Chapter 1: Introduction
Though as we looked into the little prose-account which Caecilius arranged about the sublime, it appeared to us in common, my dearest Postumius Terentianus, as you understand, lower than what he had set down as the whole basis of the subject, not at all to touch on what is just right, and not to have much advantage for those who happen upon it—something every writer should aim at—if, of course, these two things are requisite in every technical investigation: first, to show what underlies the subject; the other, second in order of arrangement but more important in its capacity for effect, to show how and by what orderly ways the sublime may be attained by us; nevertheless, Caecilius, though he tries to show us, as if we were ignorant of it, what sort of thing the sublime essentially is by tens of thousands of examples, has left aside as unnecessary—I don’t understand how-the manner in which we might have the strength to lead our natures to some increase of greatness; [2.] all the same, though, it is equally true that the man is not so much to be held responsible for what he has left out as worthy to be praised for his seriousness and his very eagerness to perceive. But since you have enjoined me [especially] to collect notes on sublimity for your sake, why, let us look to see whether we shall have theorized on something useful for men in political life. You, yourself, fellow pupil, as is your nature and your duty, will critically decide with me most truly about each part of the topic; you see, he spoke well, who, when asked what we have similar to the gods, answered, “good deeds and truth.” 3. In writing to you, my dear friend, as one knowing culture, I am almost freed from setting down in many words that sublimity is a kind of height and conspicuous excellence in speeches and writings, and that from no other source than this have the greatest poets and prose-writers excelled and thrown around their glorious reputations the mantle of the ages. 4. What is beyond nature drives the audience not to persuasion, but to ecstasy. What is wonderful, with its stunning power, prevails everywhere over that which aims merely at persuasion and at gracefulness. The ability to be persuaded lies in us, but what is wonderful has a capability and force which, unable to be fought, take a position high over every member of the audience. Experience in originality, and arrangement and “economy” are not things we see from one or two passages, but we see them appearing gradually from the whole web of speeches and writings; and sublimity, brought out at just the right moment, makes everything different, like lightning, and directly shows the “all-at-once” capacity of the speaker. I think, my most pleasant Terentianus, that you yourself, from experiment, might suggest these and similar reflections.
Commentary
Longinus begins with a sentence which consists of some 100 words. Such complex periods originate partly in the nature of the Greek language, partly in the conscious development of that nature made by the great rhetoricians, notably Isocrates, and handed down to Cicero, through whom the tradition and practice came to be the foundation of the mental apparatus still characteristic of the western world. We may, in English, think of such writers as Hook er, Milton—both in prose and poetry— and Ruskin.
The first sentence is divided into three main parts, each part clearly marked in Greek in a way which contemporary English cannot fully or easily imitate. The basic sentence may be reduced to its main clauses thus:
- Caecilius’ book is not up to its subject;
- still, though he leaves out what is the essential matter, he does try;
- notwithstanding his failure, Caecilius deserves praise for taking the subject seriously.
As the skeletonized sentence makes clear, the first two clauses deal with the book itself and are substantive; the third clause is personal and deals with the author: it is a gesture of decent good will.
When to the skeleton we attach all the subordinate clauses, the period reveals, like the opening sentence of Paradise Lost, a mind which has thought out its argument before beginning to write and which sustains that “just subordination of means to end” which Housman praised in Milton. Its inspiration is Apollonian rather than Dionysiac; for later examples of long sentences in English which lack such just subordination, see ch. III, n. on beyond the tragic.
looked into: the custom of reading together was ancient even by the time of Longinus. Although Aristotle is generally credited with the first private library Plato even refers to him as “the reader”—we find that Socrates and his friends read together the books written “by the ancient wise men” (Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.6.14). See W. B. Stanford, The Sound of Greek: Studies in the Greek Theory and Practice of Euphony. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967, ch.1.
little prose account: this term is diminutive and slightly pejorative in the Greek. In 32.8, Longinus refers to the “prose account” that Caecilius wrote on Lysias. The non-diminutive form often signifies a systematic work as distinct from notes, or jottings, or even an informal essay.
Caecilius: it is virtually certain that Lon gin us is rebutting the views of Caecilius of Calacte, a rhetorical theorist whose life spanned the first century B.C E. and the first century C.E. and who was a friend, and contemporary, of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. See Dating.
Postumius Terentianus: The identification of Terentianus is closely linked with the problem of establishing dates for Longinus (see Dating). As the very Greek text of the name is corrupt, and as no firm identification has been made, we can only say the following: (a) Longinus, in the ancient fashion, dedicates the book to Terentianus; (b) it would appear that the relationship between the two was close-perhaps of teacher to student, whether formally or informally; (c) as the name is (or seems to be) Roman, it is possible to assume that he was a young Roman of distinguished family for whom Longinus wrote the treatise as part of the young man’s education.
lower than what he had set down as the whole basis of the subject: A complex joke, which probably alludes to style, size, and thematic conception in Caecilius’ treatise. Even so exalted a topic as “the sublime” was a subject as well as a theme—hence the word “basis” or “theme” (literally, in Greek, a hypothesis, “a setting under”). Longinus implies that Caecilius did not even rise to the basis. See also ch. 38, n. on introduction for addition etymological puns.
what is just right: the word in Greek normally suggests “opportune moments”; Longinus is censuring Caecilius not simply for having omitted the main points, but also for having missed the opportunities to touch on them. He lists three defects in Caecilius’ work: inadequacy of style and conception; failure to make anything of the opportunities that he did have; lack of usefulness.
technical investigation: the Greek word signifies a rationale of the rules for an art. Longinus’ own work is the supreme example of a “technical investigation” infused with literary greatness both in its style and its conception; and, of course, it has usefulness.
second in order … capacity for effect: Longinus is well aware that dramatic impact and logical order are not necessarily coincident. Russell, remarking on Longinus’ familiarity with Demosthenes, cites as a parallel antithesis Olynthiac 3. I5. The echo of Demosthenes is of even further significance, for the orator says there, “Doing, though later in order of arrangement than speaking, is prior in capacity and strong er.” By means of the submerged allusion, Longinus is, as early as the first sentence, marking out not only that he differs from Caecilius but also how: later in the work (Chs. 32-33), Longinus will take up his defense of Demosthenes against the more “correct” kind of ora tor whom Caecilius preferred. Furthermore, the passage from Demosthenes discusses speech and action; analogously, Longinus is discussing the theory of speech and its active effect: as speech is prior to action chronologically, although action is the more effective element of the two, so stating the nature of one’s subject is logically prior to the effect produced by the subject, although the effect is the more important of the two elements.
how and by what kinds of orderly ways: i.e., “methods,” a word which points to the main line of Longinus’ argument that a technique for sublimity exists. Nature is necessary, but even nature can be improved upon by techniques (1.1); method enables us to know when to go beyond nature and when to recognize the “right moment” in each thing (2.2); and nature herself is “not without meth od” (2.2).
what sort of thing … essentially is: the Greek literally means “to begin (from) underneath,” i.e., to be present in a thing at and from its beginning to be whatever it is and to continue being there throughout its existence. In the phrase “what sort of thing” and “by what methods” we hear the authentic voice of the Greek mind yearning for the kind of knowledge which was phi losophically certain and demonstrable. The ancient rhetorical theoreticians seem never to have found such certainty of knowledge, although they kept on trying. The failure to find such an intel lectual basis of rhetoric prevented rhe toric from attaining the status of philo sophy. Each successive generation of rhetoricians seems to have bewailed the failure of its predecessors to establish rhetoric as a true theory: e.g., Hermo genes (On Ideas 1.193; p. 217 in Rabe’s edition). Rhetoricians seem never to have accepted Aristotle’s observation, that one can only be as precise as the nature of the subject matter allows. Perhaps, in view of the fact that their subject matter was logos, they may be forgiven. The explanation for their mis take lies in the twofold nature of logos: see below, n. on speeches and writing and Introduction.
tens of thousands of [examples]: the Greek might mean “at vast length,” but since Caecilius’ treatise was termed a “little prose-account,” it seems better to assume that Caecilius used a tiresome number of examples as a means of defining the sublime.
to lead our natures … to greatness: the almost otiose fullness of the expression, both in Greek and English, calls atten tion to Longinus’ important and subtle point: the progress of anything natural, whether a disease (cf. Galen, 1.198) or a political constitution (cf. Aristotle, Poli tics 1293a27) is analyzable and, to some degree, controllable by technique and method. Similarly, Theodorus says to Socrates of the young Theaetetus (Theaetetus 146B) that it is the nature of youth to be capable of “improving” at every thing. Dio Cassius (7.26.7) speaks of “ambition for improvement.” Hence, according to Longinus, man’s natural disposition to respond to what is great and to become great (cf. ch. 35) could be “improved.” Such improvement requires strength, and strength can be developed by practice (2.2), which in turn depends on technique and method. As one trains for greatness in body, so one must train for greatness of mind and spirit. The analogy is developed explicitly by Tho reau in Walden, the chapter entitled “Reading”:
To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.
the man is not so much to be held responsible the academic courtesy is exquisite in its patronizing deference.
but since: the clause beginning with “but” corresponds to the preceding clause, which began with the words “all the same, though”; hence this clause is properly a part of the opening sentence, although editors do not thus print it. Longinus implicitly contrasts himself with Caecilius, who apparently volun teered to write on the topic in a formal fashion: Longinus collects his notes, under some pressure from the young Roman, Terentianus, who somehow seems to have a claim on him. The verb translated “enjoined” is used of encour agement and command. Longin us was perhaps a son of tutor who occupied the dubious position of all teachers—at once superior and inferior.
theorized on something useful for men in political life: if Terentianus was a young man about to embark on public life, we may assume that one source for his encouragement of Longinus lay precisely here: Longinus belonged to the ancient tradition in which men pre served the organic connection between the various senses of logos, that is, of the vital relationship existing between ratio and oratio as they affected civic duty. Longin us was concerned primarily with political rather than “display” or epi deictic oratory—although he was fully aware of the pan which all branches of rhetoric had to play even in political oratory: his hero is not the theoretician of such political oratory—Isocrates— but its most sublime practitioner, Demos thenes.
The word “political,” of course, had a broader range of applications in anti quity than it generally does now. Eng lish “civic” might perhaps be more accurate, or “public” if we took it in the Miltonic sense:
I call therefore a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skill fully and magnanimously all the offices both private and public of peace and war. (Of Education)
For the ancient idea, see Plato, Laws 1.644, and Aristotle, Politics I333b1-5.
Any speech made “in public”-before a ruler, in an assembly, in a court, on an embassy-would be “political.” Thuc ydides’ Funeral Oration, like our Fourth of July orations, was “political,” in this sense. In the rhetorical handbooks, of course, the’word “political” can refer to any kind of speech. Longin us seems to be trying to rescue speech from its sophistic degeneration: see Glenn W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Ro man Empire (Clarendon Press:Oxford, 1969). Longinus chooses, as the one Roman orator whom he discusses, the practical politician Cicero, not the epi deictic Pliny, whose Panegyricus so stunned the young Marcus Aurelius (see Ch. 3, n. on beyond the tragic). For examples of the influence which profes sionally rhetorical speeches could have, at least in the second and later centuries A.D., see Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists: Scopelian’s famous speech on the vines (520); Polemo’s speech per suading Hadrian to devote ten million drachmas to restoring Smyrna (53 I); and Aristides’ speech, also about Smyrna, which even in the reading moved Marcus Aurelius to tears, after which the emperor helped to rebuild that ruined city. (See Glenn Bowersock, The Rise of the Second Sophistic.)
Longinus’ theoretical writings are being addressed, apparently, to a Ro man youth, and not to a would-be pro fessional rhetorician. The usefulness of theory—what we call “pure research”— to practical uses goes back at least to Plato and Aristotle; for its allegorical usefulness, Philo (On the Contempla tive Life, 78) writes:
The logical soul unfolds the alle gorical symbols of Scripture and brings into the light thoughts for those who are capable, on the basis of a little reminder, of theo rizing the invisible out of the visible.
Such is the allegorical equivalent of Aristotle’s common-sense advice-to take the student from what is more known to what is less known.
fellow pupil: the Greek word goes back to Homer, where it indicates that pecu liar relationship of simultaneous equal ity and inferiority which existed be tween a chief and his comrades-at-arms. Later it came to be used of a pupil or disciple. If the relationship existing between Longin us and Terentianus was a good example of that mocked by Lucian in his essay “The Rhetoric Teacher”—a Greek intellectual hired by a wealthy Roman household—then Longinus occupied that anomalous position of all teachers, simultaneously inferior and superior.
Longinus uses the term, always in the vocative, five times; the range of tones is extensive, for only two are the same. Here, in ch. I, Longinus makes his most detailed appeal to the young man, whom he also addresses as “dear” and “dearest,” often with his name:
- “dearest Terentianus”: I. I; 12.4; 29.2; 44.1.
- ‘dearest”: 1.3; 7.1; 13.2; 17.1.
Only once does Longin us use the more formal “O” without the superlative “dearest” (6.1).
Twice hereafter (9.6 and 26.2) Teren tianus is instructed to “gaze at” or “behold” some example of sublirnity adduced by Longinus. Once (9.10), in the same chapter as one of the previous uses of “fellow pupil,” Longin us apol ogizes for adducing more examples: “Perhaps I would not be troublesome, fellow pupil, if I should set down one more citation ”
Th exact modulations of tone in each passage suggest a real relationship and not the sort of conventional one which we find in Seneca’s epistles or Edward Young’s Night-Thoughts.
as is your nature and your duty: nature, of course, is the prime requisite for all things (2.2); but nature of all kinds can be improved by technique. Cf. Pope’s Essay on Criticism 1.68-691, esp. 888-91:
Those rules of old, discover’d, not devised,
Are Nature still, but Nature metho dized;
Nature, like Liberty, is but restrained
By the same laws which first herself ordain’d.
Men by nature—as Aristotle says (Metaphysics 980a I —desire to understand; because their nature is such, they have a duty to develop their understanding. The Greek word translated “duty” is equivalent to the Latin officium; literally, the Greek means “to go along in accordance with”; it is the regular Stoic term for duty—which would, of course, be “natural” for a Stoic. As Terentianus has developed one part of his nature ethically—to be disposed toward truth-so he has developed another part of his nature critically—to be disposed toward sound literary judgment. The two are to coincide in his comments on Longinus’ work. Russell aptly cites parallels from Pliny and Tacitus on this kind of friendly criticism.
most truly: Aristotle, in a famous pas sage (Nicomachean Ethics 1096al6), had said, “Truth is more sacred to us than our friends.” Longinian emphasis on truth in criticism comes to a sublime height in ch. 6.
good deeds and truth: Arsenius (Viol, p. 189) attributes the apophthegm to Demosthenes; see also Aelian, Miscel laneous Stories, xxi. 59, where a similar statement is attributed to Pythagoras. In view of Longin us’ love of Demosthenes, it is more probable that Demosthenes did not utter these words than that Longin us did not know that the orator said them.
as one knowing culture: the Greek word is cognate with a verb which can signify “to know how” to do some thing, like the French savoir. It implies not just practical skill, but skill based on theoretical knowledge.
The word “culture” (paideia) and its significance are the special and lumi nous province of the late Werner Jaeger, in his book Paideia. The word is formed from the root for “child” and signifies initially what one does to a child: upbringing, educaling, civilizing.
Ancient paideia consisted of two pans: the education of the body was called “gymnastics,” that of the soul was called “music.” The word “music,” of course, did not simply mean what we call “music” bul rather the whole spec trum of activities presided over by the Muses. Quite early it was formalized into something like the “liberal arts”; by the time of Longinus, paideia em braced a full circle of disciplines in gen eral studies, i.e., those preceding profes sional specialization. These consisted generally of literature, rhetoric, mathe matics, music, logic, and astronomy. Quintilian 1.10.1ff. discusses the course of studies at lenglh.
We may, perhaps, deduce from the writings.
The logos-hymn of Isocraes (Nico cles 5.9) is the earliest great tribute to that faculty which man has always con sidered to be what separates and distin guishes him from the beasts. Nowadays, when we have extended the meaning of “language” Lo include any system of communication, whether of computers or porpoises, we are perhaps less certain of the distinction. Isocrates observes that we use the same logos in reasoning with ourselves that we use in persuading others; the dual nature of logos, internal and external, causes the modem reader Lo find difficulty in both conception and translation of the Greek word. Philo, On the Migration of Abraham 71, draws the following analogy: phrase thal Terentianus was at the end rather than at the beginning of his “col lege days,” and perhaps had finished spring outflow thought speech them and was embarking on his professional studies.
speeches and writings: The Greek word is logos, which, when used by Longinus in the plural, refers to both speeches and We may take the combination of thought, or intention, and tongue, or speech, to be logos.
beyond nature … ecstasy: this sentenee contains three key terms, to be commented on seriatim.
beyond nature: this is one word in Greek, the prefix of which is hyper, as in “hyperbolic” or “hyperthy roid,” i.e., the prefix suggests an excessive condition, generally bad but not necessarily so. Longinus uses the word three other times, in two of them with specific reference not sim- ply to what is unusual or even incredible, but to what is divine. In 9.6, he says that Homer’s pictures of the war in heaven are “beyond nature”; in 16.2, he praises an oath made by Demosthenes as being “beyond nature.”
(Who is the Heir 302). What Langi nus intends by “ecstasy” is a mental stale almost mystically beyond logos: although it may be brought about by logos, in the sense of speech, it may also transcend speech; and it may even be brought about by silence (see 9.2, which immediately precedes a discussion of what is “beyond nature”). Philo discusses the operations of his mind in a similar way in On the Migration of Abraham 34-35, and in language very similar to the way in which Longinus analyzes inspiration in ch. 13.
The use in 9.4 is similar, for c) ecstasy: the word signifies, literally, Longinus argues that only those whose imaginative sensitivity re sponds not to earthly and temporal things but to eternal glory can perceive what is “beyond nature.” The state produced by what is “beyond nature” will, then, be itself some thing more than is natural. The two states—the natural and the “hypenatural”—are classified by Longinus as “persuasion” and “ecstasy.”
persuasion: persuasion is personi fied as a goddess as far back as Hesiod and Sappho, and we may presume that Longinus is playing on this fact: though a goddess, Persuasion is not “hypematural,”as is ecstasy. Through out Greek literature, persuasion is opposed to “force” or “violence,” and always indicates voluntary acqui escence as a result of logos (see Xenophon Memorabilia 2.1.13). Such logos is, of course, dependent on and consonant with nature: Philo, for example, who misses no chance to allegorize, says of logos that it is the greatest good given lo man by nature
“a standing outside of.” Philo (Who is the Heir 249 ff.) classifies four kinds of “ecstasy”: I) a maniac fury or some similar cause which produ ces unreason in old age or melan choly; 2) an intense astonishment at things which are accustomed to happen suddenly and unexpectedly; 3) a quietude of thought; 4) the best kind, i.e., an inspired state of being possessed and of madness as well, which prophets make use of. Longinian ecstasy is a combination of (2) and (4). Here in ch. 1, in the following sentence, Longinus uses “astonishment”; in ch. 13 he compares the effect produced by the divine afflatus on the priestess at Delphi to that produced on the creative soul by the great artists of the past. A fragment of Epicurus (2 I) suggests that “ecstasy” (translated by Bailey as “a state of fury”) is connected with literary activity:” his drove him to such a state of fury that he abused me and ironically called me master.”
