus does just that. Here he is speaking of multiple metaphors, their place and propriety. Caecilius and other critical rule­ setters allow only two or three in a given passage. Longinus, however, opposes to this Demosthenes as the true limit; and he then lays down his two guiding principles concerning multiple metaphors (or what we call “mixed metaphors”), while at the same time, he develops an extended water-metaphor of his own, into which he does not hesitate to mix meta­ phors from medicine and astronomy and finance. Rules about two or three metaphors being the limit are foolish when applied to a genius like Demosthenes, especially when he is vehemently involved in his theme. There are at least five metaphors in the quotation from Demosthenes, in what is no more than a fragment of a sentence.^[4]

Longinus’ images range all over the world and all over nature and society: he seems to have no special area of preference. There are metaphors of lightning (1.4, 12.4, 34.4); ships (2.2 and 3.5); spurs and bits (2.2, 34.2); fountains (one would certainly think this a stereotyped or petrified meta­ phor, but Longinus says “as someone would say [ὡς ἄν εἴποι τις]); sea and water (9.13 and 32.1); walls (10.7 and 41.3); irrigation (13.3); gladiators (13.4 and 34.1,2); theatres and courts (14.2); untimely birth (14.3); medicine (16.2 and 32.2-4, 38.5); tax and business (20.1 and 32.4); painting (13.4 and 17.2); storms (20.3); catapults (22.2); music (28.1,2; 39.3; 40.1); voting (33.4); pyg­ mies (44.4); war (44.6); prison (44.10). The Nile, the Ocean, Mt. Aetna, and tides are key symbolic values for him.

If any one type of metaphor does seem to dominate, it is images of light and fire,^[5] with water images a close second. Whenever Longinus wishes to express the height and vivida vis of sublimity (ὕψος) he seems to turn to these two phenomena most easily and naturally; and fire and water control the description of his two favorite authors, Demosthenes and Homer.^[6] Perhaps the reason for this lies in the fact that these are two of the four elements, and if sublimity and emotion are the essential elements of great writing, it is both natural and appropriate to put them, as it were, “in their elements” when comparison is necessary. Fire is a symbol of upward motion, and striving upward is a sign of sublimity and of the Platonism in which Longin us’ soul is steeped. Water is both violent and quiescent: it can describe Demosthenes’ emotions sweeping all before them or Homer’s sweet senescence, lapping lightly at the limits of its former tidal greatness. When Longinus comes to develop his theory of the connection between man’s nature and the nature of the sublime (ch. 35), his two examples, his two symbols, are Mt. Aetna and the Ocean: fire and water in their vastness and most extreme moments.^[7]

The next most important group of metaphors are those taken from the idea of a struggle (ἀγών): the prize of victory (13.4,5; 34.1; 44.3). For the very idea implied in the establishing of contests and prizes is that of imitation. Just as Plato supplies the philosophic significance of fire, Aristotle supplies the significance of contest. The prospective author, of course, is not to compete with his contemporaries (for this involves not the ages but a generation); instead he is to compete with antiquity for the prize of poster­ ity. The truest greatness of the Olympic victors lies, as Pindar knew, in their emulating their heroic ancestors in a different kind of arena. Their great­ ness, however, is somehow always less than that of their ancestors, as Pindar recognizes both in the ornamental crown conferred by his hymns and in the need for sealing the victory with an identifying echo of myth. Writers, on the other hand, compete with real ancestors in the same arena, and can achieve exactly the same prize, the same fame for the ages. And their contest, their strife, is good, as Longin us quotes from Hesiod in 13.5. Plato, for example, had entered the lists with Homer and, though he lost, he gained. What was true for him, Longinus implies, will be true for any writer who takes as his models the great artists of the past.

These metaphors, then, fire and contest, are connected, since both suggest aspiration to rise. And rising in turn suggests sublimity (ὕψος) the author’s goal and test.