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BBL 3103 LITERARY THEORY FROM PLATO TO T. S. ELIOT. DR. IDA BAIZURA BAHAR. 01 Longinus. i . About Longinus is the conventional name of the author of the treatise On the Sublime, a work which focuses on the effect of good writing .
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BBL 3103 LITERARY THEORY FROM PLATO TO T. S. ELIOT DR. IDA BAIZURA BAHAR
01 Longinus • i. About • Longinus is the conventional name of the author of the treatise On the Sublime, a work which focuses on the effect of good writing. • Exact identity of ‘Longinus’ and date On the Sublime written unknown • Addressed to a friend of Longinus, Terentianus • A listing of vices that constitute the ‘false sublime’ and characteristics of ‘true sublime’
02 On the Sublime • i. The Sublime • The sublime: loftiness of content and excellence of language • > resulting in ‘transport,’ where the reader is carried away or moved by the poem • > better a work be majestic and flawed, than immaculately crafted and mediocre • True sublime: uplifts the soul; perpetual beauty; not diminished by context • False sublime: banality dressed in bombastic language
02 On the Sublime • ii. Sources of the sublime • 1. Grandeur of conception • The poet must be free from base and ignoble thoughts • Great ideas spring from great souls • These great ideas must then be organised to form an organic whole • 2. Intensity of emotion • All art must arise from the passions • Emotions amplified: complexity and immensity associated with a subject • Sublimity can be reached by amplification, but amplification alone is not sublimity
02 On the Sublime • 3. Appropriate use of figures • Figures of thought, figures of speech • These figures convey emotion • Vivid figures (images): poetical images to shock and awe, rhetorical images to clarify • Appropriate use of figures of speech: right place, right time • > arbitrary, unnatural use of these figures causes bathos • Hyperbaton: inversion • Anaphora: repetition • Asyndeton: conjunctions left out • Apostrophe: addressing inanimate object • Periphrasis: paraphrasing
02 On the Sublime • 4. Nobility of diction • Choice of words • Includes metaphor, simile and hyperbole • No set rules, but must arise out of passion • 5. Dignified composition • Arrangement of phrases (to produce rhythm)
03 Legacy • In many ways, the first aesthetic critic • Unlike his predecessors, Longinus speaks of art as arising from imagination and passion; it is not something that can be mechanically crafted • Avoids speaking of the practical use of art, besides pure aesthetic pleasure