Author Longinus

e work belongs to neither Cassius Longinus nor Dionysius of Halicarnassus, but, rather, some unknown author writing under the Roman Empire, likely in the first century. The error does imply that when the codex was written, the trails of the real author were already lost. Neither author can be accepted as the actual writer of the treatise. The former maintained ideas which are absolutely opposite to those written in the treatise; about the latter, there are problems with chronology. Among further names proposed, are Hermagoras (a rhetorician who lived in Rome during the first century A.D.), Aelius Theon (author of a work which had many ideas in common with those of On the Sublime), and Pompeius Geminus (who was in epistolary conversation with Dionysius). Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote under Augustus, publishing a number of works. Dionysius is generally dismissed as the potential author of On the Sublime, since the writing officially attributed to Dionysius differs from the work on the sublime in style and thought.[1] Accredited with writing a number of literary works, this disciple of Plotinus was "the most distinguished scholar of his day." Cassius received his education at Alexandria and becomes a teacher himself. First teaching at Athens, Cassius later moved to Asia Minor, where he achieved the position of advisor to the queen of Palmyra, Zenobia.[1] Cassius is also a dubius possibility for author of the treatise, since it is notable that no literature later than the first century AD is mentioned (the latest is Cicero, dead in 43 B.C), and the work is now usually dated to the early first century AD. The work ends with a dissertation on the decay of oratory, a typical subject of the period in which authors such as Tacitus, Petronius and Quintilian, who also dealt with the subject, were still alive. The treatise On the Sublime is one of the most important ancient treatises on aesthetics, together with Aristotle’s Poetics. In addition the treatise is also a work of literary criticism, though unlike earlier manuals of rhetoric. It is written in an epistolary form and has an artistic dimension of its own. Unfortunately, during the centuries, the final part of the work was lost. Possibly the author discussed public speaking; in a similar context, Tacitus wrote his “Dialogus de oratoribus” (Dialogue on orators). The treatise is dedicated to Posthumius Terentianus, a cultured Roman and public figure, though little else is known of him. On the Sublime is a compendium of literary exemplars, with about 50 authors spanning 1,000 years mentioned or quoted.[3] Along with the expected examples from Homer and other figures of Greek culture, Longinus refers to a passage from Genesis, which is quite unusual for the first century: A similar effect was achieved by the lawgiver of the Jews — no mean genius, for he both understood and gave expression to the power of the divinity as it deserved — when he wrote at the very beginning of his laws, and I quote his words: 'God said' — what was it? — 'Let there be light.' And there was. 'Let there be earth.' And there was. Given his positive reference to Genesis, Longinus has been assumed to be either a Hellenized Jew or readily familiar with the Jewish culture.[4] As such, Longinus emphasizes that, to be a truly great writer, authors must have “moral excellence”.[1] In fact, critics speculate that Longinus avoided publication in the ancient world “either by modesty or by prudential motives”[3]. Moreover, Longinus stresses that transgressive writers are not necessarily prideless fools, even if they take literary risks that seem “bold, lawless, and original”.[1] As for social subjectivity, Longinus acknowledges that complete liberty promotes spirit and hope; according to Longinus, “never did a slave become an orator”.[5] On the other hand, too much luxury and wealth leads to a decay in eloquence—eloquence being the goal of the sublime writer.[3] Longinus critically praises and blames literary works as examples of good or bad styles of writing.[3] Longinus ultimately promotes an “elevation of style”[3] and an essence of “simplicity”.[6] To quote the famous author, “the first and most important source of sublimity [is] the power of forming great conceptions."[6] The concept of the sublime is generally accepted to refer to a style of writing that elevates itself “above the ordinary”. Finally, Longinus sets out five sources of sublimity: “great thoughts, strong emotions, certain figures of thought and speech, noble diction, and dignified word arrangement”.[4] The effects of the Sublime are: loss of rationality, an alienation leading to identification with the creative process of the artist and a deep emotion mixed to pleasure and exaltation. An example of sublime that the author quotes in the work is a poem by Sappho, the so-called “Ode to jealousy”, defined “Sublime ode”.A writer’s goal is, not so much to express empty feelings, but to arouse emotion in his audience.[6] In the treatise, the author asserts that “the Sublime leads the listeners not to persuasion, but to ecstasy: for what is wonderful goes always together with a sense of dismay, and prevails over what is only convincing or delightful, since persuasion, as a rule, is within everyone’s grasp, while the Sublime, giving to the speech an invincible power and [an invincible] strength, rises above every listener”. According to this statement, one could think that the sublime, for Longinus, was only a moment of evasion from reality. On the contrary, he thought that literature could model a soul and that a soul could pour itself in a work of art. In this way, the treatise becomes not only a writing of literary inquiry, but also of ethical dissertation, since the Sublime becomes the product of a great soul (?????????????? ???????). This broadens the dimension of the work; born to disprove the theories of a pamphlet of literary criticism, it ends by inaugurating an idea concerning aesthetics taken all in all. The sublime, in fact, is an indicator determining the greatness of who approaches to it, both the author’s and the viewer’s (or reader’s). And between them an empathic bound must set up. Then, the Sublime is a mechanism of recognition, (rouse from the impact with the work of art) of the greatness of a spirit, of the depth of an idea, of the power of speech. This recognition has its roots in the belief that everybody is aware of the existence of the Sublime and that the strain to greatness is rooted in human nature. Done these considerations, the literary genre and the subject the poet deals with assume a minor importance for the author, according to whom “sublimity” could be found in every literary work. Longinus proves a very clever critic, because he excels the Apollodoreans by speaking over the critic as a term of positive “canalizement” of the Genius. He exceeds the rigid rules of literary critic of his time, according to which only a regular style (or “second-rate”, as Longinus says) could be defined as perfect. The author, on the other hand, admires the boldness of the Genius, which always succeeds in reaching the top, even though at the cost of forgivable falls in style. Thus, among the examples of sublime, can be found close, and without hierarchies, Homer, the tragedian, Sappho, Plato, even the Bible, and a play-wright like Aristophanes, since the author says that laughter is a jocose pathos, therefore, “sublime”, since he thinks that it is “an emotion of pleasure”. Nevertheless he did not appreciate the Hellenistic poets, maybe because he did not understand their culture: “Would you prefer being Homer or Apollonius? […] No sane would give just one tragedy, the ‹‹Oedipus King›› in exchange for all Iones’s dramas?”. The Sublime, moreover, cannot identify itself only to what is simply beautiful, but also to what is so upsetting to cause “bewilderment” (????????), “surprise” (?? ?????????) and even “fear” (?????). It could be said that Helen of Troy will surely have been the most beautiful woman in the world, but she has never been sublime in Greek literature, although Edmund Burke cites the scene of the old men looking at Helen's "terrible" beauty on the ramparts of Troy -- he regards it as an instance of the beautiful, but his imagination is captured by its sublimity. Hecuba in Euripides’s The Trojan Women is certainly sublime when she expresses her endless sorrow for the terrible destiny of her children. The author speaks also about the decay of oratory, born not only from lack of freedom, but also from the corruption of morals, which destroys that high spirit which generates the Sublime. The treatise, thus, set itself in the burning controversy which raged in the 1st century AD in Latin literature. If Petronius pointed out, as causes of decay, the overload of rhetoric and the pompous and unreal methods of the schools of eloquence, nearer to Longinus was Tacitus, who thought [2] that the origin of this decadence was the instauration of princedom (the Empire), which, though brought stability and peace, it also brought censure and the end of freedom of speech, thus turning oratory in a mere exercise of style.