Preface
The idea for this book was born in 1956, when my late friend and collaborator, John M. Crossett studied Longinus with Professor Werner Jaeger at Harvard. The idea of a commentary lay dormant in Crossett’s mind until the Fall of 1969, when Crossett was granted a sabbatical semester by Grinnell College to begin collecting notes. The constraints of teaching at a small liberal arts college as well as the distraction of other projects caused him to put aside further work on the commentary. In 1973, Crossett asked me to participate in this project. Its aim was to be an edition primarily for Greekless readers but useful also to classicists. If possible, the edition should have some value as a discourse on literary criticism generally. Crossett felt that since his primary work had been in English literature and mine in Classics, a joint enterprise would be beneficial. The first fruit of this collaboration was our monograph The Dating of Longinus (1975). When we had completed the monograph, Crossett turned over to me what notes he had collected during his sabbatical and essentially passed to me the task of sifting through his notes, adding to them, and writing the commentary. We were to have worked closely together on the final drafts and on the translation, but Crossett’s unexpected death in 1981 prevented this renewed cooperation. The death of a friend and colleague was a painful private loss. Its effect on this book has been profound. This work is but a semblance of what it would have been had Crossett lived to share in the final writing and in the translating. His extraordinary insight and understanding would have made a much deeper mark; his vehement insistence on absolute accuracy would have been insurance against any errors which may have crept in; his felicities of style were such that they would have delighted Longinus. As it is, I cannot share with John Crossett what reprobation may attend this publication: the blame is mine. If however, these pages have any worth, he may justly claim his due meed.
This book has been my principal labor for the past eleven years. During this time, I have enjoyed fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and from Hampden-Sydney College. The many libraries which, through the auspices of Interlibrary Loan services, have lent me books and periodicals, would require a ream of pages to thank individually. Let it be said that we who labor at small colleges owe these happy cooperations a great debt.
I should like to record my gratitude to Brenda Garrett for her careful typesetting of the manuscript; to Stuart Cox for his help in the book’s make-up; to Sutton Baldwin for his work on the indices; and to Richard McClintock for his design of the volume. I am grateful also to Hampden Sydney College for undertaking the costs associated with preparing this book for the press.
Despite these years studying sublimity, I am yet unable adequately to express my gratitude to my wife Barbara for her encouragement, patience, and good cheer.
James A. Arieti
Hampden-Sydney,
Virginia March, 1984
