Longinus
Longinus ,the name bestowed by a scribe's error on the author of the Greek critical treatise περí ũψου< (On the Sublime) written probably in the 1st cent. AD . It locates the sources of poetic excellence in the profundity of the writer's emotions and the seriousness of his thought. The first English translation, by John Hall , appeared in 1652 , but it was not until the appearance of Boileau 's French version ( 1674 ) and its influence on Dryden that the concept of creative fire became popular. ‘Longinus’ had a marked effect on 18th-cent. critics and aestheticians. Dennis , Shaftesbury , and even Pope were influenced by him, while the later Primitivists like John Brown and William Duff , as well as J. Warton , fell wholly under his spell. The cult of the sublime did much to prepare the way for Romanticism .
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