Chapter 14: Judgment of the Ancients
Now, it is fine for us also, when we struggle over something which ought to have sublimity of address and greatness of mind, to mold in our souls how Homer would have said this same thing, if he had happened upon it, and how Plato and Demosthenes would have made it sublime, or Thucydides in history. You see, these persons, falling before our purview in our moment of emulation, and being conspicuously appropriate, will somehow carry up our souls to the standards which we have pictured for ourselves. 2. And still more, if we sketch this beforehand in our thoughts: how would Homer, if he were present, hear what I have spoken, or Demosthenes, and how would they have responded to it? You see, to undergo such a trial is, really, a great thing: to establish such a jury and theatre for our speeches and writings and to play at placing what we have written under the audit of such heroes as our judges and witnesses. 3. And a greater stimulus than these provide will come if you ask in addition: “These things which I am writing—how will the ages after me hear them?” But if one be afraid to say something which will survive past the due date of his own life and time, it must be that the conceptions of the man’s soul are blind and, as it were, abortive—not carried to the final birth which brings later fame.
Commentary
persons: the Greek word refers literally to that part of a man towards which you turn your look, i.e., his face or counte nance. By extension it comes to mean a mask worn in the Greek theatre, then a character in a play—exactly the mean ing of persona in dramatis personae. In rhetoric the word refers to the molding or forming of characters. Plato’s dia logues are excellent examples of such “person-making.” Longin us’ use of the word here suggests just such an imagin ative effort by the artist, who is not only to create his work but is also to be a critical audience for it.
how would they have responded to it: Werner Jaeger kept a bust of Aristotle in his study; when asked whether he used it as Longinus advises here, he nodded and said that he did. Sir Joshua Rey nolds, in the second of his Discourses on Art, discusses the value of copying for young artists:
“Instead of copying the touches of those great masters, only copy their conceptions Consider with yourself how a Michael An gelo or a Raffaelle would have treated this subject; and work your self into a belief that your picture is to be seen and criticized by them when completed. Even an attempt of this kind will rouse your powers.”
Benedict Einarson’s translation of Lon ginus includes Reynolds’ Discourses, which throughout show the great influ ence of Longin us on the eighteenth cen tury. Keats kept a miniature of Shake speare with him, and Ficino burnt a candle before a bust of Plato; Erasmus’ humanistic prayer is justly famous: “Saint Socrates, pray for us.”
play: editors generally mark a crux at the verb “play at,” on the grounds that “there is no reason to suppose that it can mean ‘pretend that,’ as the sense re quires” (Russell). But an exact parallel exists in the text (3.2), where Longin us says that “paratragic” and ranting poets are, in their own opinion, genuinely enthusiastic and possessed of a Diony siac inspiration, but are really only “playing at” it. The root of the Greek verb for “play” is the word “boy,” and boys love to play at being serious sometimes playing so hard that they believe their fantasies to be real. Pre tense, like affectation, often becomes a second nature. Such pretending is no good if it does not convey a sense of reality, just as an actor must “live” his part.
witnesses: Longinus here modulates his image from a theatre to a courtroom: Greek theatrical productions were com petitive and had “judges.” Witnesses are among the kinds of proof. Aristotle (Rhetoric 1375b26 ff.) divides witnesses into two classes, one of which he calls “the ancients.” These, he says, are the poets and past heroes whose “decisions” are known to us. Longinus is playing on these various meanings, for the ancient authorities to which we appeal in this courtroom-theatre of cultural judgment are at once judges by their standards and witnesses by their works of what is authentic and true.
past the due date: the term in Greek is a legal one denoting something owed past the date due; the term thus con tinues the metaphor begun by “wit nesses” (see preceding note).
blind … later fame: the image is con sistently of conception and birth; such imagery is dominant in Plato, e.g., the Symposium and the Theaetetus, where Socrates compares himself at length to a midwife assisting in the birth of ideas. “Blind” is used of plants without buds and of abortive births (Themistius, cited by Russell).
