On the Sublime

Longinus equates sublimity with elevation of the soul and attributes the presence of elevation to five sources, further asserting that the sublime elevates the audience's souls and originates in...

In On the Sublime, after some initial remarks and before the presentation of the sources of genuine sublimity, Longinus describes the several pitfalls to which a writer is susceptible in striving...

Not every work is extraordinary. Longinus, in On the Sublime, has given detailed account of the sources that make any work of art sublime. Sublimity refers to greatness and excellence. One of the...

In his essay On the Sublime, Longinus criticizes four faults that he believes undermine sublimity in writing. These are turgidity, which means being long-winded and overblown (using twenty words...

The aesthetic importance of sublimity is discussed by Longinus in Section IX of his treatise. In this section Longinus discusses the first essential source of elevated language, which, in his...

This is a piece of early literary criticism which deals in particular with the very vexing question of whether a writer is able to learn their trade through application and hard work, or whether...

One of the hallmarks of good criticism is the use of a number of different examples to prove the points of the author. This is something that is clearly evident in this treatise, as Longinus refers...

For Longinus, excellence in literature as to do with the following factors: “great thoughts, strong emotions, certain figures of thought and speech, noble diction, and dignified word arrangement."...

Longinus wrote in the Classic Greek period. Longinus cannot be properly identified. It is thought he was actually a Greek master of rhetoric, though, for simplicity, the writer is consistently...

Longinus, in Section XV of his treatise, argues that figurative langauge, done well, can play a vital part in the creation of sublimity. This is a very interesting example of how Longinus argues...

The basis of the argument being made by Longinus in "On the Sublime," one on which he parted company from most commentators of the classical world on this subject, is that the salient quality of a...

What Longinius does in this early work of ancient criticism is to define the sublime as an ideal that all authors should aspire to reach through their skill. What he outlines are the five sources...

Longinus’s writing can be termed “practical” if we understand him to be writing a kind of guidebook. The text, which is fragmentary, nevertheless has a unifying rhetorical structure in that it is...

Longinus's purpose in On the Sublime is to analyze and promote a "certain loftiness and excellence of language." The primary goal of this lofty or literary language of sublimity is not to provide...

This is an intriguing question to consider because Longinus in his treatise opens up the debate about whether achieving excellence in literature (which he defines as sublimity) is a result of...

when we know that the sounds of a harp, ... in symphony, often lay a wonderful spell on an audience ... can we doubt that composition (being a kind of harmony of that language which nature has...

If this treatise is about sublimity and how to achieve it, Longinus arguably spends at least as much time talking about the various pitfalls that there are for the writer who strives to achieve...

The focus of this work, supposedly written by Longinus, although the majority of critics believe that it would have been another author who penned this work of early criticism, is the...

One example of the sublime in poetry is Epithalamion by Edmund Spenser. Since this is a long and immensly complex poem, the poems in his sonnet cycle will serve equally well as examples of the...

This is an interesting statement to consider, because psychology as a discipline and an approach was something that had not been conceived of at all at the time of writing of this text, and it...

Longinus, in his essay “On the Sublime,” advocated a theory of speech and writing that emphasized the goal of sublimity – that is, loftiness, elevation, inspiration. Longinus believed that great...

The reason why the author of On the Sublime (who more than likely is not Longinus, according to historians) sheds a light on the production itself rather than the poet is because of a term that the...

On the Sublime, a work that recent (post-2000) scholarship has argued should indeed be attributed to the leading ancient philologist, Longinus, is essentially a rhetorical treatise, giving writers...

Longinus turns his attention to passion in Section XIII of this treatise. He takes the view that passion is definitely not synonymous with sublime literature. He argues that some passions can be...