In terms of its influence in modern literary criticism, aesthetics and philosophy of art, Longinus’s Theory of Sublime is a very critical piece of work. He is placed second to Aristotle’s Poetics by many scholars. Peri Hypsous is simply a rhetorical treatise offering an especially strong inclination of the awe-inspiring or high style of quality writing siding with the glories of written literature.
The ownership of the treatise is a debate since its emergence during the Italian Renaissance with several manuscripts around until the initial publication by Italian humanist and philologist Francesco Robortello shaping the pre-existing dominant ideas in the world of literary criticism by Horace and Aristotle. The Theory of Sublimity is considered to be subjective as well as intersubjective on account of literary practice. The entirety of Longinus’s work is constructed over the notion of expressing greatness in one’s language and that being an important precursor for a writer, it also adds to what his predecessors helped shape the art of writing and diction. Longinus’s approach is characterised as distinctive and original on its precisely subjective drift: its focus on the creative and receptive facet of verbal arts, on the wit of the writer and affect on the audience is a crucial role of the text.
In western thought, the theory of Hysous is seen at length from its production contesting that the theory doubles itself as a theory of Genius. Longinus has also successfully inclined towards sublime being considered as a dual experience of simultaneously being overwhelming and elevating, dominating and exalting.
We are acquainted with the five forces of Sublimity; 1) Grandeur of thought and ability to form grand conception & 2) Powerful and inspired emotions – These are related to writers innate or natural capacity. 3) The effective use of stylistic & rhetorical figures as a means of increasing emotional impact of literature, 4) Noble diction & phrasing — the skilful use of metaphors and other figures of speech & 5) Dignified & elevated composition, most effective arrangements of words – is an artificially gained tool for achieving sublimity. The nurtured virtue in an author who must skilfully cultivate into the feeling in what he/she writes is proposed as; Sublimity as the echo of noble mind, could be a viable thought. “Sublimity is” for Longinus, “a kind of eminence or excellence of discourse. It is the source of distinction of the very greatest poets and prose writers and the means by which they have given eternal of their own fame.” It’s a discussed that the hypsous is intrinsically related to logos — translated as discourse; that the thought and diction — is inherently linked to the nobility of supreme and that a piece of art containing flashes of Sublimity — for a text need not be dripping in Sublimity but its position could be elevated with just these flashes — is universal and transhistorical.
The Sublimity of a text is acknowledged by its affect; its feeling and emotion, and so the most consequential way of defining sublimity of a text is by describing its affect on the audience.
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