#pseudo-longinus

In the first century AD Pseudo-Longinus (for a while they thought the writer was this guy named Longinus but then it turned out not to be but they don't know the real writer's name so the best they can do now is call him not-Longinus) wrote On the Sublime to talk about how to express poetic inspiration.

*CHOICE QUOTES*

"...the influences of the sublime bring power and irresistible might to bear, and reign supreme over every hearer."

"...sublimity flashing forth at the right moment scatters everything before it like a thunderbolt"

"For, as if instinctively, our soul is uplifted by the true sublime; it takes a proud flight, and is filled with joy and vaunting, as though it had itself produced what it has heard."

"For just as all dim lights are extinguished in the blaze of the sun, so do the artifices of rhetoric fade from view when bathed in the pervading splendor of sublimity."

"...and in the sublime, as in great fortunes, there must be something which is overlooked."

"...in discourse we demand, as I said, that which transcends the human."

SO basically for not-Longinus, the thing is, in writing or artistic expression, go big or go home. Maybe your thing will have flaws--that's not as important as having a grand and glorious idea, high style.

I think of this in relation to MANY of the great canonical works of western literature. They all have flaws, but, you know, there's a reason they've persisted. A whale is not a fish, But Moby-Dick is still an astonishingly great book.

Pseudo-Longinus: Whenever I pass through this gallery, I find myself stopped and compelled to consider this particular piece of Martin's.

Burke: Why this, in particular? We are surrounded by works of great artistry and beauty both.

PL: Certainly, I can bear no disagreement there. But as a fellow scholar of the sublime, certainly you can see the fine example that “The Great Day of His Wrath” provides for study. The landscape, the subject matter, the composition of color and light; the painting inspires an elevation of spirit and thus quite accomplishes what I believe we can assume to be the author's intent in pursuing such a subject in such a manner. Yet, though it in nearly all conceivable ways fulfills any criteria one might set on works of the Sublime, I find it particularly interesting to consider differences between painting and poetry and their uses in conveying their great conceptions to the viewer or reader.

B: How would you say? Though my writings on the sublime pale in significance and influence to your own, sir, I do not believe I can find and particular point in which the painting could be improved.

PL: I don't presume to make the point that this painting is lacking in some regard; as I remarked a moment ago, I do believe that this painting well encapsulates the presumed goal of the author: to represent, with terrifying splendor, the consequence of the Jewish God on the nonbelievers.

B: And it of course is the combination of that holy terror and the aesthetic beauty that affords the painting its power?

PL: Precisely. What I find especially interesting is in the truth of the subject matter.

B: In that you would consider this a fictional representation?

PL: I hesitate to make that judgment-- for the Judeo-Christian viewer, they might view this as a necessary fixed future point in this mythology: in fact, it's that assured belief in that truth that creates the holy terror, the fear of Godly omnipotence that inspired the fear of hell in the believer. However, for the nonbeliever, the magnificence of that providential promise is lost, and there is a logical fear that some of the emotional connection disappears cross-culturally.

B: Would not the universality of taste account for those differences, however? If an art form is truly sublime, that sublimity should be a quality found by all men. Would you agree?

PL: Absolutely. In some essays of mine, I used the book of Genesis as a particular case study. One need not be a worshiper of the Yahweh of the Jews to appreciate the sublimity of the language. The conciseness of the language: a few simple words from the mouth of an omnipotent being and a physical and spiritual universe comes into being. Any longer and the words would be cumbersome, ugly, without glory. Shorter, and we'd have no creation at all. It is the perfect harmony between language, creation, and the elevation of spirit that creates the sublime.

B: How do those ideas translate, as a painting is by definition void of language?

PL: A painting that is Sublime does not simply lack words, it transcends them. By creating with figure and color an image, the artist is able to move beyond the powers of language and project an actual scene, as he has pictures and created it, to the viewer. It does not have the power of language, but neither is painting limited by the innate failings of language. If the purpose of Art -- of poesy, of painting, of representations of the Sublime in particular -- is to convey that sense of elevation, of truth, of the Grand at the heart of the Grandiose, it matters not in what form that art is presented. The achievment of purpose validates form.

B: I see. It certainly is something remarkable to consider.